It’s the NFL combines the week.
It is the week on the league calendar that really opens the field for the madness of the off -season which is fast approaching. Yes, it is a question of testing the figures and interviews for hundreds of the project of perspectives this year, but it is as much more than that. With all the senior executives of the NFL, the coaches, the scouts and the agents descending on Indianapolis, it is at this moment that conversations will shape the free agency and all kinds of possible trades. It is an extremely important week for the 32 teams.
There is a lot to understand this week, in particular, for the director general of Vikings, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, the head coach Kevin O’Connell and their best staff. These discussions will perform behind closed doors, both in the corridors of the Indiana Congress Center during the day and in the restaurants of the city at night. But for fans who want to hear the brass of Minnesota publicly, they will hold their annual press conferences combined on Tuesday 25. O’Connell goes at 11:30 am CT, followed by Adofofo-Mensah at 12:00 pm.
Let us briefly review some of the best Vikings scenarios to keep in mind this week.
Good news, everyone: we are only a few weeks old (or more) to discover what is going on with Sam Darnold this off -season. Since the end of the season, it was an endless flow of rumors and waves of initiates and comments from the coach of O’Connell when he was asked about the future of Darnold. Fortunately, everything ends soon. As a top domino on the quarter market, its future must be determined fairly quickly when the free agency begins on March 10 – assuming that it will not be labeled before.
Darnold will be one of the biggest conversation subjects this week in Indy. His agents will want to have a clear idea of what the Vikings offer will look like, and which teams if the need for QB is the most interested in its services. For Minnesota, is there enough external interest for Darnold’s marking before the deadline of March 4 and the exchange for the capital project is realistic? How all the other QB dominoes – Matthew Stafford maybe among them – Factor in the situation?
In my opinion, the most likely result has been clear from the start. Darnold will go to a free agency, he will obtain an offer from another team which is much greater than what the Vikings have put on the table, and the scene will be planned for JJ McCarthy to be a quarter of Minnesota this year.
Darnold dominates attention, but he is far from being the only Viking player hitting a free agency. Conversations must be made around the future of guys like Byron Murphy Jr., Camryn bynum, Aaron Jones, Daniel Jones and many others. The Vikings may want to keep Murphy, but he could have a big market after a pro Bowl season. Bynum is another interesting that could potentially sign a new agreement with the Vikings before hitting the market. The two Jones are important parts that will arouse interest elsewhere.
Then there are the conversations that the Vikings will have with the agents of the key agents of other teams. Minnesota has large holes to approach in the trenches (guard, defensive tackle) and secondary (waiting for what is happening with their starters) in a few weeks, not to mention several other positions. They have the ceiling space to be large players in free agency this year, and these wheels will be set in motion this week.
Unlike the hood space, the capital project is not an abundant resource for the Vikings. Absolutely the opposite, in fact. They have the weakest group of choice of draft the league, which is one of the reasons why the trade from 24 in April is almost inevitable. Adofofo-Mensah will not be contained to only make four selections in this year’s draft, so he will explore a variety of ways to add choices. Maybe it involves something creative like a tag and a Darnold exchange. More simply, it could be a question of discussing the executives of potential trades with teams that choose anywhere in the 25-50 range. When offers like this occur on the draft evening, the bases were almost always laid much earlier than that.
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