Purple Rumor Mill: Asante Samuel Jr., Isaiah Rodgers, Trading Down
The Minnesota Vikings’ rumor mill never truly dies down. There are no dead periods.
Vikings Rumors: Asante Samuel Jr., Isaiah Rodgers, Trading Down
The NFL draft is around the bend, and free agency will remain ongoing until the start of the 2025 regular season. Both events keep the rumor mill quite active.
So, these are three of the most recent Vikings rumors from the last week. The batch from last Sunday can be read here.
Rumor: Minnesota is waiting until after the draft to sign Asante Samuel Jr., and he’s in on the plan.
SKOR North revealed this rumor about a week ago, claiming that Asante Samuel Jr. told somebody’s neighbor at a Miami nightclub that he’d join the Vikings after the draft.
“I was always a bit hesitant to wade too far into the waters of reckless speculation. However, earlier this morning – it’s a couple days ago – I received quite an interesting call from my neighbor. He had just received a text message from his daughter, who is currently in Fort Lauderdale on spring break. She was with friends at the SWAY Nightclub,” Phil Mackey said on the Purple Daily show.
“She noticed a young man in a Vikings cap with an entourage around him. She’s a big football fan and made her way toward him and asked if he played for the Vikings. He kinda smiled and said, ‘It won’t be official for about five weeks, but yes.'”
Mackey then delivered the cliffhanger. “So, she then asked for his name and he introduced himself as ‘Asante.'”
We asked around about this rumor, and our usual sources — that have a sweet track record — didn’t think the Samuel Jr. rumor was too outlandish. They actually seemed to agree with it.
Rumor: New cornerback Isaiah Rodgers will have a larger role than most fans believe.
Minnesota signed Isaiah Rodgers during free agency’s first week, and most fans thought, “Okay. That can maybe work.”
The team did not strike gold on D.J. Reed or Charvarius Ward, the two top corners on the open market.
But Rodgers might be on tap as a starter. ESPN’s Kevin Seifert tweeted this week, “Also interesting: O’Connell said Brian Flores identified CB Isaiah Rodgers’ pretty early’ as a UFA target. O’Connell: ‘When Flo has that kind of tone in his voice about guys … he’s been pretty darn accurate.’ O’Connell sees him as ‘an every down impact guy.'”
The draft will provide more clues, or Minnesota could sign Asante Samuel Jr. in a few weeks, but if not, the team evidently really likes Rodgers as a possible starter.
Rumor: Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is open to trading down from his 24th draft spot on April 24th.
Most already know that Adofo-Mensah loves to wheel and deal with other general managers. The upcoming draft may be no different.
Adofo-Mensah recently told Vikings.com about his trade philosophy: “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.”
In fact, it might be surprising if Minnesota did not trade back on draft night.
Adofo-Mensah continued, “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.”
Start warming up to the idea of a trade down for the purple team.
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