With a franchise-defining offseason ahead of him, Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is confident that he can fix the holes in the roster while also signing key players to big extensions.
Minnesota enters the offseason with just $36 million in cap space available. Decisions on star pass rusher Danielle Hunter and quarterback Kirk Cousins are yet to be made. Large dead cap hits (Cousins $28.5 million, Hunter $14.9 million) will be incurred if either reach free agency this spring.
Star receiver Justin Jefferson and left tackle Christian Darrisaw are also in need of contract extensions that won’t come cheap.
A resurgent defense in 2023 is going to need additional depth and starters to continue improvement in 2024 after a breakthrough season under Brian Flores in 2023.
There is a lot on Adofo-Mensah’s plate and not much money to go around. Yet the third-year general manager “believes” the team can address all of the needs this offseason.
“Yeah, I think we have a lot of talented people in the salary cap department and it’s really just being thoughtful of those contracts, the risks those contracts, the money out in the future and all those different things,” said Adofo-Mensah in his end-of-season press conference Wednesday. “I believe we do. It depends on if you do one thing, it maybe changes the different option that you can do. I believe we do have the ability to both address those offensive players you’re talking about but also provide resources for the defense.”
Adofo-Mensah signaled an intent to bring Cousins back, saying “It’s certainly my intention to have him back here.” While saying he intends to bring Cousins back, Adofo-Mensah was clear that it will come down to if an agreement can be reached between the two sides.
The general manager sounded more confident that an extension for Jefferson was close to reality, saying, “I had a great dialogue with his representation this morning. . . We did a lot of the work last season, so we talked and said, ‘Let’s plan to talk again soon.’ I’m always optimistic about those things.”
Adofo-Mensah says the team has “regained some of our financial flexibility” and remains optimistic that the Vikings are “close” to dropping the ‘rebuild’ from ‘competitive rebuild’ with a “big offseason.”
