{"id":143143,"date":"2023-07-31T07:00:18","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=143143"},"modified":"2023-07-30T17:12:05","modified_gmt":"2023-07-30T21:12:05","slug":"examining-minnesota-vikings-gms-aversion-to-commitment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2023\/07\/31\/examining-minnesota-vikings-gms-aversion-to-commitment\/","title":{"rendered":"Examining the Minnesota Vikings GM’s Aversion to Commitment"},"content":{"rendered":"

When he\u00a0took over the Minnesota Vikings front office prior to the 2022 season, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

To date, he has not extended a single player currently under contract beyond a year outside of C.J. Ham.<\/p>\n

Before getting into extension candidates, let\u2019s look at a brief breakdown of players Adofo-Mensah decided weren\u2019t definitively part of the future to date:<\/p>\n

Examining Kwesi Adofo-Mansah’s Aversion to Commitment as Vikings GM<\/h2>\n

Easy Decisions<\/h3>\n

Adam Thielen<\/h4>\n

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<\/a> in Carolina.<\/p>\n

Erik Kendricks<\/h4>\n

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\u2019s golden years. After a disastrous year on defense, Minnesota had to make changes and this one had to be made.<\/p>\n

Dalvin Cook<\/h4>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Head Scratchers<\/h3>\n

Kirk Cousins<\/h4>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Za\u2019Darius Smith<\/h4>\n

Minnesota entered the offseason with no plans to part ways with Smith as he had been a force when healthy. Pass rushers of Smith\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The Obvious Two Extension Choices<\/h3>\n

Justin Jefferson<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Adofo-Mensah has waxed poetic<\/a> about Justin Jefferson since taking over as General Manager. He has even gone as far as to say that he\u2019d never want to be overseeing a team that didn\u2019t 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\u2019t publicly stated that he\u2019s worried. That won\u2019t 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\u2019s under center.<\/p>\n

TJ Hockenson<\/strong><\/h4>\n

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\u2019s 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<\/a> about his possible extension than Jefferson\u2019s. 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\u2019ll Franchise Tag him after the season; that would again just be kicking another can down the road.<\/p>\n

The Danielle Hunter Situation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Although the situation with Danielle Hunter<\/a>\u00a0got 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\u2019s also a consistent player against the run, who\u2019s always prided himself on setting the edge.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s been the model of health and consistency. With Za\u2019Darius Smith shipped out of town, he\u2019s also the only proven pass rusher on the roster. Adofo-Mensah also won\u2019t be allowed to franchise tag him next year due to language in his new contract. It doesn\u2019t feel like there is a plan in place for Hunter or the pass-rush situation, in general, moving forward. If this is Hunter\u2019s last season in purple and gold, Adofo-Mensah will likely regret his current apprehension.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Main Photo: Matt Krohn-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Minnesota Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s aversion to commitment to his younger studs has become a growing theme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4671,"featured_media":143161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1304,6181,8856,45,9489],"class_list":["post-143143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vikings","tag-danielle-hunter","tag-justin-jefferson","tag-kwesi-adofo-mensah","tag-minnesota-vikings","tag-tj-hockenson"],"modified_by":"Josh Buckhalter","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4671"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}