Fingerprints of Vikings' risk-taking GM will be all over Sunday's game in Detroit

T.J. Hockenson will play the 26th game of his career at Ford Field on Sunday. He will walk to the field from the visitor's locker room for the first time, as part of a team he didn't expect would be the one to deal for him at the trade deadline.

"Just being in the division, you know?" Hockenson said Thursday. "I figured they might not want to see me twice a year. I think that's a fair thing to say. That's kind of why I didn't assume it was going to be in the division."

Vikings offensive coordinator Wes Phillips was just as surprised as Hockenson.

"'Really, we have a chance to get this guy?' " Phillips recalled. "But you know, there's a lot of factors in those types of trades: money, the direction of where they're going as opposed to us. For us to be able to get a player like that during the season, especially right around the time things that happen with Irv [Smith getting injured], it was just a nice surprise."

Vikings General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has closed 11 trades in his first year with the team. The Vikings' Nov. 1 deal with the Lions, acquiring Hockenson and two draft picks in exchange for a 2023 fourth-rounder and 2024 conditional fourth-rounder, was the third they'd made in the division, following two draft deals that provided the Lions and Packers opportunities to select receivers who will face the Vikings twice a year.

The deals elicited surprised reactions for good reason: They don't happen often in the NFL.

Including the Vikings' trades with the Lions and Packers, there were only five deals involving 2022 draft picks between division rivals. The Patriots and Dolphins made two of them, with New England acquiring wide receiver Isaiah Ford for a 2022 sixth-round pick in 2020 and getting receiver DeVante Parker and a fifth-round pick for a third-rounder a month before the draft. The Commanders sent a 2022 fifth-round pick to the Eagles for a sixth- and seventh-rounder during the 2021 draft.

But no deals between division rivals have likely been as consequential as the ones the Vikings struck this year. They will return to the spotlight in the next few weeks, with Hockenson's return to Detroit coinciding with the second game after ACL surgery for Jameson Williams, the receiver the Lions selected with a Vikings first-round pick in April.

Packers receiver Christian Watson — selected with the second-round pick Green Bay received from the Vikings — has turned around a rough rookie season, tying Randy Moss' rookie record with eight touchdowns in his last four games.

The Vikings turned the picks from the two trades into their first four selections in the draft, and the immediate results have been underwhelming. Injuries have limited first-rounder Lewis Cine and second-rounder Andrew Booth to a combined nine games; second-rounder Ed Ingram has faced a steep learning curve in pass protection while starting at right guard; and third-rounder Brian Asamoah has played 33 defensive snaps, though coach Kevin O'Connell has said he wants the linebacker playing more frequently.

At this point, though, an intellectually honest critique of the trades might need to consider the door Adofo-Mensah opened by making the draft-night deal with the Lions. Without it, it's fair to wonder if the Hockenson deal would have happened.

Consider what Lions GM Brad Holmes said after the draft trade in April: "I have so much respect for Kwesi. I remember when we first touched base on it, we were both in agreeance of, we're not into the real archaic [mind-set], like, 'You better not trade with somebody in your division.' But he was actually acquiring more starters [with draft picks] than we were.

"I totally understood the win on his part, so I didn't understand [the criticism of the trade]. I guess [I do] on the surface, but Kwesi's extremely intelligent, very forward-thinking, I'm a huge fan of him and I totally understand why he did that trade."

After the Hockenson deal, Holmes made similar comments about the views he and Adofo-Mensah share, adding, "When we make these kinds of decisions, I'm totally at peace. T.J. is a good football player, and the next time we play him, he'll still be a good football player. And so, he'll make a play or make some plays and score a touchdown, or whatever he does. And yeah, the camera will be on my face. I'll look at it, and I'll wave and that's just it."

Adofo-Mensah talked after the draft about how his background as a commodities trader on Wall Street meant he's used to a world where "you make decisions and they keep score, very quickly." It also means he was brought up in a world where risk is quantified, analyzed and managed, not treated like a bogeyman. It's possible the Vikings could have helped their rivals get two star receivers, but the GM didn't see that possibility alone as a reason not to make the deals, adding that he was fairly certain the Lions and Packers would have offered the same deals elsewhere.

At least in the case of the draft deal with the Lions, the trade helped start a conversation between Adofo-Mensah and Holmes about how soon they saw their respective teams contending and whether it might make sense to work together. When the Vikings got off to a hot start and saw a need to add a tight end, the Hockenson deal materialized quickly.

Adofo-Mensah said on draft night that Williams was one of the Vikings' favorite players in the draft, and O'Connell reiterated this week how much they liked the receiver. But the risk of playing against him wasn't enough to deter them.

"It's something you think about. Me and Kevin talked about it," Adofo-Mensah said. "And again, they've got to play the Minnesota Vikings. We don't got to play Jameson Williams; they've got to play the Minnesota Vikings."

Williams in silver and blue, Hockenson in purple and gold. As the Vikings try to clinch the NFC North and the Lions try to keep their playoff hopes alive, Sunday's matchup bears the fingerprints of two NFC North general managers who've shown no qualms about defying convention in dealing with one another.