Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Simulating a four-round Vikings draft with a trade down

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

Matthew Coller goes through a Vikings draft simulation with Vikings fans and looks at the options after trading down with the New Orleans Saints. What happens if all the receivers are off the board? Is it still good if they don't do anything splashy? Plus Vikings fan questions, including about Hendon Hooker buzz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, going live on the YouTube channel to do a draft simulation. We haven't done this in a while. I mean, I think last year we did some live draft sims, but so far this year we haven't done a whole lot of it. But I did another one for the website today if you want to go check that out. But I wanted to go fully live so we could get reaction and people in the comment section on youtube could talk about how much they dislike my picks uh but i also want to leave the door open for this episode

for other things so if you have questions in the comment section and we'll talk about the reactions to the picks so we'll have plenty of time for other stuff to go on tonight. And just around the league a little bit, a lot of times they kind of start out these with some sort of statement of what's going on and maybe analysis of different things. But it's been a little slow outside of Odell Beckham. But something I wanted to bring up before we get into the draft sim is Odell Beckham signed his contract. It ends up being a big deal for him. $15 million could be as high as $18 million. And yes, the Baltimore Ravens are doing the void year thing.

So that kind of tells you, and also apparently Lamar Jackson was somewhat involved in this decision, that if you were thinking that Lamar Jackson is going anywhere else, that was a pretty big blow to the chances of Lamar Jackson becoming a Minnesota Viking or becoming pretty much anything else. I think it's possible that the Ravens signed Odell Beckham in part to try to mend some fences with Lamar Jackson. I mean, I think Lamar Jackson has a pretty legitimate case if he's frustrated by the struggles of the Baltimore Ravens to get good wide receivers. Now they did draft two of them in recent years, Hollywood Brown and then Rashad Bateman, but they

traded Hollywood Brown away for a first round pick last year. Honestly, a very good deal for Baltimore, but I think that was somebody Lamar Jackson really liked. Rashad Bateman has not worked out very well. So he's been thrown into some dude named Boykins and then Mark Andrews over and over and over again. So you got to think that there's a little bit of an olive branch element to the Baltimore Ravens signing Odell Beckham. And also if nobody else in the NFL is going to offer Lamar Jackson the contract that he thinks he's worth well guess what then he's going back to Baltimore on that franchise tag and honestly there are worse fates in the NFL than making 32 million dollars next year which is what I believe he will make if he ends up on that franchise tag. But as he goes out and Ken Francis and whoever else,

all of his friends try to get offers from the rest of the NFL. If they can't get them, he has no other choice. So you might as well play with a good wide receiver like Odell Beckham. Although the people who have tweeted out like, oh, look at all these Baltimore Ravens weapons. I'm not so sure. I mean, Odell Beckham is coming off of an injury. I would have thought of him as more of a wide receiver two

than a wide receiver one. But I think that those chances of the Vikings making some massive offer, trading away Kirk Cousins to the 49ers and all the hell breaking loose, probably just went down with Odell Beckham signing with the Baltimore Ravens. So that's kind of the biggest update we have really in the NFL is it's kind of pushing that way.

So Odell Beckham being off the board does take us one step closer to maybe checking off all the boxes of the most frustrating stories to see almost every single day, which was Odell Beckham, Aaron Rodgers, Lamar Jackson. But I think it might take a little while for the other two although reports are that they're getting closer to having that aaron rogers deal done with the jets so i'm sure we'll get there at some point as we get closer and of course we've also got nothing as far as you know zedarius smith delvin cook and what's going on there. However, the Vikings brass is going to talk this week about where they're at. So will they do something beforehand and be able to talk about it in their press conference or, uh, what, you know, maybe they'll talk about at least the possibility of those guys being traded or where things stand in those relationships

between them, Zedaria Smith and Delvin Cook. So we'll jump right into this conversation and I can answer your questions on the way. I'm going to be flipping back and forth between the draft sim and your question. So be patient with me. And it's also the first time we've done a live draft sim and using the screen, you know, share feature and everything. So I'm not the most technologically proficient when it comes to this. So if I mess it up, everybody be patient.

