Fantasy Football Daily - Minnesota Vikings Draft Scenarios with Tyler Forness | On the Clock! NFL Draft Podcast

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

The Vikings are in a bit of limbo off a disappointing postseason finish in 2022. Brett Whitefield (@BGWhitefield) discusses Vikings draft plans and the state of their roster, especially the quarterback position, with Tyler Forness (@TheRealForno) of @TheVikingsWire. BRETT WHITEFIELD'S 2023 NFL DRAFT PROSPECT GUIDE IS FREE TO READ WITH A NO-CHARGE LOGIN AT FANTASY POINTS. Interested in playing Best Ball in 2023? There's no better place than Underdog Fantasy. Use our code FANTASYPTS to sign up for a new account at Underdog, and not only will you get a 100% deposit match up to $100... but you'll get a Fantasy Points Standard subscription for only $5! https://www.fantasypoints.com/underdog --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time to the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoint.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle. From numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Welcome into another episode of On the Clock. I am your host, Brett Whitefield, and today we are joined by a colleague, a coworker, a brilliant man in the minds of many. He is a college football expert, in my opinion, and his name is Tyler Fornes. What's up, Tyler?

Welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me, Brett. I'm excited to be here. And we are two weeks away from the start of the NFL draft, and I can't wait. Heck, yeah, man. So for those that don't know, Tyler, he does a lot of content at fantasy points. He betting content and think in season some CFB stuff. he's also the managing editor of Vikings Wire, which is the main reason we're bringing him on today

is to talk about Minnesota Vikings football who have the 23rd pick in the first round. Tyler, let's quickly do a kind of a roster roundup, free agency recap. Tell me your thoughts on the Vikings and their direction this offseason so far. So it's a really interesting off season so far, Brett. They started off by releasing Adam Thielen and Eric Kendricks, which they kind of needed to do. They were being paid a lot of money to essentially be aging veterans. Now, they paired that with their first free agent signing being a second tight end, which really surprised some people, but I kind of looked at it.

And it looks to be Quasi trying to exploit a market deficiency where tight ends, they really start to blossom around year four, year five. You saw that with Hawkinson this past year. And we've seen it across the board. Tight end is an incredibly hard position to grow from. and that blossom in the NFL from college just because you're being asked to block like a tackle and catch the ball like a wide receiver. So Josh Oliver came into the NFL from San Jose State as a strictly pass catcher, not a blocker.

And then when he joined the Ravens two years ago, he became strictly a blocker. And now you have the opportunity to really try and take advantage to 12 personnel. They also maneuvered around with the salary cap a little bit, and they decided Marcus Davenport and Byron Murphy. They're trying to get younger and faster with their starters and at key positions. And I'm really intrigued to see where this team decides to go and run one because their top three needs are all premium positions. I'll never forget Josh Oliver because I think he single-handedly got Jalan or Jalani Tavai drafted in the second round by the Lions because there's a rep in college where Tavai is in-man coverage against Oliver. And he performs this beautiful matchmere technique and breaks a pass up. and then Jelani Tevai's never made another play like that again in his life.

But anyways, you said the Vikings top three needs are all premium positions. Go ahead and lay that out for us. What positions are those? Absolutely. So the number one need is quarterback of the future. Who is that quarterback of the future? They don't know. And neither do we.

That could be Kurt Cousins on an extension. It could be another veteran. There were rumors about Lamar Jackson. I really don't think that's happening at this point. but it more than likely is going to be a guy that's going to take in the draft this year. They've done extensive work on the quarterback position. They just hosted Tanner McKee on a top 30 visit yesterday on Tuesday. So when you talk about getting a quarterback to the future, who's that going to be?

