MINNEAPOLIS -- As the Minnesota Vikings assess their options with their 14 pending unrestricted free agents, one of their most important long-term decisions may revolve around a player who's due to hit restricted free agency next month.

Wide receiver Adam Thielen, the Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, native and Minnesota State product who has fashioned quite the Horatio Alger story with the Vikings, will hit restricted free agency after a season in which he was the team's leading receiver. Thielen, who'd played mostly on special teams before last season and caught 20 passes during his first two years on the roster, broke out with 69 catches and a team-high 967 yards, becoming the Vikings' most effective downfield weapon and a fixture in the game plan.

Now the Vikings will have to figure out how to approach Thielen's contract, at a point when his stock has risen enough for him to likely attract interest from around the league. Only four free agent receivers -- Pierre Garcon, Terrelle Pryor, DeSean Jackson and Kenny Britt -- posted more yards than Thielen did last year, and the 26-year-old is younger than all of them.

If the Vikings place a second-round tender on Thielen, they'd have the right of first refusal and get a second-round pick as compensation if they didn't match an offer for the wide receiver, likely at a cost north of last year's $2.553 million second-round tender figure. A first-round tender would set even higher compensation for Thielen, with a figure of more than the $3.635 million the tender commanded last year.

Teams could make a push for Thielen, though, which is why the Vikings' best course of action might be to work out a multiyear deal with the receiver before the start of the league year. Appearing on the Purple Podcast with 1500 ESPN's Matthew Coller, Judd Zulgad and myself on Wednesday, agent Blake Baratz sounded optimistic about Thielen getting something done with the Vikings, but added he thought there certainly would be a market for the receiver.

"The first part of the process [with a restricted free agent] is, do they want the player back, and does the player want to be back?" Baratz said. "In this case, I think they do, and he does, and it makes way too much sense. They have the ability to do right by him, and he's far exceeded anyone's expectations. They don't have any money invested in their wide receivers, and we can figure out something to do that's right -- this week, next week, the following week, March, April. Every day that gets closer to the end of next season without a deal in place, the pendulum just continues to swing Adam's way. I think I'm very fair, Adam's very realistic, and we want to do something that makes sense for the team and makes sense for Adam. Otherwise, someone's going to be unhappy."

The draft pick compensation on Thielen could be prohibitive to another team signing him, but the money likely wouldn't be. It's not hard to imagine another team forcing the Vikings to react to a competitive offer for Thielen.

"I would be shocked if [teams didn't pursue him]," Baratz said. "I think the cat is kind of out of the bag. He's had such a good year, and none of it was a fluke. When I talk to evaluators and they're breaking down film on Adam, they legitimately understand how fast he is. They legitimately understand how good of routes he has. His coming-out party was kind of at Denver a year ago, when guys were hurt and him and Stefon [Diggs] started. He was up there, just torching Aqib Talib, just torching Chris Harris. These are two Pro Bowl corners, and everybody's looking down at their sheet, like, 'Who's [No.] 19 on the Vikings?' And all he did was back that up this year. You can only quote-unquote hide a guy for so long. The teams that think he's a legitimate starter for them, I think it's a real possibility."

The Vikings' high opinion of Thielen, and their history of taking care of their own players, makes it more likely a multiyear deal will get done before the receiver gets close to the market. That's certainly going to be Baratz's goal in his talks with the team.

"I think [these contract talks] affect [the long-term relationship] a lot," Baratz said. "Every player, independent of the money, wants to feel appreciated and wanted. We can disagree on Adam's value and -- I don't think this is going to happen, but hypothetically, if the Vikings just made absolutely no effort to even discuss a long-term extension -- that would rub me the wrong way. That would rub Adam the wrong way. In this business, they can tell you how much they love you, and tell you how great you are, and appreciate everything you're doing, but if they don't offer you any sort of increased compensation for what you've done, that speaks a lot louder than what everyone can tell him behind closed doors, or after a game, or in a press conference.

"And that doesn't mean we're going to agree on something; I could think he's worth one thing, and they could think he's worth another. That doesn't mean I don't respect their point of view, and that doesn't mean the relationship is soured. We can just disagree. But if we never even got to the point of disagreeing, that would be an issue. It would [be] for me, anyway."