Vikings made one crucial mistake at trade deadline that will keep being felt

There's no two ways about it, the Minnesota Vikings behind the direction of general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah exited the NFL Trade Deadline looking clearly like one of the big winners. They weren't the most active team in the league, to be sure, but the moves they made while having to juggle limited resources were impressive.

When starting left tackle Christian Darrisaw suffered a season-ending knee injury, the Vikings acted quickly in a limited offensive tackle market to acquire Cam Robinson from the Jaguars. Robinson isn't the same caliber of player as Darrisaw, to be sure, but the move mitigated a potential disaster on the offensive line for a team finding itself in contention.

That same thought process could be applied to Minnesota's previous trade, sending a 2026 pick-swap on Day 3 for veteran running back Cam Akers, giving Kevin O'Connell's offense a bit more reliable Aaron Jones insurance should the veteran back with a relative injury history suffer another setback at some point this year.

Having said that, as the trade deadline came and went, there was one move tied the Vikings' limited resources that should've been made and, based on some post-deadline reporting, could've been made but wasn't. And Minnesota might pay a price for that.

Vikings dropped the ball not trading LB Brian Asamoah II

While the Vikings were viewed rightly as one of the buyers at the trade deadline, there was plenty of chatter that 2022 third-round pick Brian Asamoah II could be moved. He's not been a part of Brian Flores' defensive rotation, playing fewer than 20 snaps this season, and his draft pedigree doesn't align with him being solely a special teams piece.

More importantly, though, ESPN insider Jeremy Folwer ($) noted on Wednesday that Asamoah was a player he was monitoring leading up to the deadline. He reported that the Vikings had discussions about moving the linebacker and there was interest but, in the end, Minnesota elected to hang onto him.

On one hand, you can understand that logic. This is a defense that was not expected to perform at the level it has under Flores this season and keeping familiar depth in place can be valuable. However, when you zoom out to the 30,000-foot view of the situation Minnesota is currently in, a depth piece might not be as valuable as some draft picks would've been.

The Vikings, as mentioned, are one of the poorest teams in terms of immediate draft capital. In the 2025 NFL Draft, after the trades to move up for Dallas Turner and to acquire an extra first-round pick even before that, Minnesota has only four picks: a first-rounder, two fifth-rounders and potentially a seventh-rounder from the Steelers in the Jesse Davis trade.

While this season has been an unexpected surprise as a contender, this is a roster and organization that has to be thinking about the future, especially after drafting J.J. McCarthy in the first round this past April. A first-round pick and three Day 3 selections isn't conducive to that. Subsequently, it's hard to see how acquiring even another Day 3 pick for Asamoah to potentially have a package to move up from the fifth round wouldn't have helped the cause.

Adofo-Mensah has proven himself unafraid of getting creative to find solutions and, perhaps, there's opportunities that will open up to do just that in order to attain more draft capital. At the same time, trading Asamoah would've been the simplest way to do that in the immediate. It's a victory at the trade deadline, but not a perfect score because of that.