Vikings trade for Mason Cole

Posted by Charean Williams on March 25, 2021, 2:47 PM EDT
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The Cardinals are trading offensive lineman Mason Cole to the Vikings, Mark Sanchez of ESPN reports. Arizona will get a sixth-round draft choice in return, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Media.

The Vikings could play Cole, a center with the Cardinals, at guard, Rapoport adds.

Cole started 14 games last season.

He joined the Cardinals as a third-round choice in 2018. In three seasons in Arizona, Cole played 46 games with 32 starts.

The Vikings expressed interest in free agent guard Nick Easton, who played for them from 2015-18, but Easton continues to visit other places.

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32 responses to “Vikings trade for Mason Cole”

  1. Mason Cole.😌

    The Cardinals won that trade. Only a 6th round pick, but if anyone saw him play and why the Cardinals dumped him, you would see that a 6th round pick is a great return for Cole.

    He will be a immediate starter for the Vikings. The clear worst OL in the NFL, it is not even close.

    Nick Easton turned them down fast.✋

  2. Low risk deal. Even if he’s not All-Pro or even Pro-bowl caliber. Good depth move at the least.

  3. Another undersized offensive lineman, so when the Vikings need to drive the ball at the end of a game they’ll still get pushed back on the run as well as getting pushed back in the pocket on the pass. Zone blocking is good during a game and during a season when you can build those statistics-but not in the final minutes of a game when you really need to move the ball-the offensive line does not hold up because they’re too small…………..

  6. Backup IOL. Probably more useful than an end of 6th round compensatory pick IOL pick.

  7. freefromwhatyouare says:
    March 25, 2021 at 2:54 pm
    Mason Cole.😌

    The Cardinals won that trade. Only a 6th round pick, but if anyone saw him play and why the Cardinals dumped him, you would see that a 6th round pick is a great return for Cole.

    He will be a immediate starter for the Vikings. The clear worst OL in the NFL, it is not even close.

    Nick Easton turned them down fast.✋

    ———————
    Lol…can’t really “win” a trade that nets a 6th rd pick for a guy they drafted in the 3rd rd…that’s called buying high and selling low…and all the Vikings really need from the dude is to provide depth…that’s about all they would have gotten from a 6th rd O-lineman anyway…at least this guy has NFL experience and position versatility…who knows if it will work out or not…it’s a low round pick for a low risk depth player…

  9. Does anyone have an idea of WHY the Cards dumped him? I have no info about that and have to be curious, since they recently invested a high Draft Pick for him.

  11. Nick Easton will sign with MN… The guy is obviously over valueing himself with the injury history he has. MN gave him a career, idk why he would be salty towards them… Idk who mason cole is, but it’s nice to have a new gaurd with some upside. I also don’t know what scheme AZ runs, but maybe he will be better in the zone scheme Minny runs.

  13. sterling7 says:
    March 25, 2021 at 2:59 pm
    Another undersized offensive lineman
    //////
    6’5″, 300 pounds.

  14. I was going to ask for some insight on this guy, but I see the Packer fans have already told us it’s the worst trade the nfl has ever seen. So….

  15. So the Cards had already traded for pro bowl center Rodney Hudson, which made Cole expendable. Another dude with a year left on his contract. Hard to go wrong with trading a 6th rounder.

  16. O Lines Matter! OLM! No OLM no Peace!. This is a another white dude who cannot block.

  17. With Brett Jones unsigned they had no backup center. This is probably as good a low dollar move as any. But if anyone things we can take a bad line, subtract a good left tackle and make everything hunky dory by investing a 6th round pick, you are nuts. Hopefully there are more, stronger moves coming.

  18. Personally, I don’t know anything about Mason Cole, but it’s just a 6th round pick and it’s about time the Vikings addressed the O-Line in some way.
    And I’m sure they will in April with a somewhat more meaningful move.

    No, my concern is how Danielle Hunter will react to this kind of news.
    Every free agent move whether it’s a trade or signing is virtually taking more and more of his money off the table.
    And it must just leave him seething.
    The longer the team drags this out, the more this cancer festers.

  19. Good moves so far this offseason. They’ve improved their cornerbacks and defensive line and this adds some depth to the o-line. We should be fairly flexible in the draft to go get the best players rather than desperately fill holes.

  20. The Vikings don’t know how to manage offensive linemen. Read a report about how bad the fundamentals of the linemen were and then when they released Pat Elflein, it kind of shows how they treat their linemen as disposable. Rick and company always seem to be creating a hole then filling a hole and rinse and repeat. There’s not continuity on the O line. And you draft a statue for a quarterback who eats up a huge chunk of the cap. Way to go.

  21. Must mean Jones won’t be re-signing. Although many, like the cheesers above, are conclusion jumping, this could very well just be a depth move. Funny, on the idiodic inability to manage linemen crack above as it pertains to Easton — he washed out of the Ravens and the 49ers in 2015, was obtained by the Vikes, turned into a starter until 2019, when he signed an above-market FA contract with the Saints for 4yrs/$24M (and was released this year in a cost-cutting move). If anything, he’s an example of one of the few things the Vikings have done right on the O-line other than ONeil.

  24. Cardinals traded him because he was awful last year. We couldn’t run like we did in 2019…because AQ Shipley was no longer there…

    Cole was BEYOND the weakest link in The chain…he was a missing link.

    I wouldn’t be suprised…

    If the Vikings cut him.

  25. Mason Cole was routinely beaten by the inside pass rush and showed little to no push in the run game. He needs to gain more strength to be a starting O-lineman. With Hudson in the fold and a few other backup center options on the roster, keeping Cole on the roster
    a year out from free agency made no sense. Getting anything for a him at this point, is a positive for the Cardinals.

  26. pfffffffffffft says:
    “The Vikings don’t know how to manage offensive linemen. Read a report about how bad the fundamentals of the linemen were ”

    I watched a video from a former all pro lineman turned analyst. He showed film that verified your post. On every play he had film on, at least one lineman did something completely different from the other 4. And it wasn’t always the same guy. On stunts and blitz’s three guys picked up one lineman and left not one but two unblocked rushers. I understand that there was no off season and we keep moving players around to new positions but I have a thought. Stop changing people from their natural position. then for the heck of it FIRE RICK DENNISON. If a plumber came to the stadium Rick would try to make him an electrician and then convert him to guard. I really feel when the players are not prepared it is the coaches fault.

  27. Hard to go wrong with trading a 6th rounder.

    Yep. Coulda used a 4th rounder to draft a kicker and then another 4th to trade for another one.

  28. Clearly this is a depth move to add a player that has position flexibility. The Vikings had 11 picks in the draft, so giving up a low 6th rounder seems low risk. But, can he be worse than Dozier???? Clearly the Vikings have bigger issues to deal with on the offensive line. My guess is that the recent restructuring of contracts was done to go after one of the better FA offensive lineman.

  29. This stiff is just the sort of loser that can add to the Viking legacy of complete trash on the offensive line.

  30. mdavis588 says:
    March 26, 2021 at 10:00 am
    Mason Cole was routinely beaten by the inside pass rush and showed little to no push in the run game. He needs to gain more strength to be a starting O-lineman.

    ———-

    Sounds like every other O-linemen the Vikings have.

  31. Vikings stocking up on OL while we let the best center in the NFL go, so we can sign “fumbles” Jones and “run right by me” King.

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