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Will Vikings trade up in the 2024 NFL Draft? ‘It’s always about walk-away prices’

Dane Mizutani, Pioneer Press
·3 min read

If anybody knows exactly what the Vikings are going to do in the 2024 NFL Draft, please stand up.

Though the expectation is that they are going to make a blockbuster move in a couple of weeks, trading up to take their quarterback of the future in the draft, general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah delivered a dose of reality on Thursday at TCO Performance Center in Eagan.

Is there a world in which the Vikings don’t select a quarterback in the first round?

“You have to be ready for everything,” Adofo-Mensah said. “You have to be ready for every scenario.”

The fact is the Vikings have the No. 11 pick, and thus, they don’t control their own destiny in the 2024 draft. Never mind that they recently acquired the No. 23 pick to give themselves more ammunition. They still need another team to play ball in order to put themselves in position to draft a quarterback like North Carolina’s Drake Maye, LSU’s Jayden Daniels or Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy.

How much is that going to cost?

“I wish I knew the answer to that question,” Adofo-Mensah said. “That’s the hardest part. You’re in a blind auction in a sense, right?. You don’t know when the next person is gonna raise their hand and call a name.”

That’s a phenomenon the Vikings understand as they contemplate the viability of trading up. It’s not going to be as simple as Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O’Connell looking at a spreadsheet to determine value. Truthfully, a team like the New England Patriots, who have the No. 3 pick, or the Arizona Cardinals, who have the No. 4 pick, are likely well aware that they have an extremely valuable asset in their current draft positioning.

That’s why the Vikings are trying their best to operate in a vacuum. If they aren’t willing to pay a particular price, they can’t concern themselves with what other teams might be willing to do.

“It’s always about walk-away prices,” Adofo-Mensah said. “Your only leverage in the negotiation is the willingness to do something else. I’ve got to say, ‘I will not do this because I would rather do these three other things and make our team better.’ It’s got to mean something.”

There’s also the other side of the coin in that if the Vikings get their guy, and he turns out to be a star, nobody is going to think twice about the initial price tag. You think the Kansas City Chiefs care how much they had to give up to go get Patrick Mahomes? Not at all.

“You’ve got to ask, ‘Am I going to regret not doing this trade?’ ” Adofo-Mensah said. “That’s how we’ve got to look at the board in every place.”

There’s a chance the Vikings ultimately decide trading up is going to cost too much. If that’s the case, then having the No. 11 pick and the No. 23 pick should still give them an advantage moving forward.

“We want to make sure that we set ourselves up for potential better look if a team picks up the phone,” Adofo-Mensah said. “We also want to set ourselves up for being in a really good situation if they don’t pick up the phone.”

All the Vikings can do at this point is wait to see how everything plays out in a couple of weeks.

“This is something Kevin and I really set in motion when we first got here,” Adofo-Mensah said. “We’ve put a lot into it, and we’ll see what happens on draft day.”

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