We really don't know. Are they going to have the gusto to move up to pick number three and take one of Bright's Young, C.J. Stroud or Anthony Richardson? Personally, I hope so. but I have my doubts that they're going to be willing to jump that far. Now, will they go to 10 to try and get one of the fallers, most likely will Levis? Will they take Hen and Hooker, which I really hope not at 23? But they're probably going to end up taking a guy in the second, third or fourth round,

a Dorian Thompson, a Donovan, a Tanner McKee, a Jaron Hall, a Clayton Tune, one of those type of guys and see, hey, let's get him behind Kirk. Let's try and see if we can develop him a little bit. And at the very least, we'll have a cheap backup for a few years. You know, that's a dart throw. You should throw consistently. You could find yourself a Dak Prescott. Like, that's the benefit of taking a guy on day two, early day three.

You could hit gold. And at the very least, he's probably just a backup for you. Second need, in my opinion, is wide receiver. I look at it this way. Corner, they need a lot of bodies. Receiver, they need one really good talent. and I would prioritize the one talent over the bodies. And I'm a little higher on this receiver class than a lot of people.

I think Quentin Johnson is a top five player in this class for me. I absolutely love what he can do on the football field. If he ends up making it to 23 and quarterbacks are all gone, for me, it's a slam dunk. I'm a big fan of Josh Downs, Zay Flowers. I like Jordan Addison a lot, but his slender nature concerns me a little bit and how he's going to deal with physicality. Obviously, we've seen Devonta Smith, who's got an incredibly similar body type,

have success in the NFL. So I think there's a path. But with what Kevin O'Connell likes from his receivers to be able to block, I don't know how that's going to mesh, because he's not going to ever be a build like a Cooper Cup or a Robert Woods where he's going to be able to be physical in the running game. So how is that going to work and how is he going to evolve his offense? And third is corner.

They have three NFL cornerbacks on the roster. They need to get players. But this cornerback class is so deep, you could get a starter, a year two starter in round three. I love guys like Kai Buceli, Darius Rush. You don't have to take one right away and try to exploit the market that way because this is a deep class. Yeah, let's unpack the quarterback conversation first and we'll hit the other two topics as well. So quarterback is interesting because you talked about them potentially moving into the top three for a guy. That's going to be expensive, Tyler.

That's going to be probably three first round picks and a player from 23 to 3. I was looking at this with a good friend of mine yesterday, who's a cap contract expert. We were trying to figure out a pathway for the Vikings to do this. And we really couldn't, actually. Unless, you know, Arizona, it happened to be the best offer they got and they were just hell-bent on moving back. But, you know, based on precedence, we couldn't find a pathway to do it. Do you think that they would at all be interested in unloading a guy like Derisaw to get that deal done? Darisaw, no, I really don't think so.

When I took a look at it, the only pathway that I could see, and I wrote this in my mock draft that I released yesterday for the Vikings Wire, I had them sending 23, first round picks in 24 and 25, and Daniel Hunter. Hunter, obviously being 28 years old and still proved to be an elite level pass rusher after dealing with injuries for a couple of years. He needs a new contract. He's, he's only going to get $4.5 million in fluid cash this year. That's obviously not enough for a player of his caliber. You're trading a guy in his prime and with a defense that needs to really be rebuilt from the ground up. That's a really nice piece to start building around. Yeah. It makes some sense to me. The question I'd have for Arizona in that regard, I'm assuming that's the trade partner we're talking

about here is for where they're at the state of their franchise does the Neil Hunter actually makes sense like 28 years old he is in the prime right now he'll probably give you two really good years for what though for you to go 5 and 11 and pay him a lot of money um that's kind of or 5 and 12 I guess now sorry I still do that um we're going to do that for a decade yeah you know what I'm not I don't want to you know I don't want to stifle any optimism now I'm just trying to like realistically think it out. Like is DeNeil Hunter enough with the three first? It might be.

It might be enough. It's interesting though, right? Because you make a really good point. I don't think with the Vikings history of struggling an offensive line for a decade that they'd be willing to trade Derisaw. I understand why you would kind of make that conclusion and be like, hey, maybe it makes sense to get rid of a guy like Derisaw because quarterback is more important than offensive of line, even though left tackles could arguably be the second most important single position

on your football team. But after all the struggles they've had of trying to find those guys, they finally have two borderline all pro tackles in Daryston O'Neill. Even though you could draw that conclusion, I don't think it had happened. Yeah, and I agree with you. I don't think they should do that. I think three first is already pushing the envelope of what's acceptable there and then throwing in a guy like Hunter, you know, that might be enough to get it done.

