Adam Thielen Issues Statement As He Parts Ways With Minnesota Vikings Again

Monday morning, the Minnesota Vikings announced they are waiving wide receiver Adam Thielen, making it the second time he and the team will part ways in his NFL career.

The Vikings traded with the Panthers prior to the start of the season to bring the Minnesota native back home for the 2025 season, which Thielen said would be his last in the league.

Adam, who grew up in Detroit Lakes and attended MSU in Mankato, spent the majority of his NFL career playing for his hometown Minnesota Vikings. He and the team parted ways the first time in the offseason ahead of the 2023 season, and Adam spent the next couple of seasons playing for the Panthers.

When the Vikings traded to bring him back home to Minnesota in August of this year, he and his family were excited to the point of tears that he would be able to finish his career for his hometown team.

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Heading into the season, it seemed like a storybook ending to an incredible career. The Vikings were looking to improve on the success of their exciting 2024 season. With playoff hopes high for 2025, adding the veteran wide receiver to the roster seemed like a great move for everyone involved.

Then the season began to unfold.

Offensive line injuries, quarterback struggles, and other challenges daggered the Vikings' playoff chances. After being shut out 0-26 by the Seattle Seahawks over the weekend, the team's fate for this season was pretty much sealed.

Today, a day removed from that devastating loss, the team revealed that Adam had requested the opportunity to be released so he could seek a more prominent role on a competitive team in the final weeks of his career.

Adam has been transparent that this will be his last season in the NFL, and after earning only 8 catches for 69 yards with no touchdowns this year, he's hoping to carve out a bigger role with another team in his final games before retiring.

In a social media statement about the request to be waived and the team's subsequent agreement to waive him, Adam had the following to say:

Vikings Family —

Thank you

This is tremendously difficult for me to write and certainly not how any of us imagined this to go.

As a Minnesota native, putting on this uniform over the years and representing this community both on and off the field has always meant that much more to me. This team is in my bones, it's in my heart and it's part of my DNA. I will ALWAYS be a Minnesota Viking.

Since this past Spring, I knew this was going to be my last season playing in the National Football League. Given that, the Vikings allowed me the opportunity to go compete elsewhere for the last few weeks of my career.

Minnesota will always be our home, and we are incredibly grateful to the Wilf family, Kwesi, K.O. and everyone in the Vikings organization for bringing us back in August. This organization means the world to us from the top down and this locker room is filled with true professionals.

With gratitude and love and I'll be back to retire!

Adam now enters the waiver process, being the trade deadline has already passed. That means the team won't be able to reclaim anything they lost in the trade to acquire him in August.

Teams will have the opportunity to claim him through the waiver process. If he passes through this week's waiver window without anyone claiming him, he becomes a free agent and can sign with any team.

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It's a sad ending to what felt like such a happy story just a few months ago. As a fan, I feel disgusted by how things ended for him in Minnesota - twice - after being a Pro Bowl player earlier in his years with the Vikings.

Here's hoping he can accomplish something more yet in his awesome career before he comes home to retire as a Viking, which he makes pretty clear he plans to do after he hangs it up.

Good luck, Adam. I hope you can find a team to make a playoff run with before you retire. It feels like it'll be a while before Minnesota gets back there.