Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - BREAKING: Vikings trade for Adam Thielen

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Adam Thielen is back! The Vikings traded a 2026 fifth-round pick and a 2027 fourth-round pick to the Panthers for Thielen and a conditional 2026 seventh-round pick and a 2027 fifth-round pick. Matthew Coller breaks down the Vikings' trade for the veteran receiver. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel.

Good morning, everyone. Adam Thielen is once again a Minnesota Viking. This morning, the Minnesota Vikings were able to complete their trade with the Carolina Panthers. Yesterday, it did not look great for the possibility that the Vikings and Thielen were going to get it done. of the Vikings and Panthers. We're going to get it done to bring home Adam Thielen. As the Panthers cut Hunter Renfro, and there was more reports of,

well, can they really get to a point where this is going to happen? The Panthers don't have to move Thielen and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But they found a common ground this morning. And I think that everybody wanted this. And at the end of the day, that's why it happens. The Vikings wanted Adam Thielen badly.

we went over the many options that were underwhelming for the Vikings, all the different players, well, you could pick up this guy that was waived or that guy that was waived, but nobody had the recent resume of Adam Thielen. So they wanted him as their number one target. And for the Carolina Panthers, they have three young receivers that did well in training camp, that they want to grow with Bryce Young in the coming years.

So the Panthers wanted to move Adam Thielen. They want draft capital for the future and they end up getting just that. They also probably didn't want to wait until the trade deadline to move him and probably didn't want an unhappy Adam Thielen either if he was going to end up being wide receiver four. So here is the deal for the Vikings acquiring Adam Thielen. The Vikings send a 2026th, fifth round. pick and a 2027 fourth round pick and they get back Adam Thielen a conditional 2027 seventh rounder

and a 2020 or I'm sorry 2026 7th round let me check on that 2026 7th rounder yeah that's right uh yeah conditional 2026 7th rounder and then in 2027 a fifth round pick so what you have here basically is the Vikings giving up a fifth and moving down in in the 2027 draft one round to get Adam Thielen. Not a very high price tag at the end of the day. Ultimately

if you sort of wash it all out, you get basically just a fifth and a pick swap here is what the Vikings are giving up. I don't know what the condition of the seventh round pick is going to be, but they gave away

Sam Howell for a fifth and a pick swap moving down from the fourth to the fifth round in 27. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there and we'll have a conversation in the fifth round of 2027. Wasn't that the pick for Adam Thielen that they moved down with Carolina when they got Thielen back in town? Personally, I think as we went

through all the options, we went through the, they could bring back KJ. Osborne, which they know, they could still do. They could sign this guy. They could try to pick up this guy with a waiver claim, this, this, this, we threw out everything there was in the world. They could try to trade for Jacoby Myers. They could try to, some of you wanted Tyreek Hill, like there was a million things that we tossed out there. But the best idea at the end of the day was Adam Thielen. And the Minnesota Vikings agreed with that. And they end up getting Thielen this morning. So let's talk about, well, first I think that in terms of the

actual trade, you know, how much they were giving up, it was even less than I thought it was going to be. The way that Carolina was seeming to play hardball, at least from what we had gotten from the reports, I thought, well, you know, they might have to push it a little bit here. They might have to swap a third for a fourth for next year. They might have to give them multiple fifth round picks or something like that. And I think that that's where A lot of you maybe got a little nervous of like, wait a minute, how much are they going to give up to get a 35-year-old wide receiver? Are they going to kind of break the bank here out of desperation? I mean, think about this.

This is the, you know, Chris Herndon, they got once upon a time at this very time of year for a fourth round pick. And this is nothing close to that. I mean, this is a fifth rounder and a pick swap for 2027 that. we will, you know, there's years down the road and shouldn't make a whole heck of a lot of difference between moving down from the fourth to the fifth, which is something teams do all the time on their own to pick up a little more draft capital. So at the end of the day, we could almost call it a fifth round type of pick. So, you know, well, you got, uh, you guys, uh, already coming in to troll me about talking

about it yesterday. Well, things, look, things change with this. Uh, things change. where yesterday the two sides seemed like they were fairly far apart on a Thielen trade and then it happens. You know, yesterday I said it seemed like it was trend. I was not reporting it was dead, by the way, yesterday. I said it seemed like it was far away and based on what Adam Schaefter had reported that the two sides were continuing to talk and Thelan wanted to come back. But Carolina wasn't budging.

