Retirement rumors followed Adam Thielen in 2025, and the veteran wide receiver will indeed step away from the game. The 13-year vet announced his retirement Wednesday following a late-season Steelers cameo.
Suiting up with Pittsburgh after a waiver claim, Thielen was with three teams in 2025. The Panthers traded Thielen to the Vikings in August, giving the accomplished pass catcher a chance to return home to a team attempting to follow up its 14-3 campaign with another playoff berth. As that fizzled, Thielen wound up on a postseason-bound club after the Steelers claimed his contract in December.
Once Minnesota moved on, it became known Thielen would retire after the season. He played an auxiliary role in the Steelers’ loss to the Texans on Monday night, catching two passes for 25 yards. Thielen also posted a 1,000-yard season as a Panther in 2023. But he will be best remembered for his contributions in his home state.
Playing 11 seasons with the Vikings, Thielen ranks in the top five in receptions, yardage and touchdown catches with the franchise. His 55 TD grabs as a Viking trail only Cris Carter and Randy Moss in team history. For his career, Thielen caught 64 touchdown passes, adding nine with Carolina. No additional scores came with Pittsburgh, but the former UDFA did carve out a role as Aaron Rodgers searched for tertiary targets alongside D.K. Metcalf.
Starring at Division II Minnesota State, Thielen became one of the most unlikely wide receiver success stories by catching on with the Vikings after a rookie minicamp tryout. Following a 2013 redshirt year of sorts, Thielen became a key player during the Mike Zimmer seasons. After finishing with fewer than 150 receiving yards in 2014 and ’15, Thielen erupted for 967 during Sam Bradford‘s 2016 Minnesota season and sustained that momentum after that year. Thielen eclipsed 1,200 yards in 2017 and ’18, topping out with a career-high 1,373 in Kirk Cousins‘ Vikes debut, and saw his first stint with the franchise last through the 2022 season.
The Vikings gave Thielen two extensions during his initial Twin Cities tenure. Minnesota re-upped Thielen on a four-year, $19.25MM extension in 2017 — after the team had applied a second-round RFA tender. That proved to be incredibly team-friendly, and the Vikings returned to the table to give their then-Stefon Diggs complement a four-year, $64.8MM deal in 2019. The Vikings had both Thielen and Diggs on big-ticket deals in 2019, but they traded the mercurial standout to the Bills in March 2020. Minnesota then added Justin Jefferson as its lead option, but Thielen remained an essential piece in the Cousins-piloted offense.
Thielen combined for 24 TD receptions over Jefferson’s first two seasons, helping Cousins to big numbers (as the QB signed two Vikes extensions). After Kevin O’Connell‘s first season produced a 13-win showing, the Vikings released Thielen upon being unable to agree on a reworked contract. A nice market formed for the street free agent, and the Panthers ponied up $25MM over three years to give their to-be-determined No. 1 overall pick (eventually Bryce Young) a veteran to target. While Carolina missed on some investments during Scott Fitterer‘s final year as GM, Thielen totaled 1,014 receiving yards to lead the woeful 2023 Panthers edition by a wide margin.
Rebuffing trade interest in Thielen in 2024, the Panthers reworked his contract this past year but eventually relented on a trade. They sent Thielen back to Minnesota in a deal that brought a 2027 fourth-round pick and a 2026 fifth to Carolina. Thielen being active for more than 10 games in 2025 triggered a condition on the Vikings’ side of the trade; that bumped the 2026 pick Minnesota received to a sixth-rounder. The Vikes also collected a 2027 seventh in the late-summer swap.
Thielen’s second Vikings stint did not offer much of consequence, as Minnesota fell out of contention during a rocky J.J. McCarthy debut season. Thielen surpassed his Minnesota 2.0 output (eight receptions) by catching 11 passes in just five Steelers regular-season games.