EAGAN, Minn. — Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell prepare for these news conferences. They sit with the public relations staff beforehand and consider the questions likely to be lobbed their way. They have been here long enough to know most of the queries Thursday would revolve around the quarterback position and the Minnesota Vikings’ plan for 2025.
Unsurprisingly, neither man offered a clear answer. Both, though, said the part that needed to be said.
This is not just whether the franchise’s decision-makers still believe in Sam Darnold after his abysmal final two games. Nor is it simply a question of whether J.J. McCarthy will be ready. No, this conversation — the one that’s going to dominate the next couple of months in Minnesota — comes down to a truth about team-building in the NFL: What you spend on the most important position in the sport affects the moves you can make everywhere else.
“I think everybody looks at these things as binary — yes or no, left or right,” Adofo-Mensah said Thursday. “I don’t think it is that. It’s making sure you have a certain level of play at the quarterback position.”
His point was that re-signing Darnold, who is set to become a free agent, might make sense if the cost allows the Vikings sufficient wiggle room to reconfigure the rest of their roster. Whether that’s possible is likely to be a subject of passionate debate in the ensuing weeks inside the third-floor offices of the TCO Performance Center.
Coach O’Connell expresses his gratitude from this season pic.twitter.com/pBXqDyyNdh
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) January 16, 2025
Had Minnesota nailed its previous three drafts, adding depth to the roster with budding cornerbacks, an interior offensive lineman or a starting running back, the list of needs might not be as long. But it didn’t. And it is.
In three years as general manager, only one of Adofo-Mensah’s 23 selections has become an impact player: Jordan Addison. Three others — Mekhi Blackmon, Jalen Nailor and Will Reichard — have played smaller but still meaningful roles. Eight of his picks are no longer on the roster. Undrafted linebacker Ivan Pace Jr. helps the cause, but he is not an every-down player.
There is still hope for youngsters such as Dallas Turner, Dwight McGlothern, Walter Rouse, Levi Drake Rodriguez and Michael Jurgens. Still, the Vikings could be in the market this spring for three cornerbacks, two safeties, three interior offensive linemen, two interior defensive linemen and a running back.
Filling those holes requires draft picks and salary-cap space. The Vikings have few of the former (one first-rounder, two fifth-rounders and a likely third-round compensatory pick) and a lot of the latter ($70 million currently, according to Over the Cap).
This is where the Vikings’ plan at quarterback re-enters the picture. Paying Darnold a premium would limit Minnesota’s chances of adding sturdiness in the trenches and youth and speed defensively.
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Is there a middle ground in the type of contract Darnold would agree to, some amount of money that would satisfy Darnold and the team’s roster-building priorities? Faced with a similar question last year, the answer proved to be no.
The Vikings rehearsed their plan for weeks and offered quarterback Kirk Cousins a short-term deal with flexibility. Cousins sought long-term security. The Vikings did not budge even though they knew moving on to a veteran bridge option like Darnold and a youngster like McCarthy was risky.
The brass was OK with that, trusting the optimal route to a Super Bowl-caliber team lay in either drafting a superhero (Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen, for example) or having a quarterback on a rookie contract (like Brock Purdy in 2023 or Jalen Hurts the previous year). The Detroit Lions present an interesting argument against going that route (Jared Goff is paid handsomely), but they have selected more than 10 starters through the draft in the last four years, including seven Pro Bowlers.
Not even the rosiest projections for the Vikings’ young players would come close to that level of production. Acquiring talent via free agency can fill some of the void, but for as successful as the Vikings were in that vein this year, Adofo-Mensah knows how hard that is to sustain.
“We’re excited that it worked out the way it did (in 2024),” Adofo-Mensah said. “I do challenge my group and say that we’re going to make a lot of bets here, and they’re not always going to go all well.”
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The less money Minnesota has to make “bets,” the more pressure there will be on each signing. This is but another offshoot of the plan at QB. Place the franchise tag on Darnold and the Vikings will have nearly $40 million less to spend on players. On the other hand, if the Vikings move forward with McCarthy and another bridge option such as Daniel Jones (who Adofo-Mensah said Thursday remains a possibility), it’ll then be incumbent upon O’Connell to build him up from scratch the way he did with Darnold.
That would require a certain malleability and self-confidence, potentially aided by a hefty contract extension for the coach. O’Connell has not been shy about the positive impression Darnold has made or his inclination that quarterbacks benefit immensely from continuity. Thursday, though, he too discussed the looming question in a way that indicated he understood the constraints of a hefty quarterback deal.
“How we build forward and put things together as we move into the future will be based upon what gives us the best chance to win,” O’Connell said, “and what gives us the chance to put the best version of the Vikings team on the field.”
The key word there is team. If Thursday revealed anything, it’s that this is the prism through which Minnesota will approach any forthcoming negotiation. Plugging one leak doesn’t do much good if it leaves the water gushing in other spots.
(Photo: Abbie Parr / Associated Press)
