The Beauty of This Free Agency Class for Vikings
General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah catches a lot of heat because of his drafting woes.
The Beauty of This Free Agency Class for Vikings
To be fair to him, most of it comes from his first Draft, with the only players remaining from 2022 being Brian Asamoah, Ty Chandler, and Jalen Nailor — and Nailor is the only player with a contribution on offense/defense. The 2024 class will ultimately decide if he’s a good drafter — if QB J.J. McCarthy and OLB Dallas Turner turn into what the staff believes they can, KAM is a good drafter. If not, well …
But the Draft isn’t the only way to increase your team’s talent, and Adofo-Mensah has proved in the last two years how good he is in free agency. He already brought in arguably the best free agency class in Vikings history last season, with Sam Darnold, Aaron Jones, Blake Cashman, Jonathan Greenard, and Andrew Van Ginkel being a huge reason the team went 14-3 last season. And he did that with $70M in dead money.
Because of the 2024 free agency, the fanbase and experts were intrigued about what the Vikings would do this time around with over $60M in cap space (and they still have a lot of money). And the front office did not disappoint. They started slow, missing on a couple of big-time names like DT Milton Williams and CB D.J. Reed. However, Adofo-Mensah again showed the importance of being patient during free agency.
The Vikings ended the first day of legal tampering by agreeing to terms with C Ryan Kelly, and early on Tuesday, they announced the signing of RG Will Fries, both former Colts. They brought in CB Isaiah Rodgers for the defense, re-signed CB Byron Murphy, and solidified the interior with DTs Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave. Later in the week, they announced a trade with the 49ers for RB Jordan Mason.
Judging only by the players, it is already a good free agency. But the impact of the last week goes beyond bringing in good football players. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and the coaching staff managed to plug every hole this team had going into the offseason. This doesn’t mean this is a perfect roster — no team has one — but rather that they don’t need a specific position. And, at least to me, this is what free agency is all about.
If you can go to the Draft without an obvious need, you have a wide range of possibilities for what you can do in late April. For example, a guard would obviously be needed if the Vikings had not signed Will Fries. So what would you do if Tyler Booker and Grey Zabel, arguably the top guard prospects in this class, were already off the board? Or if Byron Murphy walked after the Vikings missed on the other good CBs in the open market? They would have to select one high in the Draft, even if they had better players on the board available.
But now, with a well-rounded roster at every position, the Vikings have opened themselves to any strategy they want. If a player they have very high on their board falls to 24, they can pick him, regardless of the position. If there are a handful of players they value almost the same, they can trade down and accumulate picks, something they may not have been able to do with a big need on the roster.
You can try as hard as you want, but you can’t control the Draft. Unless you’re picking first or second, you won’t ever know who will be available at your pick. This is why this free agency was so good. Now, they can just pick the best player — whenever they’re selecting.
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