But I'll answer a couple of tweets first from Matthew, starting to warm up to the Hendon Hooker idea. Think he could be available if they trade back in the first round. Yeah, the Hendon Hooker thing is very interesting because even though there have been some big names who have put it out there that they think the Vikings are a good fit for Hendenhoeker, and the most recent was Bruce Feldman in his mock draft for The Athletic, still the whole mock Illuminati is not actually buying that. So there's a couple of different websites that gather the kind of consensus for the mockers. They pull in a bunch of different mocks and then kind of make that into a

consensus mock draft. And the one that I like to look at is NFL Mock Draft Database. And I can check this real quick for you guys. I believe that they still have Hendon Hooker being taken like in the second round. So even though there have been a few of these incidents, yeah, they still haven't been 43rd at the moment. So even though there have been a few of the bigger names doing this, Daniel Jeremiah and Todd McShay among those, the bigger belief out there among the mock community is not that Hendon Hooker is going to be taken in the first round. Now, if the Vikings move back and still ended up taking him, there just haven't been a whole lot of incidences of successful late first round and second round quarterbacks being

picked. And I think, I mean, Teddy Bridgewater is kind of an ish because I think he would have been successful had he continued to start and Lamar Jackson, but those guys, maybe Jalen hurts. Those are your, your recent examples, but there aren't many more than that. Jimmy Garoppolo, Derek Carr, kind of so-so usually if the NFL believes that these guys are going to be great quarterbacks, they're usually taken at the top. Maybe Kenny Pickett will turn out to be great from last year. I would put it this way. If the Vikings take Hendon Hooker, I think we're all going to look at it the same way as, hey, they've got their quarterback, they're taking their swing, and you cannot be against

that. You can't be against them having an answer for the future at quarterback. At the same time, I guess I'm just not entirely sold that this is actually a thing. And we'll find out. But I went back and looked at mock drafts from last year that had Matt Corral. We know the Malik Willis thing, but also Matt Corral was getting a ton of pub. Desmond Ritter was getting a ton of pub. So there is oftentimes this momentum for quarterbacks that doesn't actually exist. And, you know, I think it's altogether possible that it'll end up being just kind of a thing that was an invention that made our lives more

interesting to talk about. But again, if they do take them, I don't think there's any way you can really be against it, but you can be concerned about it because of his age, because of the ACL thing, because just nobody really had him as a top draft pick until he started shockingly rising up draft boards just recently. And I think he was mostly thought of as a late second or third round pick before that. Usually the late rising quarterback, you know, you get a little nervous about, but I could understand if people want to warm up to that idea because you can talk yourself into Hendon Hooker pretty easily he had amazing statistics he played great football at a program that had been really bad and then he turned them around he made them super competitive and even if he didn't play in a real NFL offense there

guess how many quarterbacks play in a real NFL offense in college? Zero. Not many at all because it's so much different than the NFL. And what Bruce Feldman said about Hendon Hooker did make my ears perk up. He said that Hendon Hooker just was crushing it when it came to the draft meetings. And that's why a lot of the analysts analysts they've heard this and that's why they're talking him up and that actually matters a ton it matters a ton that uh you know how they do in those meetings how they remember their offenses like think about the amount of information you have to remember and then take out to the field that's a big deal uh and so if he did really

well he's got some mobility to him. I don't think it's special, special, special like Anthony Richardson, but he's got some mobility. He's got an arm that can make the throws. Yeah. I'm not going to hate it if they do it. I'm not going to hate it. I'm probably going to be like, I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. Let's see here from Daniel Baltimore, getting OBJ helps the idea of getting a wide receiver in the first round. Most mocks had Baltimore picking a receiver right before our pick. Yeah, that's definitely true. Now, would Odell Beckham stop them from taking a wide receiver? Oh, that was actually, thanks for reminding me, Daniel, because that

was something I wanted to talk about as well. So I saw Jim Nagy, who runs the senior bowl, former NFL scout. He was tweeting about how people around the league do not think there's a lot of first round wide receivers. And then in Dane Brugler's The Beast, if you guys have seen his giant thing that he puts out every year on the draft with like hundreds of profiles and everything else, it's an amazing piece of work from Dane Brugler every year. I mean, that must take him the whole year to put that thing together, but he only had one wide receiver, Jackson Smith Najigba as a first round pick. And Jim Nagy was tweeting about how most of these receivers are not considered first round picks. Here's my thing

though. That's okay to still take them in the first round. It's okay to take a second round receiver prospect in the first round because the goal is not just to get first round prospects. The goal is to get the most important players that are going to drive your success as a team. It's to get the most surplus value. This is what the draft provides you, is an opportunity to get players that you normally have to pay 15 million for, for not 15 million.

