tukafan21

Well that's my point, if he couldn't make the initial 53 here, he probably knows that if he signs with us, it's as a locker room mentor and he probably won't play much, if not even just being inactive on game days. If other teams are offering him a chance at real playing time, it's then which does he prefer, to be closer to his family or to actually get to play again. I can see why he'd need to talk it over with them

Well, also saw that there were other teams interested in him, so maybe the talking it over with his family is more about whether he wants to stay home in Carolina, or go play somewhere else where he might get more snaps.

Yep, all NFL players learn everything they will need to know for their careers by the start of their 2nd season, they never learn and improve after that. Oh, and if you’re a 1st round pick, you learn all that in the first couple months of the draft, so T-Mac is good for the rest of his career too. Sorry Horn Jr, you’re just SOL I guess

People overestimate what coaches do. It’s like you’ve never watched the sidelines during a game and see the players talking about what they’re seeing out there and giving each other pointers to play better. Yes, coaches do some of that, but people are straight up sticking their heads in the sand if they think seasoned vets don’t impart wisdom onto younger players every day of the season.

But in any profession in life, you also have people who help teach you the things they've learned over their career to make you better, particularly early in your career. I'm not saying we need a vet to be taking a ton of snaps or targets, but someone who has been around the block (as an actual WR, not a special teamer) who can help these guys out.

It's about the inexperience of the room Coaches can't teach players everything, I just really don't like the lack of a seasoned vet WR (Moore doesn't really count with his 115 career receptions) to help these guys out. Even just the in-between series stuff where the vets are giving the young guys tips and pointers on things, that will be missed if we don't bring someone else in (or Renfrow back).

That's the total number of catches our WR corps has in the NFL

In a make or break year for Bryce to prove he can be the guy... Tommy Tremble and David Moore are the only pass catchers (not including RBs) who have played more than 1 NFL season. That's just scary to think about, no matter how much potential these young guys have.

Honestly, if the two of them wanted out after getting a raise this offseason to come back, then I'd rather have IR'd him with a papercut and just paid him to not be able to play this year. They only wanted out because the Vikings badly needed a WR, doesn't mean we should have bent over and let the Vikings shove their horn up our ass

My feelings about trading Thielen never had anything to do with Bryce, it was always 100% about having Thielen around to mentor the young WRs. Right now, our Top 4 WRs are all 1st or 2nd year players and so is our 6th. That's so dumb, you needed someone like Thielen in there to help mentor the room, we really need to bring in a seasoned vet who is a "pro's pro" type of guy (or just bring back Renfrow, as again, it's not about on the field for me, it's about off).

It's a 4th round pick 2 drafts from now, when we'll also be giving up a 5th round pick in that same draft. While then getting a 5th in the next draft and giving up what will be a 6th or 7th rounder depending how well Thielen does. Which means we likely just traded Thielen away to move up 20 or so picks on the 3rd day of back to back drafts. It makes no sense

Also, doesn't this now mean David freaking Moore is currently the only WR on the team who has played more than 1 season in the NFL? So so dumb.

So we traded Thielen to move up 1 round in 2027 and then depending how he plays this year, move up 1 or 2 rounds from the 6th or 7th into the 5th in 2026. What a beyond moronic trade, this makes absolutely no sense, I didn't even want to trade him for a 4th, but I'd have taken a single 5th for him in 2026 over this garbage trade. Good lord.

Never thought Renfrow wouldn’t make it, that’s quite surprising after all the great word about him in camp.

If Chinn was on this defense right now, he'd probably be one of our starting ILB's this year I hated that Evero refused to use him, but we're even more depleted at ILB right now than we were then, so I think it would be different.

I wouldn't mind the team looking into him given our need at both ILB and Safety, who knows, maybe we can find a role for him somewhere.

Get well soon!

As I've said numerous times the last few days, having Thielen on the field has literally 0% to do with my views on this (I've even said I think Renfrow is going to take a ton of snaps from Thielen anyways). He has more value to this team without playing a single snap than a 2026 5th round draft pick does for the franchise. His value is helping set up T-Mac, XL, Coker, and Horn for long term success by helping them learn how to be pros, how to go about their business, how to train, how to do all the little things that helped turn Thielen from a D2 undrafted player into a borderline Vikings legend.

He only wants to be traded because it's the Vikings who are calling. If he didn't want to be here, he could have retired, instead he took a pay raise to come back for another season. I get it, it's an opportunity that he'd like to take, but we shouldn't cut off our nose to spite our face because he now wants to jump at this opportunity less than two weeks before the season starts. I'm not against trading him, I'm just against trading him for a return that doesn't help our team as much as having him on the roster would. I'll put it this way, if a 5th is the best we can get for him from the Vikings and he's now dug in on not wanting to stay this year, I'm saying screw you and trading him to any of the other 30 teams besides the Vikings for the best offer we can get. He was perfectly happy here a week ago, if the Vikings soured him on that and then want to get him for peanuts, then screw them both.

Why don't we just say they can shove the late round draft picks up their ass? If they want a player they will be starting at WR in Week 1, I want a MLB in return that we can start Week 1. Starter for a Starter Not Starter for a draft pick we'll be debating whether or not they should make the final 53 man roster in 2026.

Why? No. This isn't a situation of a player we want to trade because we have no use for them. He's our starting slot WR, our leader of the young WR room, Bryce's safety option the last 2 years who he has good chemistry with. If the Vikings didn't run into WR trouble, we'd never have been even considering trading him, so why in the world should we give him up for fair market value in a vacuum for Thielen and disregard what losing him off our roster will do for us this year? A 5th round pick in 2026 is a negligible draft pick, especially with this season being so make or break for Bryce and Canales.

The Vikings acquiring all these late round picks has me feeling like we're about to see another CMC situation play out here. Trade a player we really like for the equivalent of what we want for them on the draft pick chart, but because of a bunch of late round picks instead of the one pick value we actually want. Which will do the same thing in the end, nothing, because 6th and 7th round picks rarely work out to begin with, or we're just going to use them to move up 10 picks in the 3rd or 4th round to take another DJ Johnson

Yep, just found it... https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/45531014/top-10-nfl-cornerbacks-execs-scouts-2025-espn-jeremy-fowler-position-rankings Horn comes in at #7 #8 on the list was Jaylon Johnson, who is 68th in this Top 100 #9 on the list was Quinyon Mitchell, who is 81st in this Top 100 #10 on the list was was Devon Witherspoon, who is 100th in this Top 100 Marlon Humphry was an Honorable Mention, and is 88th in this Top 100

Wasn't it ESPN who had executives from each team rank players at each position and Horn came in at like 7 or 8 in the league?

It's not about age, it's about just having more than a year of experience like the rest of our WR room. A 27 year old player who has been in the league for 4 or 5 years could very well be a mentor, if they're the right type of player/personality. If nothing else, just watching how Thielen goes about his business would be beneficial to our super young room, not because he's 35, but because of how he does his job. But he's also proven to be a willing mentor over his career, which makes him that much more valuable, again, not because of age, because of everything he brings to the table. And no, you don't NEED players like that to be successful, but when you have them in house, and you have 1st round WRs in the last two years and two other WRs are an UDFA and a 6th rounder from the last two years, then you shouldn't be jumping at the chance to trade that player away for a fair market value. He brings more to the team than a 5th rounder next year does, and quite probably even a 4th. If the Vikings don't want to give us a 3rd, or a LB or DB, then I don't see trading him helping the team this year or in the long run.