and then they cut Hunter Renfro, it just seemed like it was trending in that direction. Earlier in the week, I called it 70.30 because it seemed like it was trending in the direction of getting done. The people who know exactly were Dan Morgan and Quasi Adafel Mensa, who knew exactly where that trade was and probably only those two. So this morning, they continue to work it out. But I think at the end of the day, what we have is two general managers who had the same idea, which was they wanted to move on from Thielen and the Vikings wanted

Thelan. So that at the end of the day, that's what pushed this trade to get done. I felt like Carolina didn't have to do it and they could push for as much as they wanted. But, you know, maybe what got it over the edge was that Adam Thelan did want to come back. And you would rather just have Thelan be a happy wide receiver in Minnesota as opposed to an unhappy wide receiver in Carolina. So that's, it was a bit of a roller coaster throughout this entire thing where it seemed like it was a lock, then it seemed like it wasn't going to happen. And then now here he is, Adam Feelein with the Minnesota Vikings.

But with the final compensation because of all those negotiations is quite a bit less than I thought it was going to be. I mean, as we were talking about this, I was kind of like, hey, maybe Quasi, I made the comparison of, you know, the pawn shop negotiation. And, you know, hey, I think I said something about, like, if you're really thirsty and you need a glass of water, then you got to pay 50 bucks for the glass of water. And that's kind of where the Vikings are at, that there is some desperation. So maybe what yesterday provided, though, was some other options for the Vikings to be able to say, hey, you know, we don't actually meet Adam Thielen. So you either give them to us or we're going to sign KJ Osborne or we're going to claim.

Tray Palmer or we've got another trade with another team that is in the works and we're going to do that. So maybe they actually gained a little leverage yesterday with the sheer number of players that were available at the wide receiver position from waivers and from cutdowns and from potential trade options that may have helped them. And that's what I mean about, you know, sometimes these things kind of have these up and downs and we will find out more definitely for from Quasi Adolph-Omenzo. when we talk to him at his press conference tomorrow, that is for sure. So let's talk about Adam Thielen and where he's at.

We have been over on the show a number of times the he's old issue. Yes, all of you, well done in Googling Adam Thielen's birthday. You're right. He is on the older side. And one thing that was not mentioned is the cap situation for what Carolina kept or did not keep. So I'm imagining that the Vikings took a lot of that contract. we may find that out soon enough. To me, that doesn't matter a whole heck of a lot

because the Vikings have the cap space. So if they've got the cap space, then what difference does it make? They're still going to be able to add a cornerback, a punt returner, whatever they need because they're in a totally fine situation. So if they took Adam Thielen's entire $10 million, well, that's completely fine.

Where he fits in in this and what Adam Thielen still is a wide receiver is what we need to discuss now. So we've got the compensation part of it, not a big deal, not actually as much as I thought it was going to be with the Vikings giving up essentially a fifth and then moving down from the fourth to the fifth. And that's not a lot overall to me. They got a fifth rounder for Sam Howell. So if you actually consider this in terms of the compensation, the Vikings traded Sam

Howell for Adam Thielen is really what this. trade ultimately is and moving down, uh, from the fourth to the fifth in 2027. So we'll see if, you know, we'll see where the Vikings are even at in 2027. But Sam Howell for Adam Thielen seems like a pretty damn good trade to me for Quasi Adafo Mensa, uh, because Sam Howell was going to give them nothing and they were going to cut him anyway and they get a fifth for him and now you end up with a wide receiver. Guys, if you watch the show all the time, you know that I'm a hat guy, but if you're wearing hats to cover up for your hair loss, then I've got something that can help you. It's called Hymns.

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setting records and breaking Randy Moss records here and there. I mean, in 2018, Adam Thielen had one of the best seasons in Minnesota Vikings history, which is amazing to say, considering all the great receivers they've had. He had 113 catches that year, 76% catch percentage, almost 1,400 yards, just, you know, one of those legendary seasons. And after that, there was not the same caliber of production because he got hurt in 2019, 2020 was a solid year for him with 74 catches. I think that the injury in 2019, if you remember when he was going to the back of the end zone, made a great catch against

the lions and then pulled the hamstring. I think that that started some injuries for him that slowed him down a bit from where he had been in 2017, where he had 91 catches in 2018, where he had that huge season. But he still continued to be an extremely effective wide receiver for the Vikings in 2021, 2021, and then when he goes to Carolina in 2003, they were in a bad spot as a franchise. They had drafted number one overall and they brought in a kid who really was not ready to play in Bryce Young. And they said, too bad. You're playing anyway. And Bryce Young has a really, really rough season. You remember the game where the Vikings played against the Carolina Panthers.

