tukafan21

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.

It's crazy that you don't understand the value of having those type of players when the rest of those position rooms are as young as they are. Coaches coach, on the field and in the film room. But players need vets to teach them the ropes about how to go about being a professional football player at their position. They need the locker room mentorship, a place the coaches are only in on Gamedays. Coaches run the drills, they can only coach up so many players between reps when they're also running the drill. Vets like Thielen pull the young player aside and help coach them up between reps. Thielen is one of the most "a pro's pro" guys of his generation, he had a hall of very good type of career as an undrafted D2 player who had to make his way in the league by out working and being more precise than the other players. If Renfrow wasn't here to take on that role, this wouldn't even be a starting discussion for me, 4 of our Top 6 WRs are rookies or in their 2nd year, they need a Thielen and/or Renfrow around to help them reach their potential.

I'm surprised Horn isn't on there, but in reality, it's not exactly the craziest thing for us to not have anyone on there. That's only 3.125 players per team who would make the list if evenly distributed. There are obviously a whole bunch of teams that have more than 3 players deserving of making the list, and that obviously will take spots away from the lesser teams to get someone on the list.

Maybe the most ridiculous pro bowl selection of all time? The guy started 4 games (played in 6), went 2-2 as a starter, and had 658 yards passing, 2 TDs, and 3INTs, with 137 yards and 1 TD rushing. Honestly, how did he make the pro bowl?

He has a live arm, and if you don't have one of the top backup QB's in the league who could start for a few teams, that's the type of backup you want to have as they might make mistakes, but they're also going to make a few plays too.

Totally different situations, those teams were ready to move on from those players and were shopping them. We aren't looking to trade Thielen, the Vikings are in serious need for a WR who can play a meaningful role Week 1 and have a significant connection with Thielen of course. Honestly, if the Vikings were to announce to the league that they are trading their 3rd rounder for the best WR offered to them, how many better players than Thielen would they get offered? It's not like teams are usually trying to trade away startable WRs at this time of the year. We just happen to also be in a unique situation where yea, Thielen is our starting slot WR, but Renfrow might just be more effective this year anyways and the hope is that either of them are our 4th best WR this year as well. Thielen is the leader of our very young WR room, I'm not trying to trade that away for a fair value trade, you need to make it worth it to us, and a 4th rounder next year really isn't a ton of value, it's hopefully a backup player in 26 who might be able to carve out a role in 27. I'm not saying he's worth a 3rd, I'm just saying that unless it's that high, I don't see the value in trading him for a draft pick. But a LB or DB that will play meaningful snaps this year is still my preference, if we're giving up a player who will play meaningful snaps for them on offense, give us one on defense for him.

Better not do it for a 5th, and I'm even on the fence about doing it for a 4th. I think we should trade Thielen since this is his last year here anyways and we have such a deep WR room right now, but I'd rather trade him for a LB or DB. If we can't get one of those, I think I'd want a 3rd. Once you get into the 4th, the value on the back end probably doesn't outweigh having him around this year for the young guys to learn from.

This is honestly shocking He's the 2nd most accurate kicker in NFL history, has only missed a handful of games in his career, twice lead the league in FGA, was the league leader in XPA and XPM in a season, and lead the league in points one year too (while also having the most FG's that season too). Really surprising that he hasn't been named to either of those teams yet

By the end of 2029, he should have passed Moore's 5,201 and be sitting only behind Smitty, Moose, and Olsen. EDIT: realized you might have meant this as 4th overall, some of the other posts were just about rankings among WRs and excluding TEs and RBs

So basically, T-Mac is going to be our 4th leading WR of all time before he's even eligible for his first extension. Actually just looked and if he stays healthy and is the player I expect him to be, he'll be Top 5 amongst WRs in Rec, Yards, and TDs before he's extension eligible. 176 Rec, 2424 yards, and 19 TDs are the 5th best all time for our WRs, there is a legitimate chance he beats all of them by the end of his 2nd season, but at worst should pass all of them during his 3rd.

Mid season the opportunity might not be there, part of the Vikings need is to have him the first few weeks. The Vikings right now will get us the best return on him in a trade, can’t see a scenario where any team would need a WR so bad mid season that they give up more for him than whatever the Vikings will right now.

Nah, because if they weren't planning on keeping Horn, he likely wouldn't have played at all, hoping they could then sneak him through to the PS

I think that means he's a lock to make the team but they know he'll be 5th or worse on the depth chart, so they wanted to get him as many snaps as possible before he ends up getting minimal snaps in the regular season.

huh? If Thielen stays here this year, I'd bet he takes less than 10% of his snaps lined up outside, and I'm being very generous with that 10% T-Mac, XL, Coker, Renfrow, and Horn I think are all more likely to be lined up outside on any given play than Thielen would be at this point in his career. This is all about Renfrow as he's the Thielen replacement if we trade him. If we're not confident about Renfrow's health, this is a non starter for the team to even discuss.

It all comes down to if the staff is confident in Renfrow staying healthy. Thielen and Renfrow will likely never be on the field together and they both can play a short yardage role out of the slot well. If we're confident in Renfrow's health, there is zero reason to not trade Thielen, get something for him while we can, whether it a pick next year or hopefully a LB or DB we can use this year. That also allows us to keep Moore for special teams as well, which I think makes for a better roster.

Exactly, creating cap room through extensions for the current season is only needed when you're already over the cap or barely above it and want to sign a few players. What we did here is just about the extension as any unused cap just gets rolled into next year's cap space.