Minnesota Vikings: Grading Adam Thielen’s contract extension

The Minnesota Vikings have inked wide receiver Adam Thielen to a four-year extension, but how did the team fare with the pass-catcher’s new deal?

One of the breakout stars of the past two seasons comes from the Minnesota Vikings in the form of wide receiver Adam Thielen. After two years of middling production to start his career, he nearly hit the 1,000-yard mark in 2016. In the past couple of seasons since, he’s well eclipsed that mark with campaigns of 1,276 and 1,373 yards, respectively.

In the midst of this, Thielen has been one of the best bargain contracts in the NFL, making under $7 million annually. However, with the wideouts contract coming up in 2020, it was a foregone conclusion that wouldn’t be the case for much longer. Even still, the Vikings decided to act and lock up their valuable asset on offense.

On Friday, Thielen’s agency IFA announced on Instagram that the Vikings and their client had agreed to a four-year, $64 million contract extension, one that could be worth up to $73 million in incentives. This deal will keep Thielen in Minnesota through the 2024 season, pairing him with Stefon Diggs for the long term.

This move is far from a surprise given his production as a top-10 receiver, but is the deal a good one for the Vikings? Let’s hand out a grade and assess what’s happening.

This really isn’t a difficult one to call. For starters, the Vikings are wise to lock up Thielen now. With his performance in recent seasons and the price of wide receivers only going up, this deal is going to look better than it even does right now in the coming years. The timing of it is absolutely perfect on the part of the Minnesota front office.

Even if the deal is going to look like more of a bargain down the road, though, it’s still not a bad price for the wide receiver right now given the current market. Per Over the Cap and based on average salary per season, Thielen will be tied for the sixth-highest paid receiver in the NFL. However, the Vikings pass-catcher out-performed every receiver except for DeAndre Hopkins making more annually than he. That’s more than enough to justify the price tag for the wideout.

The reason that we land on “A-” as opposed to a bit higher grade is two-fold, though. For one, the Vikings will have over $30 million per year dedicated to two wide receivers when Thielen’s extension kicks in given Stefon Diggs’ deal. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is something that could cause headaches should anything go awry for either player.

In addition to that, Thielen will be 29 years old at the start of the 2019 season, meaning that this extension runs through his age-34 season. Given the decline of many receivers in their early 30s, that’s somewhat worrisome, even if he’s just now seemingly entering his prime.

Despite both of those things, though, this was the right move for Minnesota to lock up their guy and ensure Kirk Cousins keeps throwing passes to Thielen beyond the 2020 season — if Cousins is around beyond that.