When Adam Thielen was waived by the Minnesota Vikings on Monday, both Thielen and the Vikings issued statements indicating that the team was giving Thielen, who is going to retire after the season, one last chance to play for a contending team. But not everyone around the Vikings is completely buying it.
On Tuesday's edition of the Thor Talks Purple! Podcast, Thor Nystrom and Judd Zulgad painted a far different picture.
"Unless the team is like, 'We'll paint it this way, but we're done with your crap,' just retire," Zulgad said. "Just play out the string. Do what Harrison Smith's gonna do and retire. This notion that he's being let go, 'I'm gonna pursue, this is my last year and I'm gonna pursue opportunities,' who's gonna call him? And where is he gonna go? You know, dude, the season sucks. Just let it go. Play it out. Last game against the Packers, tip your helmet, tip your cap, whatever the hell you do in football and you're done playing. It drives me crazy that there was this storyline, 'Well, he wants to be let go to explore opportunities. Give me a freaking break. Dude, it's been a good career. Just retire.'"
Nystrom expressed a similar sentiment and also recalled how Thielen's reunion with the Vikings came to be, after he spent the 2023 and 2024 seasons with the Carolina Panthers.
"After I heard that, I was happy they gave him the walking papers," Nystrom said. "But what it made me think is, what a perfect marriage here. The Vikings, in a corner of their own making, they had thrown themselves over the barrel to allow themselves to get run roughshod over by Dan Morgan, who's not exactly a Mensa-level GM in the NFL, but he was running roughshod over them. It was continuing, 'Get the price up or we're not gonna do it,' right? And you end up extracting that late fourth-round value."
Nystrom continued.
"And then with this wide receiver, that forces his way out of Carolina, who essentially threw him a liferaft after the Vikings gave up on him the first time, and then Thielen, to his credit, had the resurgent couple seasons, but then Thielen forces his way back, further putting the Vikings over this proverbial barrel to get this thing done," he said. "Not a great look from Adam Thielen, forcing his way out and honestly, it would be a fitting end to his career now if he just wasn't signed...He can't get open anymore and he can't catch. It's gonna be hard to play NFL receiver anymore with that game."
Thielen, of course, was claimed on Tuesday by the Pittsburgh Steelers. With the Vikings in 2025, he caught only eight passes for 69 yards.