But Dar saw is definitely too far. He's too young, too good. Which, by the way, Darrysal is one of my all-time draft misses. Oh, really? Yeah, it was not a big Dar esau guy. Mostly, when I say misses, I still had a first round grade on him. Let's not get crazy. But when I watched his tape, he had like 30 true pass sets his last year in college.

And we've seen this before where, like, Andre Dillard's a great example. Now, obviously, Darisaw has way more physical. attributes to his game than Dillard does. But Dillard was another guy who, like, 30 true pass sets his last year in college and never had to block in the run game either. And that was a problem. Like the developmental curve there was massive and it just kind of overcame. And now it looks like Dillard's going to be a starter this year.

But I bet he's average at best where Dara saw, you know, he looks natural as a pass setter. And that's surprising. I mean, I know the athleticism was there, but man, I just didn't think he would, he would, it would translate that quickly for him. So, you know, I still had a first round grade on him, but I didn't have the top 10 grade that most people had. He was my 13th ring player that year. And I really hit the offensive lineman on the head outside of Roshan Slater. I was low on him.

But I agreed Humphrey at 12 and Derrissot at 13. The only real question I have with Derisaw is can he be a nasty finisher? And you've seen it at Minnesota. He can be a nasty finisher. And he just has like one or two blocks a game where it looks like he went to a like an, elementary school playground and literally just threw a child across the jungle gym. It's just hilarious. But we kind of figured out that it was a Virginia tech thing.

And he had that core injury. The fact that they were able to move down nine spots to get him is still a fleece to me. Yeah. One of the better first round picks in recent memory for sure. All right. Let's talk about some of the other guys or some of the other options at quarterback. I know you've already stated you're out on hooker. We'll get to him in a second.

Let's talk, like, in the event Will Levis starts to fall, how high are you willing to go for Will Levis here? Because I'm lower on Levis than just about everybody, but because of the premium of the position, there is a breaking point where I'm like, okay, we've now gone from overrated to underrated. And that point is probably around pick 10 for me. I think if he gets more north of pick 10, that's when I start probably ringing the phones from Minnesota. What do you think? Honestly, that's where I'm at to. Once you get to pick 10, that is exactly where I'm really starting to have those conversations.

My comp for Will Levis is Kurt Cousins with a big bazooka. Because he has some of those plays on tape where he just makes those Josh Allen-type throws, where he drops a 60-yard post in a bucket, and it looks effortless. He can throw a 15-yard out from the far hash and make it look easy, do it with timing and power. But he also has that bozo gene. He has, what, a 26% pressure to sack conversion rate. That's atrocious. Anthony Richardson's got like a 10.5% pressure to sack rate.

Like the pocket presence is not there with him yet, but he also played with an abysmal offense at Kentucky. It was so bad with Rich Gangrello calling the plays. And he had no weapons really around him to help support. And the best example, no, the best example, at least what you can expect his rookie year, is 2021 against Georgia, where he ran the quick game so incredibly well. He dealt with the pressure. And you can at least have that for a full year while he continues to grow elsewhere and continue to develop within the context of an NFL offense.

I'd look at the Patrick Mahomes trade as kind of a baseline for what I'd be willing to pay to go up and get well, Levis. That was a third this year and a first next year to move up. I think that's probably as far as I'd go, but for the other three guys, I would pay a fortune. Yeah, so Levis is interesting. You mentioned that the week one, 2021. The problem for that game, like, it is good tape for running quick game and short area accuracy, but it's an outlier for Levis's film. And this year, what you saw was he was all over the place in the short parts of the field.