That's like a major part of the advantage of drafting first round players that actually is eliminated at running back, by the way. Another reason not to draft a running back. But with a wide receiver, let's say you pick Jordan Addison at 23. And he's but with a wide receiver, let's say you pick Jordan, you know, Jordan Addison at 23, and he's more of a wide receiver too, which everyone will be next to Justin Jefferson, but let's just say he's just good and not Chris Carter. All right. Well,

guess what? Just good is worth 15 to $20 million in free agency. And you're going to pay him with the 23rd overall pick like four. I mean, that is amazing surplus value. The value that a quality number two wide receiver brings to your offense is super important when teams are double teaming, Justin Jefferson and a second round talent can perform better than a second round talent when everyone's focused on the other guy. So that kind of like, I don't know, irked me a little bit to see all, all they're all second round. Look, the recent examples of second round allegedly or late first round wide receivers who end up being really good is quite long, including Justin Jefferson, a late round first receiver.

How about Debo Samuel? I mean, they're all pros. A.J. Brown, all pros who are going in the late first and mid second. There's been a lot of success stories there. So anyway, I had to rant about that a little bit because I feel like people just don't like to adjust the positional value. It's like, well, no, B. John Robinson, first round prospect. It is what it is. Like, well, this is that's Robinson, first round prospect. It is what it is like, well, this is that that's not how that works though. That's not how the actual game works. Um, when it comes to, uh, Hendon hooker, Derek says he only needed to read half the field in his offense. I have news for you. Everyone does in college. I'm telling you, I, I've had

this discussion so many times with our friends friend Sage Rosenfels about the difference between college and NFL offenses. It's massive. It's immense. There's a reason why no rookies ever win the Super Bowl at quarterback. Why most of them are terrible in the first year is because the difference is just, it's night and day. The talent that you're facing, the complexity of the offense, the number of different things that you have to know and remember and command in an offense in the NFL are just way different

from even the most complicated college offense. They just can't do all that stuff. Think about this. Think about if you asked the Minnesota Gophers men's basketball team to run the Timberwolves sets. They just wouldn't be able to do it because there's so much more going on there, right? Well, maybe they wouldn't punch each other like Rudy Gobert, but they would not have a good time trying to run those sets. It's so much more complex that every quarterback has to make that jump, even from the most NFL offense.

And we've seen that be a criticism before, cam newton remember cam newton sitting down with john gruden and john gruden being like hey what's your play calls and he had nothing he was like i don't know one two three four and and a lot of people went oh i don't know i don't know cam newton was really good at running his offense really good he won the mvp so i it's really about whether a guy can make that jump and not like, was it easy for him in college? But I do think there is something to the element of a guy who's 25 playing in an offense with tons of great weapons. I mean, they have two wide receivers that are going to be drafted probably in the first or second round. And so he's got great receivers, wide open receivers,

great offense. How much of it was kind of smoke and mirrors putting up all those big stats? Like, you know, the comp that comes up would be like Brandon Whedon. So Brandon Whedon played in this wide open offense, was just thrown to wide open people all the time. So is it for real or is it not? And I guess we're going to find out from Miles. And I promise we will get going on the draft simulation here in a moment. I've already made a trade down by the way. Let's see.

So we're not taking a, we're not trading up for Will Levis in this draft simulation because I don't think they actually will. And just as a side note, I saw somebody put out on Twitter. I'm sorry. I forget who had like the, the odds and this doesn't mean anything. Vegas doesn't know who your team is picking. But it is interesting that the odds have the Vikings taking a corner or a wide receiver way before a quarterback. So even Vegas is not buying that the Vikings are actually going to do this. So we'll see. I mean, it would be exciting if they do, for sure. Nobody wants that more than this show right here,

but I'm not sure that I'm convinced yet. From Miles, do you feel like all the remaining moves in free agency are on pause until the draft? It does certainly seem that way, doesn't it? I don't think it has to be all of the remaining moves, but they would have to make some sort of move with either Delvin Cook or Zedaria Smith if they want to sign anybody else. And if you look at the list of free agents, this is what's interesting to me, is there's always this first wave of free agents, top guys off the board.

