Minnesota Vikings: 3 Players who need to step up in 2020
2. Adam Thielen
On the offensive side of the ball alongside quarterback Kirk Cousins, running back Dalvin Cook and others, a player that is going to have to put together a top-notch season in 2020 is Vikings wide receiver Adam Thielen.
Over the course of the last few seasons and really since he came into the league as an undrafted free agent in 2014, Thielen has been paired alongside some dominant wide receiving talent within the Vikings offense while continuing to take steps into evolving as a dominant target year-after-year along the way.
Most recently, the duo of Thielen and Stefon Diggs has been a unit that poised problems for opposing defenses annually in Minnesota. With Diggs now gone after he was traded to the Buffalo Bills this offseason after often expressing his frustrations with the organization, Thielen will no doubt be the top target in the passing game for Cousins and company in 2020.
Thielen has had a top-notch career to this point while being a cool story of a Division II player from Minnesota State-Mankato in Minnesota and a Minnesota native signing with his home state squad and emerging as a solid player in purple and gold.
Leading into the 2019 year, Thielen has also been a reliable player as far as health and being able to remain on the field throughout the regular season. But in 2019, he missed six games while dealing with a few different injuries that kind of put a damper on his sixth season in the NFL and with the Vikings.
During the 2019 campaign, Thielen finished the year with 30 receptions for 418 yards and six touchdowns, being targeted a total of 48 times during that 10-game span. The two years prior, however, Thielen managed to put together two Pro Bowl years with around 100 catches and over 1,200 receiving yards in each of those seasons.
This season, although Minnesota will still rely on Cook and the running game to set the pace for the offense, Thielen will have to step up and not only stay healthy, but now lead the Vikings receiving group while not having that dominant teammate on the other side of the field like Diggs that he has had in past years.