and he couldn't pick up the blitzes that were coming off of the edge and he was just kind of chucking and ducking. But throughout that season, there was one guy who was there for Bryce Young consistently, and that was Adam Thielen in 2023. So here is the correlation. The Minnesota Vikings have a first year starting quarterback in J.J. McCarthy. And he is going to be asked,

it's a little different because Carolina was horrendous and this team is very good, but he's going to be asked to lead the franchise with zero previous starting NFL experience. And I think there is no better wide receiver for a young quarterback who has never played before than Adam Thielen. This guy has seen every coverage.

He has seen every defense, every scenario, every high of the Minneapolis miracle to the low of the 2021 season. And Mike Zimmer getting fired to, 2022 winning 13 games and it's I've seen a few people say well you know when he was washed when he left the Vikings well he wasn't the same version of Adam Thielen from 2017 when he left the Vikings but in 2022 he had 70 receptions for 716 yards and caught 68% of the passes that came his way and Kirk Cousins had a 95 quarterback rating when throwing to Adam Thielen that that year so he

still played well in 2022 and they were able to, you know, win 13 games that year with Adam Thielen as their number two wide receiver. And then so in Carolina, 2023, just to get back to that season where he's playing with an inexperienced quarterback, he was the underneath option, the safety valve for Bryce Young that year. He caught 103 passes on 136 targets, which is a 75.7 completion percentage. For a quarterback that had a really poor overall rookie season, he was leaning on Adam Thielen. That is only 9.8 yards per catch.

And the average depth of target was only eight yards. So there's a lot of underneath, underneath, underneath to Adam Thielen. But he only had four drops that year, caught 50% of his contested catches. And Bryce Young had 103.3.0 quarterback rating when throwing to Adam. Thielen. Just to kind of put that in context for what Bryce Young did in that first year, it was about as bad as we've seen for a rookie season. I mean, for for guys who actually end up making it, it's very not not good enough. He only completed 60% of his passes that year and

averaged 5.5 yards per attempt and had a 73.7 quarterback rating. So think of the difference when he was throwing to Thielen as his safety valve and is the guy that Bryce Young was leaning on in 2023, he was having a lot of success. And he was completing a ton of passes. And there weren't bombs. He wasn't throwing 50 yards passes down the field. The longest completion was only 32 yards that year to Adam Thielen. But he was having success.

And what the Vikings need right now with this offense is exactly that guy, exactly the guy who can be someone the young quarterback leans on. someone who's going to catch everything underneath who can have an explosive play from time to time, but is just going to be there for you whenever you need him. You know that Adam Dillon can still get open from these numbers. And then we'll look at, you know, last year as well. You know that his hands are never going to slump. That he's a strong receiver.

He's got size and he's got great hands. And actually, his contested catches have recovered the last two years from not being that great in 2022. So he is still all of the things that made Adam feeling really good. And I'll make this point. And you guys don't have to tell me that once upon a time he ran a 4-4-5. I know that, you know, way back when when he was first coming out in the NFL, he was fast enough to make the league. It wasn't a 4-3 speed, that's for sure.

But he never learned how to win in the NFL with pure speed. He wasn't lining up and just running by cornerbacks like Randy Moss. He was a wide receiver that learned how to win in the NFL with crafty route running and with great hands and with strength. And those are the things that when we see wide receivers succeed into their 30s, they check off all those boxes. Anquam Bolden, Larry Fitzgerald, these guys check off all those boxes of having great hands, great knowledge of the game, crafty route running. I mean, Larry Fitzgerald, like who was strong? stronger and craftier than Larry Fitzgerald. And he took on this role later in his career, very similar to where it was a lot of

seven-yard receptions. It was a lot of 10-yard receptions. But that's what the Vikings need here. They do not need somebody who's going to run 50 yards down the field unless they're going to replace, you know, unless they're going to have to replace Jalen Naylor as well. But they don't need, you know, Marquise Goodwin or something like that, some like blazing fast

wide receiver who goes for bombs and creates five huge plays over a season. Marquez Veldez Scantling was a name that was tossed out there as well. They don't need that guy. They need someone who is just always in the right place at the