These are the ones everybody's going after. Then they trickle into it they call it a second wave but it's more of a trickle it's like oh this guy here then we wait two days it's somebody else and whatever else and then most of the money starts to dry up and there's all these dudes who are decent and i have past careers that just kind of sit there and go uh i don't have a job and it's really interesting for the vik Vikings that they could add to their defensive secondary. I don't know about wide receiver, if there's many good options at wide receiver remaining after Odell Beckham's off the board,

but they could add a few more players if they would just create the cap space that has to come from trading Zedaria Smith and Delvin Cook. So are they holding out to do that? Or will they end up restructuring? They can restructure Delvin Cook. So are they holding out to do that or will they end up restructuring and they can restructure Delvin Cook's deal is my understanding and make 6 million bucks and then just keep Delvin Cook. But things do come to a standstill is my point in free agency where everyone's leading up to the draft and it usually isn't until the week weeks after that

some of those free agents find homes so i think the vikings probably don't feel any specific urgency to like oh we've got to create this cap space right now because they know a lot of these free agents aren't going far i mean outside of odell beckham the second biggest free agency news today was chris boyd former viking special teamer signing with the arizona card. Like that's second place. So yeah, I really do think that everything is pretty much on hold at the moment. But look, I'm still gonna be scrolling my Twitter

at all times because the Vikings, they'll get you. Once you think like, oh, they can't do anything today, I just go outside and play golf or something. Maybe, I don't know, when the golf courses start to open. Although I saw that it could snow next week and it's going to be 83 on Wednesday. I don't know. Who could ever figure this out? Okay, so next here on the questions list.

Let's see. If you don't think they have a potential top five quarterback, no reason to draft them. Not that you have to expect them to be a top five but at least see them potentially there folks it's almost time for summer and i've got something to give you a boost it's called ag1 by athletic greens i'm giving ag1 a try because i generally eat terribly and i am no good at all at remembering to take vitamins so i'm trying to get in better shape during the football off season and drinking ag1 in the morning to start my day is a simple way to get rolling. It provides a nice boost of energy right off the bat so I can get into all the speculation required to report on

this team. And once you make it a habit, it is very easy to stick with. AG1 helps with recovery, the immune system, and just overall nutrition. Just mix one scoop with water and you are good to go. And it costs less than $3 a day, almost as good of a deal as signing up for Purple Insider. Look, it's a comprehensive solution to what you need for your supplement routine. Athletic Greens is giving you a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your purchase. Go to athleticgreens.com slash insider. That's athleticgreens.com slash insider to check it out today. Yeah, this is a really interesting, and that's from Red Star MN. And Red Star, that's a really interesting philosophical discussion because you could make the argument that if you draft an average quarterback, that it's a Jimmy Garoppolo or a Derek Carr, that the impact of building around that player is so big that you have a chance to actually win something at the same time, just trying to get middling quarterbacks

and hoping that it works out and you can put enough around them. Sounds like the entire history of the Minnesota Vikings. And you know what? They've won a lot of football games, but they have not won a Superbowl. So I get, yeah, I get what you're saying. And I agree overall with that sentiment that, you know, when we talk about like trading for mac jones or drafting hendon hooker i think these are things that you can really make an argument for but there's always lingering on the other side of that hey shouldn't you be shooting for the stars now you can be surprised sometimes the first quarterback off the board doesn't always turn out to be the best one in fact in recent years it mostly hasn't uh Someone like Jalen Hurts, I think that the skill was there and the athleticism and the

toughness and those things was there, but nobody expected him to be a top five quarterback. So you can be surprised and you'll never be surprised if you don't take one. So there is that part of it that you can be talked into, like take a shot there because you never really know. Is it possible that Hendon Hooker could be a top five quarterback? I tend to think the answer is probably no, but Justin Jefferson is your top receiver. Do you use cap space in the future to add another receiver? And then you've got this offensive line you've been building through the draft. And you've got this offensive coach

who produced the top 10 offense last year with honestly Kirk Cousins not having his best season when you look at it statistically or by PFF grade and things like that. And they still finish in the top 10. So can you make an argument that a top five quarterback is almost in most cases that are not Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes,

