Analysis: Adam Thielen’s second stint with the Vikings was another 2025 plan that didn’t work out

The first time the Vikings released Adam Thielen, bringing the wide receiver’s homespun story to its apparent end, they were coming off a 13-4 season that had been built from one-score wins and had not convinced them their roster reset was worth pausing.

The Vikings cut Thielen four days after they released linebacker Eric Kendricks in March 2023, as they detached themselves from expensive contracts for aging players who’d played their primes under the previous regime. Thielen, then 32, wanted to play for a team that would give him a more prominent role than he’d have behind Justin Jefferson and T.J. Hockenson in the Vikings passing game; he signed a three-year deal with the Carolina Panthers, and the Vikings drafted Jordan Addison 23rd overall to replace him.

They had fully expunged their books of dead money by the start of the 2025 league year, when they prepared for the start of J.J. McCarthy’s quarterbacking tenure by searching the expanses of cap space available to them now that Kirk Cousins’ contract was gone. The Vikings had only five draft picks in 2025, having traded their second- and third-round picks in deals to move up for Dallas Turner in 2024, but they had ample cap space and an ownership group willing to spend cash. They committed more than $300 million in contracts during free agency, building the NFL’s most expensive roster in 2025 with veterans they believed could solidify things around McCarthy and help the Vikings contend amid a quarterback transition after a 14-3 season.

Then, when Jefferson and Jalen Nailor missed time in training camp because of injuries and Jordan Addison’s three-game suspension approached, the Vikings called the Panthers about Thielen.

They swapped four picks with Carolina in an Aug. 29 deal to bring the 35-year-old receiver back to Minnesota for what he presumed to be his last NFL stop, agreeing to a restructured contract that reduced Thielen’s base salary by $3.25 million in exchange for a signing bonus and a roster bonus that would pay him up to $1 million based on the number of games he was active.

The Vikings sent a 2026 fifth-round pick and 2027 fourth-rounder to Carolina in exchange for a 2026 conditional seventh-rounder and a 2027 fifth-rounder. It was the equivalent of a late sixth-round pick, according to Over the Cap’s trade value chart, and the Vikings will end up spending about $4.65 million this year on Thielen, whom they waived on Monday morning.

After scratching Thielen on Sunday at Seattle in what Kevin O’Connell called a coach’s decision, the Vikings let the Detroit Lakes native and former Minnesota State Mankato standout go the next day. General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said in a statement that Thielen’s representatives had approached the team about his release last weekend so he could finish his career with a club that might have a bigger role for him. Thielen hadn’t played more than 10 snaps since Oct. 23, and according to Sports Info Solutions, he had run just 109 routes this season, while receiving only 18 targets in 11 games, catching eight passes while dropping two.

The Thielen deal will turn out to be a pricey contingency plan the Vikings didn’t need as much as they thought they would. But in the forensic analysis of the Vikings’ 2025 season, the trade will be less a cause of the demise than an artifact from a strategy that didn’t work and a predicament the Vikings have yet to solve.

They already have $346 million in cap commitments and $251 million in cash allocated to the 2026 roster, when they’ll likely need to create cap space by releasing or restructuring the contracts of several players in their late 20s or early 30s. They could have nine or 10 draft picks next year, including four in the top 100, but a lack of quantity and quality from their recent draft classes forced them to try and build a contender with veterans who carry higher costs and whose bodies have borne more physical stress than young players would.

Nailor, a sixth-round pick in 2022, helped make Thielen expendable by emerging from two injury-plagued seasons and becoming a capable third receiver the past two years. He will be a free agent after this year, but he has caught 48 passes for 738 yards and eight touchdowns in 2024-25 while costing a total of $2.175 million. But rookie receiver Tai Felton, the Vikings’ third-round pick this year, has caught one pass while playing 18 offensive snaps.

In the defensive backfield, where three top-100 picks from Adofo-Mensah’s first two drafts (Lewis Cine, Andrew Booth and Mekhi Blackmon) are no longer on the roster, the Vikings lack depth and are approaching a transition with 14th-year safety Harrison Smith possibly retiring after this year. On the offensive line, the Vikings gave Will Fries an $88 million deal while letting go of former second-round guard Ed Ingram, who’s enjoying a career reboot in Houston.

And while former UFL defensive tackle Jalen Redmond looks like a find for the Vikings, the team will face decisions after the season on the two 30-something defensive tackles (Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen) who have had middling performances after signing lucrative deals this offseason.

He likely won’t be the last veteran at a decision point for a team whose need to supplement its roster with young, affordable talent is as pressing as ever.