The Vikings GM offered some insight that’s helpful for understanding Minnesota’s upcoming decision when it gets on the clock.
Quite possibly, the best move is to stick-and-pick, snagging a stud at No. 24 and moving ahead to Day 2 of the 2025 NFL Draft. There’s a small — small — chance the team moves up. The most common theory, however, is that Minnesota moves downward, picking up another pick or two in the process. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah clarified how that could occur, noting that it’s all about chasing “impact.”
The Vikings GM on Trading and Draft “Impact”
In his close to twenty-minute press conference, Adofo-Mensah dug into various details about the draft. One of the most fascinating was his rationale for when it made sense to trade back.
“A lot of times, it’s impact,” Adofo-Mensah begins. “And that impact can be one great player or multiple good players. Also realizing that it’s uncertain, and you don’t know necessarily for sure that the one player is going to be good, and all those different dynamics. So that’s really the conversation you have.”
He goes on: “You’re picking 24th, you better […] have 24 names that you’re willing to stand up and clap and feel great about. So that’s the first and foremost and the foundation of how we build this thing. The trades and all those things, the scenarios, they come.”
Dig into his words a bit to try to extract a bit of significance.
Vikings fans, at this stage, should be well-versed about the importance of snagging impact as the preeminent factor in whether trading or not trading is worth it. Go ahead and re-live the 2022 NFL Draft just one more time (why not, eh?). Would you rather have the single great player — say, Kyle Hamilton — or the three who ended up joining the team with it’s accumulated picks in the opening two rounds: Lewis Cine, Andrew Booth, and Ed Ingram? Pretty easy answer.
Consider, as well, the point about needing to have 24 names. The point is a simple one and yet worth remembering. The Vikings are guaranteed to see 23 guys fly off the board on Thursday, April 24th before being able to select a player (unless there’s a trade up). Maybe they can predict those 23 players, maybe they can’t.
Guarding against the uncertainty means having a bare minimum of 24 players that Minnesota feels strongly about. At the very least, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and the Vikings will have a single name to choose at No. 24 if the other 23 guys with whom they’ve fallen in love with get scooped up.
There’s another idea in there worth exploring: the quick comment about the trades coming.
At this stage, the Vikings GM is working with a key certainty: he needs to feel strongly about at least 24 players going into Round 1 (as discussed). The uncertainty enters the equation when several of the players he loves are sitting there are No. 24 and a team calls about moving up (read Jeff Diamond’s piece on VT about when/why to trade down). No, Adofo-Mensah can’t perfectly predict who gets chosen and whether there will be trade offers, but he can understand them as plausible paths and therefore get ready for the possibility.
A bit later on in his answer, Adofo-Mensah discusses trade charts, even explaining that he built one himself (maybe fittingly, the GM who is a numbers nerd was wearing a baseball cap with a character wearing a Vikings helmet while working on a laptop; presumably, there’s a spreadsheet open with some numbers flying around, but that’s mere speculation).
The most fascinating part of his answer is that he gets into position “scarcity.” The key point is that certain positions generally don’t become available in free agency. Not often does a true franchise quarterback, a lockdown corner, and/or a first-rate edge rusher get to the open market. Picking those players in the draft — usually high — is the avenue to get that kind of talent since there’s a scarcity on the free-agent market and within the NFL’s trades.
So, bump up the NFL’s premium positions when it comes to making educated guesses about who the Vikings GM could target early. Not the only factor, but one that’s in his mind.
Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah will lead his team into the 2025 NFL Draft with four draft picks. The safest assumption likely is that he’ll move down at some point, acquiring more picks in the process. Alas, we’ll need to wait and see.
Adofo-Mensah has orchestrated twelve draft trades in his time as the team’s top executive. Read about each one on PurplePTSD.
