The discussions are continuining between the Minnesota Vikings and the Kansas City Chiefs and the Minnesota Vikings and defensive end Jared Allen regarding the transaction that would entail the Vikings giving picks and/or players to the Chiefs and plenty of money to Allen in order to acquire the league’s sack leader in 2008.

“It’s a multi-front type of [deal],” owner Zygi Wilf said on Friday.  “You have to deal with Kansas City, you have to deal with Jared.  It’s a whole aspect, and you have to weigh that with what’s best for the club.  That’s ultimately what’s most important.  What would be the best for this club and how we can get to the next level?”

Chiefs G.M. Carl Peterson, a hard-nosed negotiator who would request a sixth-round pick for a partially used stick of gum, claims that nothing is close.  “[W]e’re talking in speculation right now,” Peterson said.  “At this particular point, nothing has been done or consummated.”

The Minneapolis Star Tribune suggests that the Vikes would have to give up at a minimum first-round pick and a third-round pick in 2008.  Charley Water of the St. Paul Pioneer Press suggests that the Vikes will offer their first-round pick this year and a second-round pick in 2009.

Neither package is much less than the two first-round picks that the Vikes would have to surrender if they deal directly with Allen and sign him to an offer sheet. 

And even though coach Brad Childress says that the team wouldn’t give up two first-round picks for Allen, we think that the Vikings should strongly consider signing Allen to an offer sheet after the 2008 draft.  If the Chiefs don’t match (a poison pill might be necessary to ensure that they won’t), the Vikings would give up their first-round picks in 2009 and 2010.  And if Allen’s presence helps get the Vikings to the next level, the picks sacrificed in 2009 and 2010 would be low in round one.

It would be the biggest trade risk that the Vikings have taken since 1989, when they gave up three first-round picks, three second-round picks, a sixth-round pick, and five players for Herschel Walker, two third-round picks, a fifth-round pick, and a tenth-round pick.  In comparison, however, a first-round pick in 2009 and a first-round pick in 2010 for the best defensive end to wear purple and gold since Chris Doleman would seem to be a small price to play.