Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah sets the record straight about not trading down to acquire more NFL Draft picks

Kwesi Adofo-Mensah explains why the Vikings didn't trade down

The fact that the Vikings didn't trade down was a shocker on multiple levels, especially since the Houston Texans traded the very next pick away. Adofo-Mensah was asked about trading down and he gave an honest answer.

"People had called, but you know, it really didn't get heated up until before our pick, but we had really gone through these kind of simulation exercises with Donovan [Jackson], and what if we got offered, you know, X or Y? And nobody – in those moments, we really wanted to really like the player, and we were really happy with what we were getting. I'll never, I'm not going to say what people called, I think I just read that that was not a phone call we had received specifically, but just excited about Donovan and what we were able to get."

It felt odd in the moment, especially because the Giants gave a good amount, and the Atlanta Falcons traded even more for the 26th overall pick. They could have gotten a massive haul for the 24th overall pick, theoretically getting two third-round picks to move down 10 spots or a second, seventh, and next year's first-round pick from the Atlanta Falcons. It turns out that the guy they had targeted in Jackson wasn't going to be available, as the Texans were primed to take him at 25.

The other interesting element of the press conference came from a process standpoint of trying to generate more draft capital, and he gave a response that answers some questions.

"No, I can understand that. I said to our group, I was a golfer in high school. I was okay, wasn't great. But you know, when you start to get good at golf, is when you start removing, like the triple bogeys from around the double bogeys. And how do you do that is you hit one in the rough. You don't take your three wood out and start hacking away. Maybe take your seven iron, play the lie, get 50 yard short trip up and get up and down for a bogey worst case. And so to me, I think approaching this draft from a mindset of, hey, let's, let's just hit. If the play is hit the ball down the fairway. Let's do that. If it's gonna be four picks at four positions that we really want, four great character people, four skill sets we require, let's go do that, and we'll figure out everything else out. That's the mindset we've tried to approach and take, whether other things happen later down line, but we've kind of just gone from the whatever the whatever the course is kind of asking us to hit, we're going to hit that club out of the bag and see what happens."

The theory is simple: take what you have and maximize it. If you look at the 90-man roster right now, the Vikings don't have a lot of potential roster spots to fill, so having a small draft class wouldn't be the worst thing in the world this year. Plus, the Vikings have 9-10 projected picks next year, which is going to be huge for building the back end of the roster, especially as the big dollar amounts for players start to hit the books.

Adofo-Mensah also proves that he learned from his first NFL Draft and isn't going to make that mistake again.