that in most cases, it not Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, that in most cases, it's what you give them. Or can you think of like, can we do it for a year? Can you have like, that's the Jared Goff thing with Detroit. It's like, can they have a top five offense for a couple of years without an elite quarterback? The answer is probably yes. And it was last year. So it's a very interesting discussion. I'm not saying you're wrong that shooting for the stars is usually the way to go, but I could see where they would say back into the first round, take Hendon Hooker, see what you have there for a year. And if you don't like what you have, you can always draft another one in the future. But that's, it's not shooting for the stars. I don't think if you're taking Hinton Hooker. From Miles here, a name that no one has mentioned for potential wide receiver too is Kenny Galladay. Is it just me or is he a perfect target for the Vikings to consider for a cheap deal and attempt to revive his career? Yes and no. I mean, it's pretty concerning last year that the Giants were playing you

at wide receiver and not Kenny Galladay, who they paid gazillions of dollars. Like that tends to make me think washed, very washed, extremely washed, incredibly washed. If there's any reason that they don't think that, then maybe it's worth a swing. But that kind of reminds me of like a Michael Floyd thing, doesn't it? Like just, or let's see at the end of Eric Decker's career, like once you get to a certain point where these guys fall off, they usually don't bounce back. And I can't think of every example of a late career receiver at the moment, but I can't think of too many that seemed like it was over and then revived it. Like that's a position that usually

once guys lose that burst, you know, I don't know. I don't know. Taking a shot on a one-year $900,000 deal, yes. Expecting him to be wide receiver two, probably not. Let's see from WM Magnus. See, what are the chances of Devon Witherspoon would still be available at number 23? I can tell you what the mock draft world thinks is that there's no chance in the world that he's available at number 23. Let me go back to my mock draft database here and I'll see what the mock database says

about Witherspoon. And if you've watched any of him, which I've seen just a little bit, he's fun. He's a fun player. Number eight is where the mock universe. And I only say this because I don't know. They don't know. Nobody really knows. It's all just about expectation. So the mock universe thinks that he's going to go in the top 10. If he were to fall, then that's a guy that would be perfect for the Vikings. Total ball hawk, run stopper, plays tough, plays fast. He's an impressive player. And something I noticed too from the mock universe is that there are four corners that are expected to be taken before the 24th pick.

So Deontay Banks is 24th. And somebody's not getting taken there right like usually somebody when you have a stacked class at a certain position somebody does drop so is it him is is the mock world too high on him i don't know christian gonzalez seems like he's gonna go pretty high but i got my eye a little bit on joey porter jr he's expected to go 14th so that's like in the ballpark maybe um but yeah i mean i do think that there will be some good cornerback prospects when the vikings pick and uh derrick says that witherspoon reminds him of winfield and uh yeah as far yeah he attacks like that's the coolest thing about him is he is such an attack type of player. Let's see from Ken. I hope they trade

hunters at Aries Smith and Cook, but I wonder their worth. Yeah. Daniil Hunter has to be traded after June 1st or they take on a pretty big penalty. So it's not impossible, but they would have to, if they were to trade the other two first, they could take on that penalty if they wanted to. But most likely scenario with Daniil Hunter, if he gets traded, is that he's traded like in the lead up to training camp. And then or even at the beginning of training camp, I guess, if they can't work anything out. And it's next year's draft picks, which I don't think is a bad thing to get next year's draft capital. Kind of like Khalil Mack, how it went through training camp and then he was traded to the Bears and they got like the next year's picks. As far as Z'Darrius Smith and Daniil Hunter, I think they would love third rounders. I don't think you're getting third rounders

because usually when the whole world knows that you got to trade somebody, it's hard to trade somebody. And that's probably why they haven't been traded yet, unless they're trying to work out extensions or something to change these contract numbers. But I think it would probably be more wise just to make the moves and get the draft capital. So let me bring you guys up on this draft simulation I've been working on here. So the first thing I did, hopefully you guys can see that, is I made some trades, just one actually, and I traded down with the New Orleans Saints. I think this is a very realistic type of scenario. The Saints love to trade up and the Vikings love to trade down. So here we go. And I got number

