The Minnesota Vikings currently have three major items of offseason business to ponder, with free agency about 3.5 weeks around the bend.
Folks Will Love ESPN’s Offseason Recommendation for Vikings
In no particular order, this is the initial to-do list:
- Decide Kirk Cousins’ free-agent fate.
- Extend Justin Jefferson.
- Decide Danielle Hunter’s free-agent fate.
“The rest,” the Vikings team building, will fall into place after those items are conquered. And left up to ESPN, No. 2 is the foremost priority.
ESPN titled a section of an offseason article this week What is one move you want to see this offseason? — and extending Jefferson made the cut. The 24-year-old is due for a mammoth extension that could arrive any day.
Jordan Reid explained the would-be Jefferson agreement, “The Vikings make WR Justin Jefferson the league’s highest-paid non-QB. There’s no question that Jefferson deserves the money. Even after returning from a hamstring injury last season, Jefferson showed his worth with 32 catches for 503 yards and two touchdowns in the final five games of the season.”
A hamstring injury marred Jefferson’s 2023 campaign, causing the 2022 Offensive Player of the Year to miss seven games. But the absence did little to dampen the Vikings’ or fans’ outlook on his long-term trajectory.
“Keeping Jefferson, Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson together would benefit the Vikings as they enter an offseason with uncertainty at quarterback,” Reid added.
Jefferson said last week at the Super Bowl’s radio row, “I’m definitely grateful for what Minnesota has done for me. I definitely wouldn’t be in this situation if they didn’t pick me, to be the fifth receiver taken. With everything that has happened and everything I have gave to the organization, of course, I would want to stay.”
So, the desire is there for Jefferson to remain a Viking; Minnesota’s front office just has to put a pen to paper. Jefferson’s contract is expected to become the NFL’s largest non-quarterback deal in history, somewhere at or above $30 million per season. A few days after the Vikings 2023 season ended, Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah explained that he has “a great relationship” with Jefferson’s agent and that their “shared history” alongside doing “a lot of the work last season” was advantageous. He also said he was “looking forward to those conversations.”
“I don’t want to be the Vikings’ GM without that guy on our team,’ Adofo-Mensah also declared at the 2023 NFL Combine, referring to Jefferson.
Several ESPN writers picked the Kansas City Chiefs to three-peat next year as Super Bowl champions in the offseason prediction article, a feat never accomplished in the NFL.
The NFL offseason really heats up on March 11th with free agency’s “legal tampering” phase.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. He hosts a podcast with Bryant McKinnie, which airs every Wednesday with Raun Sawh and Sal Spice. His Vikings obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band).
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.