right time. So when things go wrong, when chaos is happening, that your young quarterback has a seven yard completion. And he can never go broke, taking a profit with throwing to Adam Thielen. And last year, Bryce Young did open it up a little bit more with Thielen. He averaged 13 yards a catch last year, played 10 games, had 48 catches, and caught 78.7%

of the passes his way. I mean, that's almost an 80% completion percentage when Bryce Young was throwing to Adam Thielen in 108.7 quarterback rating. Very, very successful over the two years from Bryce Young to Adam Thielen. I'm sure maybe some. of that's a little Andy Dalton tossed in there as well. But that chemistry between those two, the young quarterback, the veteran wide receiver, there's not much better you can do. And at this point in the year to acquire somebody with that type of recent record, when we go through all the other players, there's nobody unless you're talking about a huge trade for Jacoby Myers or a huge trade for Tyree Kill, which would be absolutely insane. If you were talking about a, a

monster deal, then, okay, yeah, you can get somebody else, possibly. But even then, I mean, why do the Raiders need to give up Jacoby Myers? Why do the dolphins want to give up Tyree Kill? Like, normally, those deals just don't happen at this time. Normally, you are hoping to grip on to somebody who another team has just sort of let go. Usually you don't get a receiver of this caliber of Adam Thielen at this point in the year. So now, when we, we look at, the short term of it is this. Those first three games seem a lot less daunting, especially if Jalen Naylor comes back.

You feel pretty good about a receiver group that has Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, and Jalen Naylor, and then T.J. Hawkinson and Aaron Jones and Josh Oliver, and now all of a sudden it seems like a complete unit where you could go into Chicago and you don't have to have Tim Jones as wide receiver two or wide receiver three and you can put Thielen on the field and he can catch six or seven passes and you can feel good about that. The other part of Phelan and J.J. McCarthy is that they're not meeting for the first time. They're not throwing to each other for the first time. And this isn't the first time that Adam Thielen is going to learn KOC's offense because he already

knows at least the bones of it from 2022. And I'm sure some things have changed. But the terminology is probably very, very similar to what it was in 2022. but the fact that they threw in the offseason and there was, I think Alec Ossmiss from KSTP had a short conversation with Thielen where he was talking up J.J. McCarthy talking about how he was really impressed with how he handled himself and all that. And it also seems from the reporting that Adam Thielen wanted to come back to Minnesota. He wanted to be a part of this. He wanted to play with J.J. McCarthy. So all those boxes are checked as well. So for the first three weeks, being wide receiver two to Justin Jefferson, for a player like this,

who's going to be the underneath option, who's going to be the outlet, the safe route type of guy. That's, that is very useful. And I think the strategy over the first couple of games anyway in putting in J.J. McCarthy had to be that they were going to play it a little safer. Even when you watch last year with Sam Darnold, somebody who, had been around the NFL for a long time. And the way that Kevin O'Connell called the offense for the first couple weeks last year, it was just guiding him into that. Now, there were some, you know, there were some moments where they went for a 97-yard touchdown.

But a lot of that was they were running the football effectively early last season. They were running a lot of play action. They were running a lot of underneath stuff. And then it was the occasional shot to Justin Jefferson. And that's what they did for their passing game to start. season. And then as it went on, they opened it up more and more and more and more. And so for the first three games, can you have a lot of time of possession? Can you succeed in the run game? Which, by the way, you know, Thielen has always been an effective run blocker

as well. And we know that this offense asks the receivers to do that. So that checks another box for Thielen as well. But can you work through these three games with a couple of shots to Jefferson, controlling the football with Hawkinson and Thielen underneath and running the football effectively with an offensive line that's rebuilt to be able to run block a lot better than they were last year and control the ball a lot better and keep Caleb Williams off the field, keep Michael Pennicks off the field, especially Joe Burrow in week three. So that's the short of it for the immediate, all right, can feel and catch. and this is our Fandul question of the day

is how many receptions for Adam Thielen over the first three weeks? I'm going to go with 13. I think 13 receptions over the first three weeks is helpful to the offense. It moves the sticks a handful of times, but you're not leaning on Adam Thielen to drive your offense.