29 and number 71, and I moved 23, 158, and a next year's fourth. I don't really want to give up next year draft capital, but it was the only way to make it work. So I went with it. So let me kick this thing off and see what it looks like at 29. And let me just say too, I didn't want to move too far down in doing this draft sim. Because if you move out of the first round, we're all going to have a really boring night. That's what I would say. No, that's not why. I think if you move out of the first round, then you move out of that space where there's still very good prospects at your positions of need. That if you get into the 30s, you get into the 40s, then you've probably lost a lot of opportunity for getting

starting caliber players in this draft. So I don't think that's a good idea. So this worked for me, moving down from 23 to 29, picking up the 71st pick. And by the way, we're doing four rounds here. I'm not going to go to the seventh round because I mean, who knows, right? Like, yeah, who knows who they're picking in the seventh round at this point? So I always do four rounds because that's the amount of players that usually everybody knows. So let's take a look here. Well, we've got some options we've got on the board and I'm using, you know, PFF and

what they've got is their rankings because and their draft simulator, by the way, very fun to play with PFF.com but there's more other draft simulators if you want to check those out uh so we've got some options here uh will mcdonald the fourth really intrigues me and one of the reasons is his athleticism but also this year he's very productive if you guys can see his pff page there. A very good pass rush grade, 84.2. How do we feel about a pass rusher? Because I was doing some looking at the pass rushing group that's likely to be available. And as you can see, the guy from Kansas City, or not Kansas City, Kansas State, Felix Anadike

Uzama, I believe is how you pronounce it. The edge rusher from Kansas State. Pretty impressive dude. A lot of production, good, decent PFF grade, really good NFL combine. You've got some interior rushers here as well. Some people like BJ Ojulare. There are some good players in this area, but there's also some corners. Whoops, I clicked on tanner mckee

that's not going to be the pick well maybe you never know uh but you know you have cam smith from south carolina and you've also got emmanuel forbes here are we are we worn out on corners to the point where like nobody wants to draft corners how this? I was doing a little bit of research on the Vikings defensive drafts and I ran across something that's actually kind of crazy and I hadn't thought about it before, but so in 2015, they had this epic draft, right? And they get Trey Waynes, Eric Hendricks, Daniil Hunter, Stefan Diggs, unbelievable, right? And even the year before they had gotten Anthony Barr. They had gotten Xavier Rhodes. They had gotten Harrison Smith, like in the years before, right? Since 2016, the Vikings have taken, in the first or second round,

only three defensive players. And they were all corners. It was Mackenzie Alexander, Mike Hughes. And correct me if I have this wrong, but I think that's right. Mackenzie Alexander, Mike Hughes, and correct me if I have this wrong, but I think that's right. Mackenzie Alexander, Mike Hughes, and not counting last year, and not counting last year, because we don't know what those players are. And Jeff Gladney. Those were the only three defensive players that they took in the first or second round.

So if you guys are wondering why the defense has given up the fourth most points since 2020, that's part of the explanation, is that they have not been drafting defensive players. They've drafted four offensive linemen and three defensive players in the first two rounds since 2016. So, I mean, that's kind of crazy, right? And of course they've been corners and none of them have worked out. So yes,

I think that people who are corner backed out and then last year they take another corner, he gets hurt. I kind of feel you there. I think I'm with you. And we were talking about this on the show last week, just about how risky and how difficult it is to take corners and a lot of times when they don't work out like they really don't work out it's not like they could be situational players and so here on the board we've got will mcdonald the next player at a vikings position of need on the pff list is emmanuel forbes the cornerback for miss State. Interestingly, I was taking a look at receiver because we were just talking about receiver. Josh Downs, Tank Dell, the receivers were mostly taken. So if we're talking about why not to trade down, if they're looking for a receiver, then some of them are going to be taken here, like Zay Flowers, Jordan Addison, Quentin Johnston.

Those guys were all taken before they ended up with our draft pick. So how do we feel, chat, about the idea of taking Will McDonald IV, the edge rusher out of Iowa State? That's who I'm thinking about right now off of this list, and I'll continue to kind of scroll up and down through this list. The one I did yesterday, I believe he wasn't available, and I took Anadike Uzama. But, you know, Maisie Smith is kind of interesting to me. I'm definitely not taking a linebacker cam Smith out of South Carolina. He's an interesting one too,

because he's got some nickel experience as you guys can see on the board there or on the, on the page. He did play. If you could spot it, a little bit on the slot last year, which is kind of interesting, but also had his best year in 2021 and did really well at the NFL Combine. So I'm thinking around that range about corners, but I also think it's not a bad idea to take corners in free agency or buy corners in free agency and take a pass rusher so i'm going for it unless anybody has a big dispute i'm going to take will mcdonald the fourth uh edge rusher who i think kind of fits their size right like yeah he's that's right he's undersized but that's okay for brian flores in the way that he wants to play so i'm going to take him i think he's a scheme fit i think they need future rushers because you could easily say, well, they've got good pass rushers right now, but they might not like a week from now. I mean, they might trade Zedaria

