Competitive rebuild???

The only reason to launch a full roster rebuild, Minnesota Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was saying last week, is if you don't think you're close to competing for a Super Bowl title.

His comment sparked an important follow-up: Do you think the Vikings are close?

"At different times this year, you would say that 'Yeah, we've shown it,'" Adofo-Mensah said. "And, last year in fact. But I think you want to get to that place in your program that it is consistent year in and year out and you can overcome adversity. We are not there to that standard yet, no. But we have made the playoffs. We have been in playoff contention for a lot of this year through a lot of things, so I think we're pointed in the right direction. It is going to take a big offseason for me to answer that question a little bit more and shorter next time."

And with that, Adofo-Mensah set up the most important leverage point of his tenure with the team, one for which he'll weigh how many resources to apply to the short term amid a list of long-term needs that have gone largely unfulfilled since he was hired in January 2022.

He and coach Kevin O'Connell have compiled a 20-14 record over the ensuing two seasons, with one playoff appearance. But two of their three best players, quarterback Kirk Cousins and pass-rusher Danielle Hunter, are pending free agents with a clear path to market after the Vikings negotiated away their right to use the franchise tag on either. The third, receiver Justin Jefferson, did not accept an offer to extend his contract last summer and would play in 2024 under his fifth-year option if no agreement can be reached.

Adofo-Mensah has drafted one impact player -- receiver Jordan Addison -- among 16 picks over two years, and his 2024 position at No. 11 probably isn't high enough to select a top-tier successor to Cousins.

When you layer those circumstances on a unique set of expectations from the Wilf family ownership group, which in the words of president/owner Mark Wilf means the Vikings must "consistently contend" rather than go into a "full rebuild," you start to get a sense for why Adofo-Mensah knows he needs a "big offseason." And nowhere is his difficult path forward manifested more intensely than at quarterback.

Cousins will turn 36 this summer and is coming off the first major injury of his pro career, a torn right Achilles that ended his season after eight games. He has said repeatedly that he wants to finish his career in Minnesota, and both Adofo-Mensah and O'Connell have said they hope to reach an agreement with him as well. But the breadcrumbs Cousins has left about the terms of that presumed return suggest he will seek multiple guaranteed years in order to re-sign before his deal voids on March 13.

Last week, in fact, Cousins relayed advice he received long ago about evaluating contract offers: "It's not about the dollars, but it is about what the dollars represent." Cousins declined to further explain but left the clear impression that he wants the Vikings' offer to represent a similar desire for him to finish his career in Minnesota.

Adofo-Mensah said last week one of his primary goals after taking the Vikings job was to regain "financial flexibility," and that approach led him to allow Cousins to enter 2023 in the final non-voidable year of his contract. If he wasn't willing to guarantee Cousins multiple seasons in 2023, is there any reason to believe he has changed his mind about flexibility one year -- and a significant injury -- later?

So goes the argument for believing the Vikings will ultimately allow Cousins to enter the market, where he would be the top quarterback available. But if that happens, would the Vikings be able to "consistently contend" in 2024 with either a rookie starter or a replacement-level veteran?

Adofo-Mensah said last week the Wilfs have never explicitly told him they would veto a plan to open a season with a rookie starter. "We just talk about, 'What are the time horizons, what are the goals and where [do] we think best to do that,'" he said.

Those "time horizons" are in essence a projection of when decisions will make their impact. Common sense suggests the third year of a general manager/coach tenure is not the time to sacrifice the short term for a long-term result. That's the primary argument for giving Cousins what he wants to return. While there are always examples of rookie quarterbacks taking their teams to the playoffs -- C.J. Stroud did it for the Houston Texans this season -- they are generally more the exception than the rule.

That leads to a third option: re-signing Cousins and drafting a high-end quarterback, a scenario that former NFL general manager Mike Tannenbaum, now an ESPN analyst, endorsed this fall. While few would argue the wisdom of pushing so many resources to the quarterback position, that decision would not only minimize the salary-cap benefit of having a starting quarterback on a rookie contract, but it would further limit the Vikings' opportunities to make up for the apparent draft misses they produced in 2022 and 2023, especially on defense.

The Vikings drafted five defensive players among the top 165 picks in 2022, and one, fourth-round cornerback Akayleb Evans, has seen notable playing time outside of special teams. First-round safety Lewis Cine was inactive for 11 games, and second-round cornerback Andrew Booth Jr. spent the season buried on the depth chart.

Adofo-Mensah said the "path is not always linear" for player development and added that both players "have shown us nothing but reason to believe they are going to keep on their upward path." No matter how you look at it, however, the Vikings have added only two defensive rookies in the past two seasons -- cornerback Mekhi Blackmon and linebacker Ivan Pace Jr. -- whom they trusted enough to use with any frequency. With the potential of losing Hunter and with fellow outside linebacker D.J. Wonnum also a pending free agent, the Vikings' "big offseason" will be as much about finding defensive reinforcements as deciding the path at quarterback.

"It's an important offseason," Adofo-Mensah said, changing the adjective but reiterating the message. "I can't really run from that in any kind of way."

Chris S… How much turnover was there in the scouting department for the 2022 draft vs 2023 draft with Kwesi and Co.? 2022 draft wasn't ideal but like the 2023 draft results thus far. If 2022 scouting dept. was all holdovers from Spielman regime I can give Kwesi somewhat of a pass and more optimistic with drafting the right players knowing he has his own handpicked scouting department moving forward.

There was some turnover yes but it’s really hard to wrap our heads around the fact that bad drafts just happen. Spielman picked Eric Kendricks, Danielle Hunter and Stefon Diggs in 2015 and then turned around and picked Laquon Treadwell, Mackensie Alexander and Willie Beavers the next year. Same scouts. Same GM.

