TRADE: Deal Pitch Gets Vikings First-Round Pick and $19 Million for Star QB
All signs point to the Minnesota Vikings adding a QB with franchise potential to their roster soon, but how the team will secure that player is still unknown.
With 6-foot-6 tight end Josh Dobbs starting the fourth game for Minnesota on Sunday, Dec. 10, it’s difficult to predict where the Vikings will fall in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft or which quarterback they’ll take. I landed there. But there is a signal caller Minnesota could get with a first-round pick, whether it’s 10th, 30th or somewhere in between. That player is Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields. After recent results in the NFL, the Panthers are very likely to get the first pick.
Ironically, it was five brutal plays by the Pittsburgh Steelers that set the stage for Fields to be available via trade in March.
After losing 2-10 to the Arizona Cardinals last Sunday, Pittsburgh lost 2-10 to the New England Patriots on Thursday night. The Carolina Panthers are already the only NFL team with one win in Week 14, and there is now a two-game gap between the Panthers and the two worst teams in the league. The rest of Carolina’s schedule isn’t bad, but the team has a better chance of winning two of its last five games. Chicago will receive the Panthers’ first-round pick next April after acquiring the 2023 top pick and other assets. That deal looks good now that the Bears missed out on drafting MVP candidate CJ. Stroud. If the team franchises a second QB in 2024, a deal like the one for Chicago GM Ryan Poles would seem brilliant. Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune wrote Wednesday that the Bears will likely reset their quarterbacks through the draft next spring.
“With Paul’s primary goal in mind and realizing the Bears don’t currently check all the boxes they want with Justin Fields, many signs seem to be pointing in one direction: draft a quarterback in or near the zone, which provides an excellent selection. Best in the draft,” Biggs wrote. Justin Fields is offering popular Season 2 Vikings gear for one fixed price.
Fields is entering the final season of his $19 million rookie contract, and if the Vikings trade him, he would also receive a fifth-year team option that would control Fields’ salary through 2025. That means Minnesota will spend two years developing the frontcourt under coach Kevin O’Connell and won’t have to start from scratch with a rookie.
The upside of a semi-veteran QB may be more valuable to the Vikings than other franchises, as the team just signed T.J. Hockenson signed a historic contract for his position and will likely sign the same deal with wide receiver Justin Jefferson this season. Rookies like LSU’s Jayden Daniels or Michigan’s JJ McCarthy will begin their careers well behind Fields in 2024 despite having played multiple seasons at the college level.
Additionally, if the Vikings achieve their goal of making the playoffs, next year’s picks could be so low that Daniels and McCarthy are off the board. The Bears will select USC’s Caleb Williams or North Carolina’s Drake May, and soon another team will select the rest.
Dobbs was a great story, but not a long-term solution. Kirk Cousins, 36, is expected to be out for more than a year as he is coming off an Achilles injury. Without regular-season tape to evaluate rookie fifth-round pick Jaren Hall, the Vikings are in a tough spot. The Vikings will need a permanent move to their franchise QB soon.
GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has a new QB for the first time in two years. At some point, the Vikings will have to take action. The Bears shouldn’t complain too much about the placement of the picks they would get in exchange for Fields if they traded him. If this is the value of the first round, they will return.
Fields, a 1,100-yard quarterback in 2022, could give Minnesota a dynamic skill set at a reasonable price, and the Vikings will have a better idea of the player they’re drafting than they would if they were going with a prospect. Or late in the first round. If O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah like what they’ve seen from Fields while playing in the NFC North division the past two seasons, a QB trade seems like a reasonable way to move forward.
