The Big Vikings Trade Already Looks Shaky
Right before the Minnesota Vikings kicked off the 2025 regular season, general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah pulled off a splashy trade for Adam Thielen, a swap involving a 4th-Round pick to the Carolina Panthers. For now, the deal looks suspect.
The Minnesota Vikings fired off a trade before the regular season began, and so far, it has not been worth the squeeze, not one bit.
Thielen has not contributed much to the Vikings’ offense, leaving onlookers to wonder when Thielen might press the button on go-time.
Vikings’ Trade for Adam Thielen Not Off to Hot Return on Investment
Thielen, sadly, has not accomplished much.
Vikings’ Trade for Adam Thielen Not Netting Dividends
Thielen, the Vikings’ WR2 on paper, has 2 receptions for 26 yards. And then that’s it. He’s on pace for a 147-yard season after two semi-productive years with the Panthers in 2023 and 2024.
Of course, Minnesota’s quarterbacking situation has suffered bumps and bruises with J.J. McCarthy’s development, but Thielen has not morphed into a viable target for McCarthy or his Week 3 substitute, Carson Wentz.
Through three games, all of which Thielen has been healthy, the beloved Viking has performed like a WR5 — not a WR2.
Perhaps Patience on the Return?
Just because Thielen has performed like Bisi Johnson or Trishton Jackson through a few games doesn’t mean the experiment is doomed. He could rebound in Dublin or London this week or next and bank a game for the ages. That’s possible.
It’s just that Thielen doesn’t usually encounter totally quiet patches, suggesting the age-35 barrier might’ve caught up with the storied playmaker.
There’s also the element of building rapport with two new quarterbacks: J.J. McCarthy and Carson Wentz. That’s a real thing in sports; it’s just that most didn’t think that mindset would apply to a savvy veteran like Thielen.
Jordan Addison Is Back
Most fans thought the Vikings traded for Thielen to help the club get over the hump of Jordan Addison’s three-game suspension.
Now, that strategy is meaningless. Thielen did essentially nothing — outside of a nifty two-point conversion reception in a Week 1 win over the Chicago Bears — with Addison on the shelf. Minnesota needed a WR2 for a few weeks, and Thielen did not deliver.
Instead, Justin Jefferson predictably took care of the lion’s share of McCarthy and Wentz’s targets, with others like Jalen Nailor, T.J. Hockenson, and Josh Oliver performing non-Jefferson tasks. With Addison back this Sunday, Minnesota can return to its normative Jefferson-Addison-Nailor setup.
Maybe that will free up Thielen in the gameplan. Stay tuned.
Lamenting a Lost 4th Rounder
Along with Thielen, Minnesota received a conditional 2026 7th-Round pick and a 2027 5th-Round pick in exchange for a 2026 5th-Round pick and a 2027 4th-Round pick. Carolina will own Minnesota’s 2027 4th-Rounder no matter what, so when that day comes — Thielen will likely be retired — onlookers will realize that Thielen was the culprit for no 4th-Rounder.
Thankfully, Adofo-Mensah hedged the bet with the 5th- and 7th-Rounder, so the draft capital piggybank didn’t completely shrink.
Still, if Vikings loyalists knew that Thielen would provide nothing in the way of a WR2 with Addison out, well, a deal centered around a 4th-Round pick emphatically wouldn’t be worth it.
Thielen can put the trade anxiety to rest with a prolonged bounceback performance over several weeks or come up clutch in the postseason with a sweet catch and/or touchdown. Those are the potential saving graces for the trade as September winds down.
Thielen on His Performance
Thielen spoke to KFAN this week and mentioned the first few weeks back in Minnesota: “I think at the end of the day, regardless of who was at quarterback, we’re learning as an offense, as a team, as the play-callers — I think everyone’s learning what we’re going to be. Even though you have your scheme, the first three, four, five weeks of the season you’re really just trying to figure out what you do well, what we can lean on, what we’re going to do when it’s those really ‘weighty’ downs.”
“Once you get four, five, six weeks into the season, I think that’s really when you really start to settle in as an offense and figure, ‘OK, this is our identity. You have an idea of what you want that identity to look like, but it kind of shows itself over those five, six weeks.”
Head coach Kevin O’Connell, meanwhile, said about Addison’s impending return: “He’s been able to be in the building and be in meetings and things to stay sharp mentally. And so now, it’ll just be getting him a full week of work.”
“And you look at the way Jalen Nailor has been consistently on tape, one of the guys that pops off the tape. I think Adam Thielen, although the targets and the reception numbers might not be there, has been wildly impactful in my mind, with some of the jobs we’ve asked him to do, run game, helping a little bit out on the edges here and there, and then, his opportunities will come.”
The Vikings’ next opponent, the Pittsburgh Steelers in Ireland, owns the NFL’s sixth-worst passing defense per DVOA entering Week 4. Thielen could get off the schneid.
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