Adam Thielen: I didn’t want to leave Minnesota, but they had a different vision for me

Panthers wide receiver Adam Thielen, a Minnesota native, is preparing for his first season away from home after the Vikings released him this offseason. He says it’s not what he wanted, but he understands.

“I think there are like two sides of it,” Thielen said on the Daily Delivery podcast, via NFL.com. “It was a bummer. I didn’t want to leave Minnesota. I wanted to end my career there. Obviously, that would be the perfect fairy tale way to do it, right? But that’s not reality. I’m so thankful for that organization, Kwesi [Adofo-Mensah] and [Kevin O’Connell] and the staff. The way they handled this throughout the process was first-class.”

So why did the Vikings cut him? Thielen says their roster-building plan didn’t include him.

“You know, it’s really hard to explain the entire situation,” Thielen said. “I don’t think there was ever a point where I was unhappy with what I was doing. It was just pretty clear that they had a different vision for me than maybe I had for a way that I could help the team win games. There wasn’t a wrong thing. There wasn’t disrespect on either side. I think it was just time for both sides to move on.”

Ultimately, the Vikings decided they wanted younger, faster and cheaper receivers, and so they moved on. Thielen understands how the business works, even if moving on wouldn’t have been his first choice.