And my worry with him is at the NFL level, you're going to have a lot of teams. stacking, you know, two high safeties on him to take away that deep talent, the deep arm talent, and he's just going to struggle to consistently find the open receiver in the short parts of the field. If he can get back to that where he's running quick game fluently, I think, you know, he's going to be valuable or a value pick for sure. Ten is probably the, like, I'm actually just thinking about this out loud. I have this weird theory that I think a lot of teams after 10 are going to want Levis. talk about Tennessee at 11 if they don't make a trade up for Richardson.

I think New England's a sneaky candidate for Levis. I think Green Bay is a sneaky candidate for Levis. I hate to say, but even Washington is a sneaky candidate for Levis, despite them planting their flag on Sam Howell. So I think there's definitely some competition in that range, and I think coming up to 10 is probably the appropriate spot if you want a guy like Levis. So, yeah, I don't know that there's another spot that they could come up to. where 12.

12. Yeah, if he gets past Tennessee, you know, Houston presumably already took a quarterback, then 12 would be a good spot for sure. Houston having three first round picks next year would be incredibly, incredibly appealing to continue that rebuild because they just need dudes more than anything.

Yeah, they basically have three this year too. 33rd is technically 32 because the forfeited pick from Miami. but um all right let's pivot then so let's talk hooker really quick i know you're out on him i'm assuming this is concerns about threefold a age b ACL three Josh hypol Tennessee offense not translating to the NFL um if the age i only have concerns with because of where he's at as far as i see his development. I have never seen him run any form of an NFL style offense. It's a lot of pre-snap safety reads, and then you're usually staying on one side of the field. I had a long talk with Doug

Ferrar about this on my show, and he is a lot less concerned about the offense because it's more of a pure air raid where, like, you have the Mike Leach air raid, which is another version of it, but you're using those super wide splits. And the one thing that really got me outside of, you know, just the progressions, which we could talk about all day. Even though he's a dual threat quarterback, he's not a dual threat quarterback. It's either I'm going to run or I'm going to pass. And he's good at both. But he's not going to be a guy that stands in the pocket.

Oh, I'm going to get collapsed on. And then I'm going to go create and throw the football. He's going to take a lot of sacks and not being able to kind of translate into any kind of creation, not be able to escape the pocket and make plays happen. The only way he can escape the pockets by. going forward. And he does okay with that. He's a bigger guy. He's like 6-4-230. He can do that. Yeah, we've seen guys that are capable of that. Dante Colpepper was great at it, just being able to step up and take off forward. But some of those little nuanced

things I have real concerns about. Then when you factor in, he's also 25. He didn't really break out against like college kids until he was 23 in a gimmick offense, which he didn't even win the job of and I don't think that gets talked about enough and then he's got a torn ACL and he's not even going to be really ready to play football 100% until he's 26. I'm not taking that guy in one. I'd be hesitant to take him in round two. And if there is no ACL, I think we might be having a different conversation, but I'd still have a lot of those hesitations with the age, the late breakout and then the fact that the offense, like Josh Heiple is the best offensive coordinator in college football. Yeah. Incredible.

He's been a top play caller for a decade. The Alabama game is a Josh Hyple special. It was not Jalen Hyatt. Hennon Hooker was still good. But that was a Josh Hypoe masterclass more than anything. Yeah, absolutely. Hooker is funny when I watch his tape. And I'm a lot higher on Hooker than you are, admittedly.

But that's beside the point. But when I watched his tape, the one thing I think I put in my notes is I think I found 10 throws all year where he got to a second read. And that's including checkdowns as well. So, like, it's, to your point, he's a dual threat from the standpoint of it's like and or, sorry, it's or I can do this or I can do that. I can't blend the two worlds is kind of, so far he hasn't shown he can do that. He's definitely not a Patrick Mahomes type who's going to be running around making plays with his legs and delivering the football downfield. That literally never happens for hooker.

Once he decides to break the pocket, he is running the football. So let's talk about some of these other guys. You threw a bunch of them out there. One that I'm pretty high on. I think the only day two guy I'm super interested in is probably Aiden O'Connell. I guess Tainer McKee's in there too. I like Aden O'Connell. I like Jake Hainer a little bit.

