Big news for the Vikings fans out there who take an interest in the team's compensatory draft pick situation: It sounds like Minnesota might be in line for not one, not two, but three comp picks in 2026.
The website Over the Cap, which does great work on comp picks, currently projects the Vikings to receive two of them in next year's draft. There's a third-rounder for Sam Darnold, which is expected to be the most valuable comp pick received by any team (a prize the Vikings also received in this year's draft for losing Kirk Cousins last offseason). Then there's a fourth or fifth-rounder, the exact value of which may depend on how many snaps Daniel Jones plays with the Colts.
Here's what their cancellation chart looks like right now on OTC:
Vikings 2026 comp pick cancellation chart
Vikings 2026 comp pick cancellation chart / Over the Cap
For those who don't follow it closely, teams are given comp picks when they lose more qualifying free agents than they acquire, and the round value depends on both the salaries involved and the snaps played in the next season. It's a complicated formula that GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and his staff have spent plenty of time studying.
"It's probably one of the number one things I've had to learn about," Kevin O'Connell said at the NFL's annual league meeting on Tuesday. "If you know anything about the layers to it, just make sure you've got some Tylenol or Advil or something, 'cause it's time-consuming. And then right when you feel like you've learned it, they throw in this 'play time' thing and it can change, and it's this range..."
The way the Vikings could receive a third has to do with Trent Sherfield, the depth wide receiver who spent last season in Minnesota and then signed with the Broncos this offseason. His $3 million average salary is right on the cusp of qualifying for a seventh-round comp pick. And as pointed out by The Star Tribune's Ben Goessling, he has pretty reachable incentives in his contract — $500K for playing 40 percent of the Broncos' snaps, another $500K for 30 catches — that could bring him up to $4 million in 2025 if he earns a decent-sized role in Denver's offense.
So if Sherfield ends up qualifying, the Vikings could get three different comp picks in 2026. As a team that has just four selections in this year's draft, they're taking the comp pick situation very seriously as they look to stack up picks in next year's draft. That was one benefit of signing Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave, who didn't count towards the formula because they were released this offseason. It's also why they almost certainly will wait until after the draft, when the formula is no longer affected, to add a backup quarterback and any other notable free agents they still have their eyes on.
"When you look at it, we're inside of a month away from the draft," O'Connell said. "And I know how sacred people treat third and fourth-round picks. The idea of creating one of those from Sam Darnold or Daniel Jones or Cam Robinson, players that you're not going to have back that you poured into, it really is something you have to take a mindset with to try to maximize, and we've tried to do that.
"That's where I think Kwesi deserves so much credit for his staff and him working with us as coaches to really identify ways of doing the things that we felt were mandates to improve our team throughout the offseason, but doing it in a way where we can still be plus-two, or potentially three even, high-level comp picks."