“Competitive Rebuild” is the phrase that’s followed Kwesi Adofo-Mensah ever since he took the GM’s chair. There was to be no tearing it down, and it’d be difficult to do, anyway, with stars like Justin Jefferson and Christian Darrisaw in the fold. Still, the Minnesota Vikings would try to win while keeping an eye on the future.
Well, the future is here. After a 14-3 season, the Vikings see themselves as Super Bowl contenders. And why shouldn’t they? They won in a fashion that appeared much less fluky than the 13-4 2022 version of the team. They reinforced their biggest weaknesses in bulking up the trenches. If presumed starter J.J. McCarthy is ready to go, then so are the Vikings.
The competitive part is down-pat, but as for the rebuild? This just doesn’t look like any rebuild I’ve ever seen.
Granted, Minnesota’s youngest players are at three of the most important positions in football: quarterback (McCarthy, 22), edge rusher (Dallas Turner, 22), and wide receiver (Jordan Addison, 23). Top players like Jefferson, Darrisaw, Jonathan Greenard, T.J. Hockenson, Byron Murphy, Josh Metellus, and Will Fries are all in a sweet spot of 26 to 28 years old.
Still, the Vikings’ offseason plan seemed to be to go out and lean on a lot of old players. Newcomers Jonathan Allen, Javon Hargrave, and Ryan Kelly are all over 30. Returning free agents Harrison Smith and Aaron Jones are also in that age group, as are cornerstone players like Andrew Van Ginkel and Brian O’Neill. Together, that makes seven of Minnesota’s 22 starters over 30.
Of course, the average age is going to come down at the draft, except that the Vikings don’t have much draft capital to speak of this year. A compensatory third-round pick helps. Still, even with that, the Vikings have just a first-, third-, fifth-, and sixth-round pick in 2025. The reason for this mostly had to do with trading picks to trade up for high-upside talent at premium positions in McCarthy and Turner. Agree with that strategy or don’t, but those trades left Minnesota thin this year. Not to mention, the Vikings may already have dipped their hands in the 2026 cookie jar with trades for Cam Robinson and Cam Akers.
Is the “competitive rebuild” even a line they can keep walking going forward?
To do so means putting a ton of pressure on their scouts to make the right calls. That’s the case whether the Vikings stick-and-pick with their 24th-overall selection or trade down to go a quantity-over-quality route. However they go about the 2025 draft, they will need to come away with multiple starters to start backfilling. That didn’t happen in Adofo-Mensah’s infamous 2022 draft, and depending on Mekhi Blackmon‘s bounce-back from his torn knee, it might not even be the case for 2023.
Then, of course, their big bets have to pay off huge. McCarthy must develop into much more than a cheap rookie-scale-contract game manager, and Turner will have to shine. Even with all that, they might still need to find creative ways to find draft capital, such as potentially turning Jordan Addison into draft picks down the road, Stefon Diggs-style.
Or do they?
The Vikings have a team they think can compete for a Super Bowl in the next few years. Who cares if the roster is older if that’s the case? Why wouldn’t they just have an “F— Them Picks” mentality? Just go for broke, bet big on the McCarthy rookie-scale window, and worry about the future when that window closes.
That’s a fair viewpoint to have. If the Vikings win a Super Bowl, flags fly forever. No one in Minnesota cares if they have losing seasons afterward. But Minnesota doesn’t just have the opportunity to get a Lombardi Trophy in a short window. They at least have some of the pieces required to be a perennial contender.
They absolutely have an elite coach in Kevin O’Connell. His players love him, his one-score game record suggests he has a feel for the moment, and he maximizes his roster. They have an elite, Hall of Fame-caliber player in Jefferson, who’s only 26. If O’Connell lives up to his reputation as a quarterback guru, then McCarthy being his hand-picked player says a lot about him. If that pans out, Minnesota has a core that can last for nearly a decade.
But that only happens if the Vikings can continue to support that core beyond McCarthy’s rookie-scale window. Great coaches can hang around forever in the NFL, but they can’t get into years-long slumps. The coaches who’ve been in their current role for over a decade (Mike Tomlin, John Harbaugh, and Andy Reid) have combined for two below-.500 seasons out of 47. They simply don’t lose enough to lose the locker room.
What’s the commonality between those three teams? They all draft incredibly well. You have to go back to 2008 to find a year where the Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t draft two players who were multiple-season starters. The Baltimore Ravens drafted two or more multiple-year starters every year from 2005 to 2022. The Kansas City Chiefs survived elite talent departing partly on the strength of their drafting in the 2020s.
Minnesota’s been good at finding starters in the draft during the back half of the aughts through 2020, but 2022 and 2023 are looking like they may go down as a certified dry spell. If McCarthy or Turner doesn’t work out, that streak looks even worse, and that could mean a steep drop-off once Minnesota’s roster starts to age out of its prime, threatening O’Connell’s tenure.
So, while the competitive rebuild is seemingly complete, the work isn’t over. Adofo-Mensah must keep his mind on that balance between competing and building sustained success. That’s not going to be easy, and previous draft picks and the capital already sent out the door will make this a tougher task than navigating their way out of the Kirk Cousins Era. But if Minnesota wants more to show for their work than a couple of playoff runs, keeping the competitive rebuild going is a must.