And I like Tanner McKee. Any of those guys stick out to you, somebody you like? I'll be honest. The only guy I kind of like is Jake Hainer, but it's kind of the same thing with O'Connell. O'Connell is a distributor of the football. He doesn't really have traits. Jake Hainer's biggest trait is gut. Like the UCLA game, 2021 is when I fell in love with him.

He got pulverized like he was about to go through a literal meat grinder. And he had like a bruised hip and he was torquing his entire body just to make throws down the field and end up coming from behind and winning that game over Dorian Thompson, who's another guy I'm intrigued with. But Hainer is all about guts. He's about distributing. If you put him in a kind of like a quick game, pass happy offense, I think he'd be perfect in Las Vegas for what They like to run, Earhart Perkins, a lot of timing, a lot of short throws.

That is an offense. I think he could be a successful starter in long term, but I don't necessarily think there's any kind of upside. The one guy I love on late day two, early day three, I've been in love with BYU's Jaron Hall for two years. Oh, wow. A really, really efficient passer. He doesn't have the elite arm talent, but he has the escapeability.

He's run a pro, a lot of pro style concepts within the context of. of the spread system that BYU runs. He needs to get better at seeing dropers and coverage. A lot of these guys on day two don't see that very well, which is really frustrating. It was a big problem for me with Doreen Thompson. But Hall can drop the ball in a bucket 50 yards down the field, in my opinion, better than anybody in this class.

He's just got a beautiful, beautiful throwing motion. And maybe I'm just a sucker for it, but I watched almost every BYU game last two years, and I just can't quit Jaron Hall. Yeah, I mean, if you're throwing a dart at a quarterback after round one or two, definitely throw a dart at something at a guy, at a guy who has a trait that is workable, something you can hang his hat on him.

And Jernal has that for sure. I just, when I watch his tape, yeah, some of the wild throws are incredible. But man, I was so frustrated by what was going on between the years with him in a lot of plays. It was just really, I thought he had a really slow trigger too. And I know a lot of college quarterback struggle with that. They like to hold the ball until they see it.

They don't like to throw it unless they can see it wide open. So, shoot, Bryce Young does that for God's six. So, yeah, Jaron Hall is an interesting guy for, I probably see him more as an early day three guy myself. But, you know, if you're looking at the range. Yeah, okay. So if you're trying to take a swing on a developmental backup that could potentially, you know, start some games for you, I have no problem with Jaron Hall on day three. All right, let's pivot real quick before we wrap this up.

You mentioned wide receiver and cornerback as two other big needs as also premium positions. You mentioned Quentin Johnson at 23. I agree with that. If he's available at 23, slam dunk pick, that's easy. Let's not waste our breath talking about that. Give me some other wide receivers you like, whether that's at 23 or even with that third round pick. I'm a big Josh Downs guy. I think he's very shifty.

He's very smart. And he's got a much, much bigger catch radius than that 5-9 frame would. would tell you. He is, he caught what, 71% of his contested catches this past year. I think there's work to, there's work to do in the weight room. He's only 171 pounds. He needs to gain some strength. But I think if you're able to put about eight to 10 pounds of really good weight on him over the course of like a year, I think you have a really good player that can potentially win on the outside because I've seen him beat press with his footwork. Something I really didn't see a lot from Jackson Smith and Jake Ben, which is why I'm a little

lower on him. I'm not convinced he's going to be great against press at the next level. But that's a whole other conversation. I'm a big Rishi Rice fan. I love the physicality. He plays like he's 6'3, even though he's 6'1 physical. He's great in the open field, great in the contested catches. I think he's being slept down a little bit. But he also kind of struggled against some top competition. He and Deonté Banks went to war earlier this. past year when SMU played Maryland. Other guys I like. I think Jonathan Mingo's a really interesting guy.

