Minnesota Sports Forum

Some things to keep in mind:

The Vikings currently have 11 draft picks for 2021

1st
Two 3rd rounders
Three 4th rounders
Three 5th rounders
6th
7th

In addition they are projected to get either a 3rd or 4th round comp pick for Waynes, a 6th for Alexander and a 7th for Sendejo.

The Vikings may not be done dealing. There has been a report that Reiff and Harris may be gone too. So that could add even more picks. If they can get anything for Reiff I do it just to Save money. I like Reiff more than most people but I'd deal him. I'd hope they can get some decent value for Harris but again saving some money will be considered too as part of dealing him now. Not sure who else could go. Maybe a guy like Eric Wilson but he won't bring a ton of value or savings. He is a guy I like and maybe they can keep him for some sort of reasonable amount. I'm not losing sleep over Eric Wilson though.

The reality is that the Vikings will have a lot of draft capital to move around and move up. It's worth remembering that the reason the have so many 4th and 5th round picks in 2021 was Spielman traded Diggs and then turned the mid round picks into multiple future picks. It may be worth saying that Jefferson guy looks pretty good.

Having said all that the Vikings look to have Some holes to fill. They need oline, safety and...might need to draft some more CBs. They could use some more DL help and oh and drafting a QB has to be on the table. If the rest of the season some of these holes look to be filled by current players that would be really big. I think they may not have to draft any D-line high and I think at least Danzler can be a solid starting CB. I'd guess they have to draft a Safety in an earlier round but Fortunately they are going to have quite a few picks to do that. Can a young olineman show they are Part of the solution? There are quite a few games left and some legit auditions for guys. They can maybe have a big leg up on a starting spot and for some guys maybe make some nice money if they do well. I'm intrigued to some extent to watch this team as the developmental season I think most thought it would be.

Spielman has had 10 picks a draft for the past decade and look at where we are with our depth. These 5th, 6th and 7th round picks are just borderline worthless with him. Outside of Diggs who have we taken in those rounds that's playing/played a lot of snaps for us as a good starter? We've had better luck with undrafted guys like Harris and Thielen than we have had actually drafting guys in those rounds so having 5,6,7 picks at the back end of the draft is completely worthless for Spielman. Literally all of our good players outside of two guys have come in the top 2 rounds (Smith, Kendricks, Cook, Jefferson, O'Neil, Bradbury, and Barr is debatable). Thielen and Hunter are the two outsiders who are good and taken outside the top 2 rounds. Spielman really needs picks in the first two rounds to get his best players and even then he seems to have a Mike Harris for every Justin Jefferson.

How high should the bar be? We are in the top 50% basically every year and the top 25% last year. Maybe it is because I have been a Wolves fan, but I think he has been pretty good and might still be getting better with experience.

bleedspeed177 wrote:How high should the bar be? We are in the top 50% basically every year and the top 25% last year. Maybe it is because I have been a Wolves fan, but I think he has been pretty good and might still be getting better with experience.

The Vikes the team I've always followed most closely since the 90s. bleed, I agree with your assessment that the Vikes have been an overall good team under Spielman and Zimmer. I wouldn't look to replace either because Zimmer didn't suddenly forget how to coach this year, and Spielman is a wheeler and dealer who is willing to take shots for a player they like, but don't typically mortgage the future to do so.

I also agree that his record with QBs has been pretty bad all the way back from when he was with the Dolphins. It's tough for me to quantify. I never liked Ponder, and I'll admit that draft I wanted Prince Amukamara or Robert Quinn at that spot, Cam Newton was the QB I wanted but he went #1 overall). That said, that was a very "QB heavy" draft and most of those guys fell flat on their face. Let's look at that draft in particular:

1. Cam Newton (was probably the right pick, brought them to a Superbowl and was...OPOY I believe?)
8. Jake Locker (terrible pick)
10. Blaine Gabbert (terrible pick)
12. Christian Ponder (terrible pick)
35. Andy Dalton (solid pick, but falls in the Cousins level of talent)
36. Colin Kaepernick (was much more raw, went to the Superbowl, was the biggest diva in NFL history and not worth the headache at that point)

I wasn't a fan of the Cousins move, however it was clearly an all-in move where the bet was that he was a good QB on a bad team (not entirely untrue as we can see what they are today), but not one I felt very good about given the price tag. Teddy was a pretty obvious choice as the talk all season was "Tank for Teddy" when he was thought to be a lock #1 overall. I was disappointed when we didn't nab Lamar Jackson when he was available in the late 1st as he had Michael Vick written all over him (even Michael Vick thought so). And you have teams like the Bears trading up to take Trubisky over guys like Mahomes and Watson. Even the Patriots when they took Brady #199 overall had no idea he would turn into what he did (and there's proof in that he wasn't taken until the 6th round). My point is there's a lot of luck involved when it comes to these guys. That said, I don't give Spielman a free pass at QB, I just think teams are off much more than they're on when it comes to QBs, and Spielman has been generally pretty good otherwise.

As for this season, it was over when we lost Pierce to the COVID opt-out. We didn't have a run stuffing nose tackle, nor an under tackle.

The DE trade was definitely an all-in move that was supposed to at worst net us a pick at the end of the 1st round if it didn't work out. Not a complete loss but given how it resulted, it's hard to say it was a good move.

Looks possible that more trades are coming.

I think there the Patriots and another franchise have more undrafted FAs on their rosters than the Vikings. The Vikings have gotten contributors throughout the draft over the years. Stephen, weatherly, Bisi, are some late round solid players I can think of off the top of my head. One thing the Vikings have done is keep their own talent or made the right decision on letting guys go. The one guy that got away was Kurt Coleman. Can you really think of another guy they let go without compensation that went one to be pretty good somewhere else?

I believe the Vikings draft grade rank tends to be at least top 10 every time they rank how teams have done over some period of time. Some of that is likely due to some longtime scouts doing a solid job and some credit likely should go to Scott Studwell who had been there for years. It may be worth noting that one of the hot GM names is George Paton and he keeps turning down interviews. I'd guess the Vikings are pretty good place to work.

There is still 10 more games this season so a lot of good and bad can still happen.

Reilly Reiff might have another team interested in him with the Ravens LT going down. I'm still ok with him being traded but after looking at his contract I'm not pushing for it to happen as much. The savings for this year would be less than 3 million. Considering we would have to have someone signed to take his place we are probably talking a little over 2 million. That's not exactly a ton of savings. If they don't think Cleveland is ready to play LT I could see them just keeping Reiff there the rest of the season and evaluating everything else. I know Rashod Hill isn't that amazing but I still can't believe we got him back for the vet min.

Cousins deal is a lot and the situations aren't the same but maybe it could be worse. After this season the Eagles Owe him over 59 million guaranteed. If they really wanted to pull the plug Wentz might be easier to trade than Cousins but still it doesn't look at this point like Wentz is their guy. He does have a number of guys hurt but he is also playing in a bad division and his coach is a supposed offensive guru. Diggs rookie brother picked him off twice last night. I was skeptical about whether or not Wentz was worth that deal but understood that it made sense to pay him.