That would be my answer. So throw your answer in the comment section. First three games, Adam Thielen, how many receptions do you expect? That is our fan dual question of the day. For the rest of the season, though, when Jordan Addison comes back in an ideal world and injuries happen and so forth, but in an ideal world, this receiving group now becomes a lot stronger. Because if there was one area that I was not really convinced was going to be any different than it was last year, it was Jalen Naylor. And this team has liked Jalen Naylor.

Kevin O'Connell talks very highly of him. And I think that what he likes about Nailer is that he is intelligent enough to learn all the positions and he can run all the routes that they ask him to run. But his skill set is pretty limited to being a deep type of receiver. And then he doesn't have the best hands. And there were long stretches last year where they could have used a wide receiver three to help them get a bucket, to help them stay on the field for a little longer.

And this was an issue last year where they were very much a boom or bust type of offense where it was, hey, you're hitting big shots to Addison, big shots to Naylor, big shots to Jefferson or you're punting. This, I think, changes the dynamic. And yes, Thielen has to remain healthy. Those hamstrings got to work because he is on the older side, as a few of you have brought up and he does have an injury history with this. And he did miss time last year. If he gives them 10 games and he gives them 30 to 40 catches, then giving up Sam Howell for

him was more than worth it. If he gets, in fact, if he gets them through the first three games and then retires, it would still be a trade that I would say absolutely worth it. But let's just I don't like to ever play in the, well, he's probably going to get hurt world because I don't know, you know, I've seen a lot of guys who are older, stay healthy and a lot of younger guys get hurt, so who knows? But assuming that the unit is healthy for the Vikings wide receivers, I think this makes it much more dynamic. I think this makes it much more difficult for defenses to deal with, even if he only catches 35 passes this entire season. It still makes it a lot more difficult because what defenses could do last year, and sometimes it worked for

them and sometimes it didn't. But what they could do last year is they could expect everything to be deep. And I'm thinking about that Jaguars game where the Jaguars said, we're not going to blitz a single time. We're going to play everybody back and we are going to dare Sam Darnold to march down the field on us. And he could do it to some extent and then throw an interception in the red zone. But that strategy was fairly effective against them at times last year. where if teams said, we're not going to be aggressive at all against you, we are going to try to take away these deep shots, and we are going to make you dink and dunk.

And eventually Darnold did figure out some of that. The Bears game late in the season last year, I thought he did a really good job of dinking and Duncan and staying on the field. And I think that J.J. McCarthy is a little more built for that, a little more built for owning the middle of the field, throwing underneath, just moving the sticks, take a scramble and get seven, eight yards. Like, I think that he was raised in a world by Jim Harbaugh,

where you stay on the field, you dominate the football, you have longer drives, you wear down the opponent, you run and play action off of it. Like, that's where he was raised. And I don't believe that KOC is going to go full Harbaugh and have J.J. McCarthy throw 312 passes and run every play and everything else. I think we're still going to see him,

be aggressive and take shots. But I also think they want a lot more of that. And there is a little bit of evidence in that when they signed Rondale Moore, that they, and they drafted Ty Felton, who was a guy that was a big yards after catch wide receiver, that there was evidence in that they knew that they've got to have this other dynamic, this possession receiver type of player. And even though Adam Thielen is not Rondale Moore or Ty Felton when it comes to his speed, He is similar in terms of what that type of receiver brings to you,

which is 10 yards, 12 yards, 6 yards, 8 yards. And I think that as everyone is giving so much attention to Justin Jefferson, when Jordan Addison comes back, that is another deep wide receiver, but you will always know that you have multiple guys that can help you move the sticks, that can help you get a bucket, that can help you stay on track. And I think that's what Adam Thielen is right now, as someone as a quarterback, too, as a young player, think about the ups and downs that every young quarterback has, even Jane Daniels, even Bo Nix, who had a good season last year.

Both of those guys had moments where you were like, oh, this is not going so good for those quarterbacks. But one thing that those young quarterbacks were missing was great receivers. You know, you could say Sutton is good. You could say McClorin is good, but they didn't have this whole unit of receivers. this reminds me a lot more of San Francisco when they had Brandon Iyuk and they had Debo Samuel and they had George Kittle and they had Christian McCaffrey where what Brock Purdy had to do was just keep the train on the tracks and make the occasional big play, hit something down

the field once or twice a game, have a scramble or a play out of structure once or twice a game. And the rest of it is going to be there. And that's a key part of Adam Dillon too is that he's going to be in the right place at the right time. that he will pick up this offense, it'll be just fine. Like, this guy's been around for so long that he will come back into the offense and he's going to be in the right spots. And you know that that number two or number three wide receiver is going to be open just because of the magnetism of Justin Jefferson.

