Trying to inhabit two spaces on a sports timeline is not a trick for the meek. Given the salary cap permutations of the NFL, attempting to win in the present while also rebuilding for the future can appear to be an errand fraught with mediocrity and unsavory compromises at both ends.
RandBall: Monday was another validating night for Vikings’ ‘competitive rebuild’
General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah used that term to describe the team’s approach after he was hired in 2022. Even a skeptic has to admit that so far it has worked, particularly relative to the paths other teams have taken.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
December 18, 2024 at 2:17AM
Nevertheless, that is what the Vikings set out to do in 2022 at the start of the tenures for head coach Kevin O’Connell and GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. It was Adofo-Mensah who articulated the vision most clearly, packaging it in a two-word sound bite that has clung to him for three seasons.
“When people look at teams, they sometimes do it in a very binary way,” Adofo-Mensah said in 2022. “They ask, ‘Are you either all-in or tearing down and rebuilding?’ And I don’t really look at the world that way. The way we look at it is we’re trying to navigate both worlds. We’re trying to live in today and tomorrow, or the competitive rebuild, however you want to phrase it or market it, and so I think that’s kind of how we’ve approached this offseason.”
Critics dug in. I called it a “non-competitive non-rebuild,” thinking the approach would doom the Vikings to more .500-ish seasons that had defined the end of the Mike Zimmer/Rick Spielman era.
And, well, I was wrong. Further evidence that a properly executed “competitive rebuild” can be the best path forward arrived Monday, as I talked about on Tuesday’s Daily Delivery podcast.
With a win over the Bears, the Vikings improved to 12-2 this season and 32-16 since the new regime arrived. They have done so while still managing to draft their quarterback of the future and clear copious amounts of cap space in 2025.
The Bears, of course, opted for a more traditional teardown and rebuild, hoping that by now they might start to be competitive. Instead, they are 4-10 this season and 14-34 since the start of 2022, when, like the Vikings, they started over with a new GM/head coach combo. They have already fired their head coach (Matt Eberflus) and two offensive coordinators since then. GM Ryan Poles looked like he wanted nothing more than to stop being shown by cameras late during the Vikings’ methodical 30-12 takedown on “Monday Night Football.”
On the adjacent and somehow less exciting MNF offering, the Falcons inched past the Raiders 15-9 while allowing Kirk Cousins only the most modest of game management duties and limiting him to just 17 pass attempts.
Atlanta, too, is trying its hand at a competitive rebuild after signing Cousins while also drafting Michael Penix Jr. The difference there is that Atlanta is stuck in the exact mediocrity I feared would doom the Vikings, sitting at 7-7. And unlike the Vikings, who have the sixth-most projected cap space in 2025, the Falcons still have Cousins’ swollen deal on the books and have the fourth-least amount of space.
What the Vikings attempted works only with good players and good coaches. Adofo-Mensah’s drafts have been famously average (or worse), which could haunt them in the future, but the Vikings have been among the best in the league with undrafted free agents and veteran signings. The skills of those players have been leveraged by O’Connell and defensive coordinator Brian Flores, the backbone of a top-five NFL coaching staff.
“Right now, in the competitive rebuild, we want to get to a place where there’s no rebuild, it’s just competitive in a window, and I think we’re close to that,” Adofo-Mensah said in January. “It’s going to take a big offseason ... and I’m excited for the challenge.”
The Vikings’ regime (probably) will be judged ultimately on how J.J. McCarthy fares, given that his three years of bargain QB salary (and a reasonably priced fifth-year option) starting in 2025 is a cheat code that can help build a championship roster.
Then again, this team is showing this year that it can excel even without paying huge money for a veteran QB. Meanwhile, the Falcons on Tuesday benched Cousins as the starter in favor of Penix and the Bears are one more bad coaching hire away from another doomed cycle.
Of the four franchises on display Monday, there’s no doubt which one is on the best path.
Vikings defensive lineman Jerry Tillery had nothing on his stat sheet beyond a single assisted tackle against the Bears on Monday night. But his coach and teammates gave him credit for so much more.
