PurplePTSD: Rick Spielman's Trade Mistakes

Press release from the PurplePTSD:

K. Joudry

2022-02-13

For the most part, Vikings fans will reflect on Rick Spielman’s time as the team’s GM with some mixed feelings. He brought in some great talent, and he also put together some really shrewd deals. He also failed to fix the offensive line, and the QB spot was never fully settled in his time. An area that doesn’t get as much discussion, though, is Rick Spielman’s trades.

The three that come to mind are Sam Bradford, Yannick Ngakoue, and Chris Herndon. It’d be fair to say that all three were a failure.

Bradford, in fairness, did perform pretty well when he was healthy. The issue, of course, is that he was seldom healthy. Of all of Rick Spielman’s trades, this one is perhaps the most understandable. Teddy Bridgewater (who should be brought back) was lost for the season with a brutal knee injury. The team was expecting to compete, but the loss of their QB1 made it next to impossible to do so. The team thus made a move for Bradford.

In many ways, it was a forgivable mistake.

What is perhaps the worst trade of the bunch is the one for Ngakoue. Moving out a 2nd and conditional 5th is a fair bit, especially since he only played 6 games for the Vikings. In some ways, Spielman deserves a modest amount of credit for acknowledging his mistake and bringing back some draft capital in the Ravens deal shortly thereafter.

Nevertheless, this one is bad. Shouldn’t the team have done more due diligence before sending out so much draft capital? One would think that they were completely confident he’d be a great fit beforehand.

Finally, the Herndon deal. It was Cole Smith’s earlier piece on the tight ends that got me thinking about this one. Rick Spielman’s decision to trade for Herndon didn’t work. The TE finished the year with a modest 4 catches for 40 yards and a TD. That’s a half of football for the league’s preeminent TEs, so putting together these numbers over a 17-game schedule isn’t great.

The hope ought to be that Kwesi Adofo-Mensah – a trader by trade – does a better job pulling off trades.

This press release was produced by the PurplePTSD. The views expressed here are the author’s own.