But as far as the ups and downs, what you can do to smooth that out is have receivers there for you that even when it's going badly, you just get an easy completion and get back on. track because I mean think about from a basketball perspective if you're having a tough shooting night gunning threes it's great to get to the free throw line and go two for two from the free throw line and just as they as they talk about all the time like see the ball go in the hoop like I think that that's what Adam Thielen brings to you as a young quarterback with some confidence at where he's going to be but also that completion is going to be there as

defenses play back and as they try to cut down, and this is after the first three games, as they try to cut down Addison, who has great chemistry with J.J. McCarthy early and Jefferson going deep down the field, running those deep daggers that are, you know, 15 yard in routes, well, somebody else or those posts that they're running 30, 40 yards down the field, those push the defense back. And here you are with Hawkinson and Adam Thielen there. I think it changes the offense. And this was the type of receiver that they just didn't have with Jalen Naylor. And now they have with Adam Thielen.

So there will be, I'm sure, a lot of detractors of the move. Maybe it seems a little bit corny to bring Adam Thielen home, like very, very us, very Minnesotan, got, you know, he's, we got to bring home the Minnesota kid. But I don't think that that's what this is about at all. I don't think that this was, oh, well, we're just targeting the guy from Minnesota that needs to be, you know, brought back home because he's one of us and he's Detroit Lakes and he's Mancato and all that stuff. And I saw the Vikings already tweeted something like that.

They did like, whatever it was back where he belongs or something like that. I mean, yeah, okay, it feels very Disney movie with Eland going away, coming back home, to try to chase a championship. All right, yeah, that's, that's absolutely true. That it does have a heartwarming element that I'm sure a lot of you will be like, yeah. Yeah, I wanted, I wanted Troy Palmer or Trey Palmer instead. Okay, all right, you know, and I, and I understand that part of it too is that, you know, when you look around and you think, okay, well, this is a short-term move, it's a one-year move,

and you're giving up assets for this one year. but everything happens in a bigger context. Of course, every one of us, when given the opportunity to get a 24-year-old rising star, rather than take the 35-year-old, yes, we would all do that. If that player is out there, let me know. You know, Trey Palmer had 12 catches or something last year, and, you know, sometimes over the last few days, I thought we were talking about, you know, acquiring the next Jordan Addison or something like that.

But the bigger context of this really does matter. If the Vikings were in desperation, save your job mode, and that's why I mentioned trades like what happened with Chris Herndon a few years ago, in 2021, the Vikings were in a position where they were not going to win. They were older, the culture had collapsed, the quarterback was too expensive, the roster had way too many holes, there were way too many bad bets that they had made across the roster. and it was a team that was destined for seven to ten wins. And they get to the end of camp and they lose a tight end

and they go out and wildly trade for somebody who's not any good in Chris Herndon. And it doesn't work out. He catches one touchdown or something. It doesn't work out. And they just light a fourth round pick on fire because they were freaking out thinking that they were going to lose their jobs. And then they did. this situation right now is very different from that.

This is where you as a franchise sense the moment of having a quarterback on his rookie contract. And that's why when you take on, and I don't know the details yet of the contract situation, I assume that they're taking on a huge chunk of his contract. You take on a big chunk of Adam Thielen's contract, which is not that much, by the way, at the maximum it would be $10 million. So that, you know, they're paying just to Jefferson 35. So it's not that much. But you take on the contract.

You take on the 35-year-old player. You sign 30-year-old players who are still in their late primes like Jonathan Allen or Javon Hargrave. You sign Aaron Jones to come back, even though you know there is some risk there because of what he brings because he could catch the ball to the backfield. And he's still got a lot of tax. You make trades for future assets to go out to bring in a Jordan Mason. I know it's not a lot of future assets, but at least a little bit to bring in a Jordan

Mason who is a running back. And we know that running backs are somewhat replaceable, but he's very good. So you're making that move to get him. You extend a Byron Murphy Jr. at a huge price. And a lot of you will point out that, you know, efficiency folks will point out, you know, hey, well, you know, Byron Murphy is not Dorel Revis. He's not Patrick Sartan. He's more of a zone corner and maybe you can replace zone corners easy.

