Minnesota is coming off a year where it went 10-6 in the regular season and won a playoff game, but if the team wants similar success, it will have to do so with a lot of new faces.
Minnesota saw Xavier Rhodes, Trae Waynes, Linval Joseph, Stephen Weatherly, Mackensie Alexander and others sign elsewhere in free agency. The Vikings also traded Stefon Diggs to the Bills for draft picks.
The Vikings drafted a first-round wide receiver: Justin Jefferson. He can attempt to replace Diggs.
Later in the first round, the team drafted Jeff Gladney, who can help replace Waynes, Rhodes and Alexander at corner.
So there are rookies with potential, but the Vikings have a difficult schedule, and the team doesn’t have time for the new players to go through steep learning curves.
Here are some challenges the team will have to face:
The salary cap
One of the reasons the Vikings had to replace the team’s old players with draft picks is because of Minnesota’s current salary cap situation.
Over The Cap founder Jason Fitzgerald said the Vikings are at an estimated $7.7 million in cap space based off salary projections for draft picks. If rookies do not pan out in the way that Minnesota hopes, then the team will not have the option of signing a player in free agency at the moment.