Adam Thielen released

Aloha, Skoloholics! We knew moves were coming, and now another long-time Minnesota Viking will be playing elsewhere next year. The Minnesota Vikings have released their long-time hometown wide receiver, Adam Thielen.

It’s a sad day for many of us, as many fans love Adam Thielen, me included. He has a great story, worked his way onto the field after squeaking onto the practice squad via a tryout camp, and became one of the top wide receivers in the NFL during the prime of his career. Sadly, he is past his prime now, and due to horrible contract moves by the previous Vikings GM Rick Spielman, keeping Thielen was next to impossible. Despite the team’s and Adam’s efforts, they couldn’t agree on a contract re-negotiation, so moving on from Thielen was the right move for the Vikings and for Thielen. The Star-Tribune has more on Thielen’s release by the Vikings.

Thielen was due more than $19 million this year, and the team (correctly) felt that Thielen was no longer able to produce at that level. Releasing Thielen only cleared $6.4 million in cap space due to the $13.5 million dead cap hit (signing bonus) created from past incidents of kicking the can down the road by the Vikings front office.

I think everyone was expecting this move, but seeing it happen certainly adds a finality to the end of Thielen’s tenure with the Vikings. It’ll be a little odd next year to see the Vikings offense operating without Thielen on the field. Looking ahead, it’ll be interesting to see whether the team pursues someone to be WR2 via the draft or free agency, or whether they promote KJ Osborn (I spelled it right this time) to the role.