That's true, but this is the time where you pay for that, where you make sure you don't lose a key cornerback. This is a time where you convince Harrison Smith to come back and you welcome him back with a new contract because you have built a strong enough roster to try to compete for a Super Bowl with a young quarterback who's very talented on his rookie deal. And when we look around,

the NFC, we have seen this exact model play out very well for teams. And every one of those teams has some old guys, by the way. Every one of those, I mean, think about sometimes teams have to make moves that in the bigger, broader vacuum picture of analytics and team building, you wouldn't do. And I'll just give you an example there of San Francisco. How about when San Francisco, what they paid for Javon Hargrave to begin with that, when they signed him before 2023. Christian McCaffrey trade.

When San Francisco made the Christian McCaffrey trade, my thought was, and probably my analysis that day was, I don't know, I don't know, 49ers, an injured running back who, you know, is probably not any better than anybody else in the backfield that you can find. You're the 49ers. You find running backs all the time. What are you doing? You need to keep those draft picks. They ended up with the Super Bowl appearance in overtime with the Kansas City Chiefs and

Christian McCaffrey almost won the MVP that year, certainly put together an MVP caliber season because sometimes you make moves that wouldn't be efficient in a vacuum or in the bigger picture, but you make moves based on where you are as a franchise right now. And that's what I think of them trading for Adam Thielen. That's why I've liked the idea. When it first was floated, I thought, I don't know, guys, is this really going to happen? And then as it became more and more real, you look into. his numbers recently, you think about where they're at as a franchise, this is a time to give up

a little bit of assets to try to gather as much talent as you can to get through the three games or to get 30 catches. If he ends up with 30 catches and Jefferson does his usual thing and Addison does his usual thing and Naylor catches a handful and Hawkinson does his usual thing, I mean, you're going to throw 4,000 yards if that ends up happening with J.J. McCarthy And if McCarthy throws for 4,000 yards, and those weren't all from behind, like the stat stuffing, you're going to be in a really good spot. And then the other thing is with McCarthy, it is so vital to him that the plan from the outset from 2022 was to give this quarterback. This is why you draft Addison. This is why you extend Jefferson.

This is why you trade for Hawkinson to give this quarterback. Well, it's really why you extend to Hawkinson. They traded for Hawkinson because they were in the midst of a 13-win season. But that's why you extend Hawkinson. It's why you extend Derisaw. It's why you draft Jackson. It's why you trade for Mason. It's why you keep Aaron Jones.

It's all about number nine. It's all about doing every single thing possible for Adam, for J.J. McCarthy to succeed. And Adam Thielen is a part of that. And for the first three games, you might be a big part of that. And then we'll see where it goes from there. but it's a it's a move that has the potential to, I think, move the needle with this offense and move the needle of what J.J. McCarthy becomes.

I don't think that that's over-dramatizing it in a situation where your number three receiver was set to be Tim Jones who has 17 receptions for his career or Ty Felton, who's never played before. And I think this also helps Ty Felton, by the way, to have receivers like this in front of him to learn from for a year, including Adam Thielen. I think that's a good thing for Felton, but it doesn't put the pressure. on him to be the guy right now the more we've seen this through viking's history the more weapons you have the harder you are to stop and the viking's offense today got harder to stop for the price

of a lightly used sam howl essentially is what they gave up for this which is just really good asset management and you know when we discuss quasi adolph-mence as a general manager and this is the last part of this that i really want to get into uh is when we talk about Quasi Dauphalmence as a general manager. There's a few different things. There's different buckets of this front office. There's the draft bucket, which has been beaten into the ground ad nauseum. I think that that's still yet to be decided, by the way.

If J.J. McCarthy works out. If Dallas Turner works out. If Donovan Jackson works out, then all of a sudden that conversation will go away. But we're going to have to find out about that. The draft has not yielded them. a lot. So what do you do when it doesn't? Well, one, they had, what, seven undrafted free agents make the team? That's helped them, but that's not even something you can really lean on. This front office, in my mind, is defined by two things to get to this point where we are talking

about them seriously competing. One is a bigger picture vision, which they have executed, I think, to a T. Now, there's been mistakes along the way. There was a Marcus Davenport signing. There was a Lewis seen draft pick. There were things that went wrong for them along the way. But the bigger picture was draft McCarthy stock the roster. Make every move you can. Trade for guys. Sign guys.