This regime has had two drafts. They have come away with a star receiver, TJ Hockenson via trade, a starting-caliber linebacker (Pace Jr.), starting caliber corner (Blackmon), below average starting guard (Ingram), possible starting RB (Chandler) and some secondary depth (Evans, Ward). That’s not terrible.

They don’t deserve any excuses for the trade down decision or the picks that went bust in ‘22. Those decisions did not work out and it really hurts the overall strength of the roster that Cine and Booth Jr. aren’t foundational pieces. That’s how it goes sometimes, even for the best teams. Nobody has all the answers. The 49ers picked Nick Bosa and Deebo Samuel in one draft and turned around and took Javon Kinlaw and Trey Lance the next two years.

The only thing they can do is follow the proven statistical marks from the past and try to pick guys that fit what their coaches want and then pray.

Tim… Is it possible to build a team to compete for a Super Bowl utilizing a veteran quarterback?

Sure. The following veteran QBs (non rookie contract) have reached the Super Bowl in the last 10 years: Matthew Stafford, Tom Brady, Tom Brady, Matt Ryan, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady.

There were others in the running, certainly. Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, Carson Palmer.

I don’t need to explain the key takeaway here, right?

Scott… It seems like the "competitive rebuild" is working exactly as planned. The team has gotten a bunch of wins, learned some valuable lessons about their players and how they can fit into the future, salary cap getting healthy-ish and are in striking distance of getting a top QB. All that said, when historians look back at this approach vs tank-and-rebuild, what do you think they'll say? Crystal balls are OK to use on this answer.

Well, if they tanked and picked No. 2 overall and took CJ Stroud then history would have been pretty kind to them. Or No. 2 and took Will Anderson or Anthony Richardson. Or if they were the ones trading with the Panthers and had the No. 1 pick this year. Maybe they were never going to be *that* bad if it was torn down totally after KAM and KOC were hired but the point of a complete rebuild isn’t just to draft one guy at the top. It’s to have the money and draft capital to trade for Tyreek Hill and Bradley Chubb or AJ Brown or Montez Sweat or to get four picks in the first 50 like the Lions did this year. How all that would have played out, we’ll never know.

That said, the competitive rebuild has worked as well as they could have hoped. They won right away and built trust with the owners and players and them put themselves in position to draft a franchise QB. This looks like the plot that was hatched from Day 1. I don’t think they anticipated Cousins winning people over as much as he has.

The NFC North will be competitive next year, and Minnesota has a lot of roster uncertainty. Will they bring Cousins back? Can they extend Justin Jefferson and re-sign Danielle Hunter? How do they add enough talent to maximize Brian Flores’ defense? The Vikings are in Year 3 of their competitive rebuild. “You want to get to a point…where you can overcome the adversity we have,” Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said at his year-end press conference. “We want to get to a place where there’s no rebuild, right? It’s just competitive in a window, and I think we’re close to that.”

“Competitive rebuild” will stick with Adofo-Mensah until the Vikings win regularly. But few general managers would have torn Minnesota’s 2022 roster down. The Vikings had to go 11-0 in one-score games to finish 13-4 two years ago. But Vegas had them as favorites in every game they won, except the one in Buffalo. The Vikings won the games they were supposed to win until they lost to the New York Giants in the playoffs. Their regular-season record justified running it back with Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman’s old core. The playoff loss called everything they did into question.

“I’ll be frank,” Adofo-Mensah told USA TODAY before the 2022 season. “The one asset where you get nervous about not burning it down is quarterback.” Adofo-Mensah has been reticent since that interview because of the backlash he got for it. Many media outlets presented Adofo-Mensah’s comments as critical of Cousins. But Adofo-Mensah was just being honest. “We don’t have Tom Brady,” he said. “We don’t have [Patrick] Mahomes.”

The Vikings don’t have a quarterback of Mahomes’ caliber, but few teams do. The San Francisco 49ers rose to the top of the NFC because of Kyle Shanahan’s running schemes. The Baltimore Ravens are the AFC’s top seed because John Harbaugh built an offense around Lamar Jackson. Both teams have stout defenses. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had an affordable quarterback and good defense. Dan Campbell’s Lions are a cult of personality.

The rest of the teams who played this weekend have quarterbacks who drive winning: Mahomes, Josh Allen, C.J. Stroud, and Love. Unless you’re confident the Vikings would get a quarterback of that caliber, it’s hard to justify intentionally losing with a roster capable of 13 wins. It’s even more so when trying to extend Justin Jefferson long-term. Adofo-Mensah feels it’s unconscionable. He wants to rebuild while making the playoffs and maintaining cap flexibility.

“It’s a little riskier than tearing everything down and being bad for a while and coming back up,” Adofo-Mensah said in September. “I know that. I can tell you the mathematical probability of doing it that way. And that’s the way other teams may have chosen, but that’s not the way we’re trying to do it.”

The Vikings will probably re-sign Cousins and try to draft his replacement. They have to re-sign Jefferson and Hunter, and they can’t have a repeat of the 2022 draft where they didn’t give themselves enough talent to work with on defense. “It’s going to take a big offseason,” Adofo-Mensah acknowledged in his season-end press conference. One with little margin for error.

Until Cousins injured his Achilles in Week 8, it looked like they could hang around long enough to make the two late-season games against Detroit interesting. The Packers looked like they might need to reassess their quarterback situation after dropping to 2-5. Chicago was 2-6. However, the competitive balance in the division changed drastically in the second half of the season. Instead of completing their competitive rebuild in what looked like a two-team division, the Vikings must create a competitive team in the offseason or consider a full-scale rebuild in Year 4.