VikesCentric: Report: Vikes are high with their trade value for Peterson

Vikings running back Adrian Peterson was reinstated to the league on Friday. He's under contract to the Vikings—so he's a Viking. Now begins the period of time up to the draft when we will hear all kinds of AP trade rumors. One came out on Saturday, and it just might trump them all.

Adam Caplan of ESPN reported that "the thought around the league" is that the Vikings want a "first round draft pick and more compensation" in a trade for Peterson.

"The more compensation would be this, they want a starting cornerback," Caplan said. "From what I've heard, they've really identified their number one need right now is cornerback," Caplan said.

Caplan also speculated that the Vikings might take a first and a second as compensation for Peterson, but neither "trade offer" is going to get many takers. Clearly the Vikings aren't very serious about trading Peterson. If this report actually were more than general speculation or a consensus from other teams around the league, than it would appear that the Vikings don't want to trade Peterson—as they have said for months.

Of course, like any good general manager would do, Vikings GM Rick Spielman would certainly listen to any trade offer for any player (whether he wants to trade him or not)--as you never know when a Herschel Walker-like offer will come along (never again). But according Caplan, Spielman is setting the bar pretty high.

Furthermore, to me the language in this report seems somewhat erroneous. To set the market with a 1st rounder and a starting cornerback is the kind of language that puts prospective trade partners right out of the running from the get-go. I just don't think many GM's say, "I want a first and a starting cornerback or else don't come calling" when putting one of their players on the market--unless they don't want to make a trade.

So it's hard to believe that Spielman just threw something out there. But if he did it was designed to limit the chances that any other team would respond to it. Perhaps Spielman told Peterson that he would try to trade him (as it was rumored that Peterson wanted but has never stated on the record), but Spielman likely told him he is not going to take peanuts for him in return. The Vikings have stated over and over that they want Peterson on their team, and if this report is true, they have clearly put a high value on him—the value that they feel he brings to the Vikings.

But that won't stop me from taking (and running with) one other point out of the report: the Vikings' desire to get a cornerback. Caplan said that they "identified their number one need right now is cornerback." And that could be another dubious assumption.

To begin with, it is a pretty specific request for a player. Certainly the Vikings have a need for a cornerback, but they have plenty of other needs also, so why just limit yourself to asking for a starting cornerback? If someone offered the Vikings a starting left guard or middle linebacker and a first round pick, wouldn't the Vikings jump at that and then select a cornerback with their own first round draft choice?

Even more to the point, when has Spielman ever been in the business of identifying his team's greatest need in the weeks running up to the draft? To begin with, I don't think he would do that, and secondly it would serve him no good purpose come draft day—that's how you get other teams jumping in front of you and taking the players you want. If he has indeed identified his greatest team need as cornerback, it's very possible it is just another Spielman pre-draft smokescreen.

"I talk to a lot of people, but I'll be frank," draft analyst Charles Davis told the Star Tribune. "I don't know that I trust anybody right now. I don't mean that they're lying, but no one wants to tip their hand. So we shall see what happens."

In the final analysis, while what Caplan is reporting is vague, but accurate—that is, it's what he is hearing around the league—it's hard to fathom those specifics coming from the Vikings. I do agree that the Vikings don't want to trade Peterson unless someone made them an offer they couldn't refuse, so they are setting the price pretty high.

Head over to Vikings Journal to check out Bo Mitchell's story on the Vikings draft picks with the most value in team history and then join in the conversation on the Vikings Journal forums, where everything Purple is dissected and discussed.