The dude is a tight end that I kind of compared him to Cooper Cup. He's more explosive and a little less nuanced of a route runner than Cup was coming out. But they're both incredible effort guys when it comes to blocking and they're both very skilled at it. Really good in the open field. And Mingo is like he's 6-1-225 and runs a 4-4. four six, that's just a really weird body size athleticism combination that you don't see often. And with how Kevin O'Connell wants his receivers to block, that just, he screams like Viking or 49er to me. Yeah, so Mingo, my comp for him is A.J. Brown, which is lazy because of the same school deal there.

But if you are chasing A.J. Brown or a Debo Samuel type, I mean, Mingo is going to be your guy built very similarly to both those dudes, really thick lower half. almost looks like a running back with the ball in his hands. Mingles a guy I liked. I talked about him on Ross Tucker's pod yesterday. Well, that actually will air next week. But big time player. Like I think this dude is going to go a lot higher than most think, especially guys in the fantasy community or running their models.

There isn't a model out there that's going to love John Mingo. So I think a lot of the fantasy community specifically sleeping on Mingo. I would not be shocked if he goes in the second round. I've even heard guys like Jim Nagy say first round. end of first round. First time I heard that was yesterday, but that's obviously a little high for a guy with his production profile

and things of that nature, but I don't know. Point being, I think he's going to go higher than people realize. Down at Mobile, Tyler, I was really impressed with him. You mentioned the lack of nuance

in his route running at Ole Miss, and I think that is for sure true. You see that with a lot of Lane Kiffin receivers, but then he went down to Mobile, and I felt like he put on a clinic. Like his release package, some of his red zone work running routes and uncovering quickly really shocked me, like really eye-opening.

Like, holy crap, this guy can do a lot more than he was actually asked to do at Ole Miss as a route runner. I think he's, I think he's going to be a good player. And I think he's going to be a good player relatively quickly in his career. Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah, let's do corners. So let's imagine you guys are going corner or quarterback or receiver in the first route, and they'll do corner later. What's a good third round corner?

You mentioned a couple guys earlier, but anyone else that sticks out? I'm in love with Darius Rush. I know I mentioned him earlier, but it would not shock me if he ends up being better than Cam Smith. I have Cam Smith with a first round grade in Rush with a third. And you saw it all over his reps in Mobile. The dude is, one, an athletic freak. He's great with the ball in the air, but he loses so often early in the rep. but he has the intelligence and athleticism to make up for it.

And I think if you can coach him to be smarter early in the rep and understand, hey, this is what's happening. And you don't have to coach him to be able to take it to that next level where he has to catch up. I think that you can have a really, really good corner on your hands. Kai Blue Kelly is somebody I like as well. The Oregon State corners are intriguing, but I'm not sure how they fit with the Vikings' new system because they're going to be playing a lot of man. a lot of press.

And, like, Austin, I think fits better than Wright does. But those are guys I'm at least keeping my eye on. And then I haven't had a chance to watch it, but Minnesota's Terrell Smith is getting a lot of love from some people. And I know that Minnesota defense was a top 10 defense in college football the last two years. He never jumped out to me when I was watching him. But a lot of it had to do with the fact that, like, the defensive line was really what's, stood out to me most of the time when I watched the gophers.

So he's somebody I'm going to take a look at. But this corner class is just, it's absurd from like the first round all the way through like round five. You can get quality players and potential starters. Like you're one or your two all throughout that range. Yeah, I agree. I think I have like 15 guys I liked. Darius Rush, he was probably the only corner in Mobile I actually liked.

You know, there was some good ride. Lee Moss reps in there, but I thought Rush was, I came away from Mobile thinking that Rush was definitely the best guy there. He really impressed me. All right, Tyler, that's going to do it. We went 27 minutes. You gave us a really thorough breakdown on the Vikings outlook on day one and day two. Thank you for coming on the show. For the listeners, you can find Tyler at the real forno on Twitter.

That is at the real forno on Twitter. You can find his work at FantasyPoints.com. He's also the managing editor of the Vikings Wire, where you can read all of his Vikings-specific takes there. Tyler, thank you for joining. Thank you very much. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points Podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform.

And come join the roster at FantasyPoint.com.