Anyone who has been around the NFL, and the Vikings’ franchise in particular, knows how rarely the path to a franchise quarterback is smooth and obvious. And so as general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah gave his annual pre-draft press conference last week, it was worth asking: Is there a world where you won’t (or can’t) draft a quarterback?
“You have to be ready for everything,” he said. “It’s a very deep class. But I do think you have to be ready for every scenario. If there’s elite players at premium positions on the board, I don’t think you’re supposed to reach or force or anything like that. It’s just not what I believe, all the while understanding that [quarterback] is the most important position in the sport. So, it’s calculating both those things at the same time.”
NFL general managers try to be as vague as possible this time of year, but if there is one thing Adofo-Mensah has been clear about, it’s that — despite the team’s clear need for a quarterback — there will be a limit to the amount of resources he’s willing to use to draft one.
As he has discussed the strategy involved in potentially moving up from No. 11, Adofo-Mensah has noted the potential for irrational decisions from other teams, stressed the importance of “walkaway prices” and insisted that “your only leverage in the negotiation is your willingness to do something else.”
It’s certainly possible that Adofo-Mensah is just trying to emphasize in a public way that he won’t sell out to draft a quarterback, even if the external view is that he has no choice. But he has already demonstrated his willingness to stand firm on a number this offseason by refusing to offer Cousins more than one fully-guaranteed season, a decision that precipitated Cousins’ departure. And there are plenty of roadblocks that could make the task exceptionally difficult.
It’s quite possible, if not likely, that the top three teams on the board — Chicago, Washington and New England — will each draft a quarterback. And there is the potential for at least three teams other than the Vikings making a play for a quarterback in the top 10. The New York Giants already have the No. 6 pick, while the Denver Broncos at No. 12 and the Las Vegas Raiders at No. 13 are both candidates to trade up. And that list doesn’t account for any stealth teams that have kept their plans more private than others.
You’re in a blind auction in a sense,” Adofo-Mensah said. “And you don’t know when the next person is going to raise their hand and call a name. And so, you’ve really just got to be strategic about how you position yourself. At the end of the day, you’ve got to ask yourself, ‘Am I going to regret not doing this trade? If that player gets picked this spot, whatever this spot is, and I was willing to give up this? Can I sleep at night?’
“That’s how we’ve got to look at the board in every place. And then we’ll come up with our valuations for every player in that way, and we’ll make our calls and we’ll go from there. And ultimately, if the league is willing to do something that we are not willing to do, we can’t let that necessarily dictate our actions.”
None of this is to downplay the possibility of the Vikings pulling off a trade, or at least drafting a quarterback at some point in the first round. It remains the likeliest scenario, all things considered, especially when you remember they have no second- or third-round picks.
Adofo-Mensah also said this week that “just because something’s risky doesn’t mean you have to stay away from it,” but that phrase could also apply to passing on a trade.
