The Draft Might Reveal A Lot About the Vikings' Front Office

In just over a week, the Minnesota Vikings will be locked inside the War Room at TCO Performance Center. The 18th-overall pick should yield several options that can help Minnesota rebound from a 9-8 campaign. Still, nobody is really sure what will happen when they’re on the clock.

Mock-draft analysts may disagree, as Dillon Thieneman has been a popular pick in case Harrison Smith hangs up the cleats. This is also not new in Vikings history, as the team once forgot to submit its pick before the 15-minute timer ran out (and still got Kevin Williams out of the deal).

But for a franchise that has attempted to lay low this offseason, it cannot hide from the draft, and the process may show the real direction this franchise is headed.

The concern goes back to an ill-fated afternoon in Seattle last November. Max Brosmer’s four-interception performance sent the Vikings to 4-8, and the rest of the year had a We’ll figure it out as we go approach. Kevin O’Connell watered down the offense for J.J. McCarthy, and the team went on a five-game winning streak to get above .500. But it felt like something needed to change.

For most franchises, that would have meant firings at the end of the season. But the Vikings kept Kwesi Adofo-Mensah through January and sent him to the Senior Bowl before informing him he had been fired when he returned to Minnesota.

From there, the offseason was about as organized as a Kyler Murray scramble. The Vikings held off on naming a full-time general manager after Adofo-Mensah was fired, and Rob Brzezinski has sounded like someone making sure the train doesn’t go off the tracks rather than the guy running the show.

Free agency also felt like running on autopilot, where the biggest signing was cornerback James Pierre. Reports that the Vikings want “a leader” as their next GM make everyone wonder what the plan is.

At this moment, it feels like Run it back, but with a different quarterback. McCarthy isn’t completely absolved from his struggles last season. But it also feels like the Vikings didn’t realize they had a flawed team.

To their credit, Jordan Addison shouldn’t be suspended for the first three games of the season, and Christian Darrisaw will be another year removed from a serious knee injury that sabotaged his 2025 season. But the Vikings had plenty of other issues with playcalling and a sense of dysfunction that makes Murray look like a big patch of Flex Seal on a leaking aquarium tank.

Perhaps the most maddening element going into the draft is that we still don’t know who is making the decisions for the Vikings. “Collaboration” has long been a buzzword at TCO Performance Center, but sometimes it’s good for someone to put their foot down. Common sense would say that O’Connell is in charge of selecting personnel, given Brzezinski’s background as a financial guru and salary cap wizard. However, there’s also a sense that defensive coordinator Brian Flores is heavily involved, given that the Vikings gave him $6 million per season to return to Minnesota.

That gives Minnesota’s draft a sense of unpredictability we’ve never seen. The Vikings have numerous holes to fill going into this year’s draft, but it feels like someone has to rise above the noise to get their guys. While O’Connell may want a top guy like Oregon tight end Kenyon Sadiq or Arizona State wide receiver Jordyn Tyson, Flores may want the type of blue-chip talent he’s rarely had with the Vikings, opting for Thieneman or a defensive lineman like Clemson’s Peter Woods.

Another option is looking down the road to fill some of these holes. The Green Bay Packers have done this well, grabbing depth to solve problems before they appear. But the Vikings may not be in a position to do that, given how poorly last season played out and the fact that jobs could be on the line if they don’t win a playoff game.

Then there’s the Jonathan Greenard situation. The Vikings could trade Greenard for more draft capital since they don’t want to pay him the reported $30 million. But it also doesn’t make sense for a team that wants to contend to give away a good player for less than a second-round pick.

It all creates a scenario where we feel the same way about the Vikings after the draft that we feel going into it. The optimistic fan would point out that a large chunk of this roster went 14-3 back in 2024. But the pessimist would remember that 4-8 start to last season and how all of the warts went away in the final five games only when they played teams ready for vacation or resting their starters for the playoffs.

Maybe Brzezinski has more say than we believe. He could stun everyone with a gutsy draft day trade to “go get his guy.” But it’s also likely we could be looking at a predictable, safe draft that won’t get anyone excited.

The Vikings could see this as safe, but it’s also a sign of a dysfunctional franchise that may not have a solid plan not only for the draft but beyond. If they nail the draft, that feeling will go away. Still, it adds a layer of intrigue for a team that always seems to make the mundane interesting.