6 Vikings Players Who Could Be Traded This Month
The Minnesota Vikings’ preseason is just four days away, as the franchise hosts the Las Vegas Raiders for exhibition football this Saturday.
The franchise doesn’t have many draft assets next year after trading a mini-version of the farm for the draft pick that landed Dallas Turner in April.
6 Vikings Players Who Could Be Traded This Month
So, if general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah trades any players this month, these are the six likeliest candidates ranked in ascending order (No. 1 = most likely to be traded).
6. Dalton Risner (OG)
The Vikings re-signed Risner in May, but he appears to be on track for a backup right guard job in 2024. Blake Brandel is atop the LG spot as a starter, and Ed Ingram has not relinquished his RG job this summer.
So, there are tweets like this:
A Risner trade is a longshot because he provides wonderful depth — especially for a team featuring a new quarterback in 2024 — but stranger things have happened.
5. Brian Asamoah (LB)
Minnesota signed inside linebackers Kamu Grugier-Hill and Jabril Cox as backups this offseason, casting Asamoah’s future into doubt. Because of his youth and upside, he will likely make the 53-man roster but cannot be ruled out via trade.
Heading into 2023, Asamoah was supposed to start, but then Ivan Pace Jr. came along with a UDFA story you’ll tell your grandkids. Asamoah hardly played on defense last season.
4. Jaren Hall (QB)
The Vikings won’t carry four quarterbacks on the gameday roster, and if Nick Mullens stays attached to the roster, Hall will hit the practice squad.
There’s always a chance that Adofo-Mensah will ship Hall elsewhere for a conditional 7th-Round pick, a trade arrangement that is suddenly really popular in the NFL. It’s how Minnesota found Joshua Dobbs last year.
3. Nick Mullens (QB)
This is Minnesota’s quarterback depth:
- Sam Darnold
- J.J. McCarthy
- Nick Mullens
- Jaren Hall
One man could be the odd man out, meaning Mullens might be sent to a new team for the aforementioned conditional 7th-Round pick trade. The coaching staff may still value Hall’s upside over Mullens’ turnover-happy recklessness.
2. Andrew Booth (CB)
Showing up in 2024 for his third season in 2024, Booth is either awaiting a breakout season or status as one of the most blah Vikings draft picks in recent memory. To be determined.
Booth logged a decent 68.6 Pro Football Focus grade in 2023, playing about 100 coverage snaps. The man actually looked good when on the field; he just didn’t see the field consistently as a starter. He has youth on his side, and the rest of the summer + fall will determine if Booth has staying power in Minnesota. It could go either way.
Meanwhile, when the Vikings released their first depth chart on Tuesday, Booth was buried at CB5. Newcomer veteran Fabian Moreau already passed him on the roster, evidently.
1. Lewis Cine (S)
Cine broke his leg 22 months ago, fully recovered last spring and summer, and then couldn’t win a starter’s job in 2023. In fact, Cine played eight defensive snaps in his second season — all meaningless snaps against the Green Bay Packers in Week 17. He was not a factor for the 2023 Vikings.
Of course, Minnesota has safeties galore between Harrison Smith, Josh Metellus, Camryn Bynum, Jay Ward, Theo Jackson, and Bobby McCain. In that vein, Cine isn’t really needed. But as a 1st-Rounder, the man should play some of the time.
Folks will figure out this month or early in the 2024 regular season if Cine is truly a bust or just a late bloomer who broke his leg. The endgame could be a trade, probably for a late-round draft pick like the other candidates on this list.
Moreover, Cine has experienced summer action with mostly third-teamers — when he hasn’t been sidelined by a leg injury.
If he’s not traded, Cine will likely be waived in three weeks.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. The show features guests, analysis, and opinion on all things related to the purple team, with 4-7 episodes per week. His Vikings obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band). He follows the NBA as closely as the NFL.
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.
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