Vikings’ GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was recently interviewed at the NFL’s annual league meetings in Palm Beach, FL, by Vikings Entertainment […]
Vikings’ GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was recently interviewed at the NFL’s annual league meetings in Palm Beach, FL, by Vikings Entertainment Network’s Tatum Everett. It was a conversation revolving around the upcoming 2025 NFL Draft and the Vikings’ lack of selections in the event.
Minnesota possesses only four selections as it stands, which is the least of any team in the NFL currently. As we all know, Kwesi loves making trades, whether it be up or down the board, and he displayed that willingness to Everett:
Obviously, the capital is something people talk about, but every draft pick has a commensurate value that you can kind of break up into lots of picks…if we wanted to pick 15 times, we could. There’s a way to do that.
Minnesota reached into the 2025 bag of draft picks for two trades focusing on the 2024 NFL Draft. Firstly, the deal that landed them the 23rd overall pick from the Houston Texans saw them shipping out a 2025 second-round pick. They then traded up from the 23rd overall pick to the 17th to select Dallas Turner, a deal that involved their 2025 third and fourth-round picks.
We’re just going to be smart, selective, try and find the best players that impact our team, But also knowing, how do you best move around the board to get the best total collection of players? That’s how we’ll approach it. I think we’ll be a ‘best available’ kind of approach and mindset. I’m excited about that. I challenged our group, we have grand ambition, and maybe it’ll be the coolest story ever that you went into the draft with four picks and you did something great with it.
Depending on how the board falls, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah calling for a Minnesotan trade down from 24 makes all the sense in the world.
This draft doesn’t jump off the page in the range the Vikings own their first-round pick, and it may be worth turning that 24th selection into three or four early-mid-round selections. There isn’t much variance in this prospect fool from pick 20 to pick 60, so loading up on picks in the 50s to 110s isn’t an awful strategy.
A Kwesi Adofo-Mensah trade-down is still enough to concern some Vikings fans as the Lewis Cine disaster of 2022 still looms in the back of the minds of the purple faithful, but this trade-down would be different.
If the Vikings sell pick 24, they likely aren’t punting on a Kyle Hamilton caliber of player like they did in 2022. If Derrick Harmon or Jahdae Barron are on the board, it’s likely that the Vikings would call one of their names, but the sting isn’t quite as bad when you punt on a late first-rounder as opposed to a 12th-overall selection.
It’s really difficult for the Vikings to go wrong in this draft. That’s the beauty of how they’ve built this roster; they can go with the best player available at any position, and it would make sense. They could also trade down and load up on later picks (or even picks next year), and it would make just as much sense as sticking and picking.
