In Year 3, Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and coach Kevin O’Connell have built the team they want. Can they win with it?

The Vikings had just signed Justin Jefferson to the four-year, $140 million deal that would make him the highest-paid non quarterback in NFL history before their mandatory minicamp in June. When asked to summarize all the activity he had overseen in the previous three months — drafting J.J. McCarthy and Dallas Turner to replace Kirk Cousins and Danielle Hunter, adding 14 unrestricted free agents and signing Jefferson — General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah zoomed out even further.

“Honestly looking back at it, Kevin and I set forth a path two years ago,” Adofo-Mensah said on June 4, referring to Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell. “We have a document that says all we wanted to accomplish, and I think for the most part, we did it in a big-picture thing. There’s always moves where you feel like you could have been a little better here, a little better there, but big picture, I feel like we have a young roster with players before their prime, entering their prime, at positions that matter.”

The glee from Jefferson’s catch in Buffalo, or the 33-point comeback over the Colts to win the NFC North title in 2022? A welcome, but temporary, sugar rush. The malaise of a 2023 season marred by turnovers early, injuries in the middle and defensive inexperience late? A pernicious cost of doing business.

It was always about 2024, when the Vikings’ decisionmakers felt they’d have a refreshed roster built around players brought in to fit a particular culture and the spending room to pursue high-level talent. They’ve arrived with a quarterback (McCarthy), left tackle (Christian Darrisaw), wide receiver (Jefferson) and pass rusher (Turner) signed through at least 2027, and a projected $65 million of cap space for 2025.

Just 12 of the players on the Vikings’ 53-man roster predate Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell in Minnesota. That list includes cornerstones like Jefferson and Darrisaw, a player (safety Harrison Smith) who will be in Hall of Fame consideration and three of Darrisaw’s colleagues on the offensive line (Blake Brandel, Garrett Bradbury and Brian O’Neill). But the Vikings dispatched veterans with hefty contracts like Eric Kendricks, Adam Thielen and Dalvin Cook last year, before saying goodbye to Hunter and letting Cousins sign a larger deal with Atlanta than he was offered to stay in Minnesota. According to Over the Cap, the Vikings return only 56.5% of their players from the 2023 season, the fifth-smallest percentage in the NFL.

Of the 12 holdovers from Rick Spielman’s final team in 2021, the Vikings have signed nine to new or restructured deals since Adofo-Mensah became GM. It means that in Year 3, Adofo-Mensah has built a roster almost exclusively of players he acquired or decided to keep.

“I never want to make things about myself in terms of fingerprint or input and things like that. It has been a process to get to this point, but the process never stops, right?” Adofo-Mensah said in July. “It’s this never ending pursuit of building the team you want to build and being able to do the things you want to do on a football field. But I do think it feels like a different place than it has been in the previous [two years].”

Now comes the hard part.

The NFC North, the only division in the league to send two teams to the second round of the playoffs last year, appears as formidable as it’s been in years, with the Lions and Packers holding Super Bowl aspirations and the Bears adding offensive talent around No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams. The days of beating overmatched division opponents are gone, and after Sunday’s opener against the Giants, the Vikings play three straight games against 2023 playoff teams before facing Aaron Rodgers and the Jets in London.

Though quarterback Sam Darnold could reset his career in an offense stocked with talent, McCarthy had impressed enough in camp that, had he fared well in the first-team work the Vikings planned for him, he might have won the No. 2 QB spot and even pushed Darnold for the top job. The Vikings will have to wait until 2025 to see if their hopes for McCarthy are realized; once they decided any attempt at a late-season return from a torn meniscus was too hasty, the Vikings put him on injured reserve on Aug. 16 following his knee surgery.

The summer brought the Vikings more turmoil than perhaps at any time since their current regime took over. On July 6, rookie cornerback Khyree Jackson was killed along with two of his high school teammates in a three-car accident in Prince George’s County, Md. Six days later, wide receiver Jordan Addison was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving after he was found asleep at the wheel of a car blocking a lane of traffic near Los Angeles International Airport.

Second-year cornerback Mekhi Blackmon tore his ACL during the first practice of training camp; a spate of injuries had the Vikings adding six defensive backs to their roster during camp, before cutting their losses on Lewis Cine and Andrew Booth Jr., Adofo-Mensah’s first two picks as Vikings GM. Two days after a striking preseason debut on Aug. 10 against the Raiders, McCarthy returned to the Vikings’ facility reporting right knee soreness; an MRI showed he’d torn his meniscus.

“There’s no question that it has been eventful and, in many cases, some tough circumstances,” O’Connell said, looking back on the summer on Aug. 22. “I’ve told you guys before my number one role is to be a constant rock of steadiness and being the same guy every day. Anybody can do that when things are good, and things are easy or you’re not experiencing adversity. … I learned a long time ago that there’s no sense feeling sorry for yourself, for your circumstances. There’s a place to be there for your team on a 24/7, 365-day basis, but never without projecting hope and genuine excitement because that’s how I feel about this organization and our players and coaches.”

Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell are entering the third season of four-year contracts; co-owner Mark Wilf said on Aug. 6 the Vikings are not currently discussing extensions for either the coach or the GM, adding, “We’re focusing on the season ahead.” While the Vikings have plenty of time to revisit deals for their football leadership, McCarthy’s injury means Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell won’t be able to point to tangible results from the quarterback while making their case.

The Vikings employed one-year extensions in the past for Leslie Frazier, Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer; they could use the same option to give their current group more time with McCarthy before making a long-term commitment. Wilf repeated ownership’s oft-stated goal of competing for championships; the Vikings’ move to sign veteran cornerback Stephon Gilmore to a one-year, $7 million contract last month shows they don’t view 2024 as a rebuilding year.

They are more optimistic about their roster, and Darnold, than most of the preseason predictors. During his offseason survey of the roster, Adofo-Mensah identified several players he believes are on the verge of taking off. “I don’t want to say them specifically to you, just not to put undue pressure on certain people,” he said. “But we just believe in this team.”

It is the first team, in a sense, that Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell have built free of the moorings from the Vikings’ past. There will be others, as the Vikings explore the financial freedom that comes with a young quarterback, and there will be futures for the coach and GM staked solely on their progress toward ownership’s mandate of contention.

The course is theirs to chart; the results are theirs to own.

“When we get hired to do these jobs, they ask us to do them in a certain way to a certain level,” Adofo-Mensah said. “In essence, you’re trying to win championships. And that’s the question, Kevin and I always ask ourselves: are we setting the team up to do that? It’s not, ‘Can we win a championship with [me] as the GM?’ Obviously, that would be nice. But our sole focus is [championships], otherwise we wouldn’t be genuine or truthful to the team that we oversee or the people in this building. So that’s just gonna guide our logic.”

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