Extend guys. Get the best free agents that you can. Spend all the money in free agency. This ownership, by the way, has just been money bags over the last two off seasons to allow them to do this. This ain't Cincinnati, I guess. I mean, but the way that the way that they have. spent around the rookie quarterback.

This was intentional. It was something that was their plan when they were hired. And so the big picture has been really, really good. And then I think in the, in the micro where Quasi Adaflmenta has had his edge to build the team that's this good is understanding asset management for when to move on from certain players, when to acquire certain players at certain prices, when you can get Ryan Kelly for a very small price because there's concerns of his injuries and that's a risk that they're taking. But if Ryan Kelly works out and the same thing goes for Adam Thielen,

where you are taking a little bit of a risk here because Thelan is older and because he did miss seven games last year. But if it works out, the upside to it is extremely high. And I think that they have understood how to identify certain players that are going to come at better prices like Andrew Van Ginkle is a great example. The first. fit here is going to be a lot better than it might be somewhere else. And Adam Thielen falls into that category as well. The importance of Adam Thielen here is more than it would be if he was a Indianapolis Colt or something.

If he went to the Colts and he was helping Daniel Jones get to 500, well, you know, that's not that important. But if you are here and you are helping J.J. McCarthy get through a season with a lot of pressure, that's worth a lot more. If you are helping them start out a season better, that's worth a lot more than what they ended up giving up for it. So I think the front office has done a very good job with identifying players like this or opportunities like this.

Even when they added Zadarius Smith back in 2022, that was one of Quasi Adolph-Mence's first moves. That was one where, you know, were people super high on Zadari Smith at that moment? You know, he's been banged up, then he's this and that. And he gave them a tremendous season that year. Could have used a little bit of help from the defensive coordinator, but Cedarius Smith gave them an amazing season. But then they decided that it was time to move on.

So they knew exactly what time they didn't grip onto that with Zadarius. Who's still out there and, you know, they should see if he wants to come back. He can replace Gabe Murphy, who I think for some reason people thought was the next Zadarius Smith. But anyway, that's the point is that a move like today. it understands the bigger picture. It understands the bigger context. And they didn't give up a whole heck of a lot.

So as this thing went along, it was interesting because at first, I thought it was a slam dunk. I think two days ago, I was like, oh, it seems like 70.30. Then yesterday when they cut Renfro, you know, it doesn't look like it's going to happen. And as the reports came out, it seemed like one side was trying to push the other side through the media a little bit, like Adam Thielen wants this, whether that was from Minnesota,

Sota or Carolina's side, it may be hard to read, but I thought Carolina was saying, bring up your price and the Vikings were saying, give us the Thielen. So it ends up working out very well, I think, for the Vikings and giving up less than what they were expected to give up. So that's what I got for the Adam Thielen acquisition. And what happens the rest of the day, we'll see because I think the Vikings have more moves to come. The cornerback position needs to be addressed. You'd like to see them at a returner as much as I like Miles Price as a returner. That makes me nervous a little bit to have

somebody who isn't undrafted free agent, has never played in the NFL before as the guy you're throwing back there at Soldier Field on the first night at the season. But at the end of the day, now that we have almost the complete picture, top to bottom, this thing is strong and they could get through those first three games, and that looks a lot stronger now because of this acquisition. So toss aside, you know, saying, oh, he's old. Toss aside saying, you know, oh, well, they should have got this guy or that guy. I think, I think this was the best option for them, despite his old decrepit age of being four years younger than me.

So I don't need your ageism on this show. So that's what I got for this emergency podcast. And there will be a show later on tonight because I have a very special guest planned for this evening's live show. So I still am going to do that as well. So that's when I'll see you later on tonight. 7.30 tonight we will be going live again. And maybe we'll have more moves to talk about.

And we'll also take more of your reaction, comments, questions, and things like that later on this evening. But wanted to jump right on and blast out this. Emergency Adam Thielen podcast. So thanks, everybody. Thielen is back. Get out your number 19 jerseys. And also for us, you know, this is a former, for us reporters, a former Corey Stringer

award winner who has always been really, really helpful with the media. So, you know, not a bad break at the end of the season for reporters as well, for you guys to get Adam Thelan's insights. So thanks everybody for joining this emergency pod. Thelan is back. And we are so close. so close to having the complete picture of the Minnesota Vikings and getting into that week one analysis.

We will be there soon. So thanks everybody again and football.