When he took over the Minnesota Vikings front office prior to the 2022 season, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah inherited an aging roster with cap decisions looming. After deciding to largely run it back with the same roster in 2022, Kwesi has been aggressive in trimming the roster this off-season. Kwesi has also shown a surprising lack of desire to extend some of the younger talents on the roster in his first two off-seasons.
To date, he has not extended a single player currently under contract beyond a year outside of C.J. Ham.
Before getting into extension candidates, let’s look at a brief breakdown of players Adofo-Mensah decided weren’t definitively part of the future to date:
Examining Kwesi Adofo-Mansah’s Aversion to Commitment as Vikings GM
Easy Decisions
Adam Thielen
He will forever be loved by the Viking fanbase, but he was no longer worth his cap number. Thielen also wanted to prove he could still be a top option somewhere. Minnesota saved nearly $20M towards the cap and Thielen got a fresh start in Carolina.
Erik Kendricks
Kendricks is another guy who will always be appreciated by the Minnesota Faithful. He helped anchor some of the best Viking defenses in recent memory during Mike Zimmer’s golden years. After a disastrous year on defense, Minnesota had to make changes and this one had to be made.
Dalvin Cook
This might not seem like an obvious choice for fans who still consider Cook a top-5 back in the league. A closer look at the tape shows a player that clearly lost a step in 2022, and he was no longer an offensive focal point. Minnesota would have loved to keep him but not at his present cap number.
Head Scratchers
Kirk Cousins
While Cousins remains on the roster, he will enter 2023 as a lame-duck quarterback. Kwesi is essentially kicking this can down the road yet again by not making a decision on Cousins long-term. Quarterback is never a position a team wants to be directionless with.
Za’Darius Smith
Minnesota entered the offseason with no plans to part ways with Smith as he had been a force when healthy. Pass rushers of Smith’s caliber are hard to come by. When Smith requested a trade out of the blue, the Vikings barely put up a fight before shipping him to Cleveland for a bag of peanuts.
The Obvious Two Extension Choices
Justin Jefferson
Adofo-Mensah has waxed poetic about Justin Jefferson since taking over as General Manager. He has even gone as far as to say that he’d never want to be overseeing a team that didn’t have Jefferson on it. When the off-season started and the Vikings were clearing cap space, an extension felt like only a matter of time. Yet, now training camp has opened and there is still no word on a possible Jefferson extension. Sure, the deal could be getting done behind closed doors and Jefferson hasn’t publicly stated that he’s worried. That won’t ease the anxiety for Vikings fans, given the recent history of star receivers getting unhappy and leaving town. An extension for Jefferson would go a long way to showing that the Vikings are serious about contending going forward, regardless of who’s under center.
TJ Hockenson
Hockenson was the perfect mid-season addition to the Vikings when he came over from Detroit. That trade is actually the shining achievement of Adofo-Mensah’s early tenure. One would think that Kwesi would want to commemorate his success by locking up Hockenson as soon as possible. To date, there is even less buzz about his possible extension than Jefferson’s. Adofo-Mensah gave up a second-round pick for him, so he had to be considered a long-term addition. Maybe the thought process is that they’ll Franchise Tag him after the season; that would again just be kicking another can down the road.
The Danielle Hunter Situation
Although the situation with Danielle Hunter got settled for 2023 after the sides agreed to a one-year deal, this will again be a problem next off-season. Unlike the cap casualties listed above, Hunter is both productive and in the prime of his career. Entering his age-29 season Hunter has not had under double-digit sacks in his last 3 full seasons. He’s also a consistent player against the run, who’s always prided himself on setting the edge.
Hunter is the type of player who would likely see his salary soar past $25M annually on the open market. So why is Adofo-Mensah so reluctant to offer him a reasonable extension worthy of his talents? Aside from missing half the 2021 season with an injury, Hunter has played in every game since 2016. He’s been the model of health and consistency. With Za’Darius Smith shipped out of town, he’s also the only proven pass rusher on the roster. Adofo-Mensah also won’t be allowed to franchise tag him next year due to language in his new contract. It doesn’t feel like there is a plan in place for Hunter or the pass-rush situation, in general, moving forward. If this is Hunter’s last season in purple and gold, Adofo-Mensah will likely regret his current apprehension.
Minnesota has some cap space moving forward and a lot of young talent on the roster. Kwesi has shown that he can be shrewd when moving on from aging players. However, the longer Adofo-Mensah drags his feet on guys like Jefferson and Hockenson, the more likely it is that the new front office will get a bad reputation for not taking care of their own. That’s not a reputation a team ever wants to have within its own locker room. Hopefully, that narrative will end with at least one long-term extension for a Viking being announced before the end of training camp.
Main Photo: Matt Krohn-USA TODAY Sports