Smith, you know, a couple of weeks from after the draft, they might, you know, trade away, you know, Daniil Hunter, and then you're left with just Marcus Davenport. I don't know if Will McDonald, the fourth had three-cone, but you know what? I can look that up just out of curiosity because I have seen that there are certain things. By the way, as far as relative athletic score, I know that's a thing we talk about a lot. Will McDonald, even though he's a little undersized, 96th percentile. So he should fit with the athleticism that the Vikings are looking for. But I'm going to check on the three cone. Oh, yeah, elites with the three cone.

So there you go. 98th percentile three cone for Will McDonald. Makes perfect sense for our pick. So you got an edge rusher for the future. All right, let's see what else we got. Now, this is, I'm at 71. You guys can see this okay, right? Yep, 71.

Let's see. I think we're all out on tanner mckee nathaniel dell also called tank dell the wide receiver i'm kind of intrigued by but here's my problem so he's got great numbers here's my issue is that he's five foot eight and i went through the list of five foot eight wide receivers or less i'll tell you what I came up with. Almost nothing. There's just, I think there is like a, you must be this tall to get on the ride when it comes to wide receivers. I mean, I remember Tavon Austin, who's the guy, Tutu Atwell, who people talked about like, oh no, no, no. His height won't matter. He's a playmaker.

I am pretty skeptical about that. So I think he's kind of off my board of being this high. So we've got Michael Wilson, the wide receiver from Stanford. I do like Michael Wilson. My concern is that he only played six games last year and five games the year before. That is my concern. Michael Wilson looked really good at the senior bowl, and he's also one of the strongest wide receivers in the entire draft. He benched 23. So 23 reps. And you don't find that very often. He's a pretty strong guy. Is this the place for a receiver or should we be looking at the secondary instead? Do we want to go all in on the defensive side and this would not be the sexiest

it certainly would not because you have Garrett Williams out of Syracuse he hurt his ACL so he wouldn't be able to help right away I'm intrigued by uh Travius Hodgins Tomlinson he's another undersized guy but he also made a lot of plays on the ball and I think think that this is a market where I think we understand that the undersized corner can actually be quite good because of Antoine Winfield Sr. DJ Turner is another one that's kind of interesting. This is a guy who had really, really good statistics at Michigan last year. Let's see. A little bit on the bigger side. He's still not huge, but a little bit on the bigger side. But I think, unless you guys have any protest here since we got the extra pick and i don't love either one of those wide receivers i kind of like michael wilson to tell you the truth i kind of

like him but maybe don't love i think we should go corner here and just stock defense as much as we can and go back to back-back draft stock and defense and go with either Garrett Williams, Travius Hodges-Thompson, or DJ Turner, unless there's another corner that's interesting. But I think that's kind of the way that I want to go here is to go with another corner. Is everybody good with that? Seems like everybody's good with that. And look, I i mean usually with corners

it is a little bit of a crapshoot but if you're looking for somebody to just throw in the pot i mean that's the thing right like if you're gonna hit you probably have to throw a lot of corners at it so they've already got andrew booth jr and caleb evans so we are going to uh we are going to go with another present for brian floris and that is cornerback DJ Turner out of Michigan. Now, since we traded down, we've got another draft pick here, and most of the same people are on the board. Garrett Williams, Nick Herbig, the edge rusher out of Wisconsin, if we want another pass rusher. But I'm thinking about the wide receiver here now you guys know that if you've been listening to the show I really do like A.T. Perry now I think that A.T. Perry could go a little higher than this I don't see what the

concern or what the issue with A.T. Perry is why he's mocked so low. As you can see, he's got great numbers, 1,100 yards last year, 1,200 yards the year before. He scored extremely well by PFF against man coverage. One of the things is that he was listed at 6'5", and he's actually 6'3". I think that's part of it. That's always the concern. Let's see from William, hope DJ is healthy. Yeah, corners seem to never be healthy, but there's only so much you Uh, let's see from William. Hope DJ is healthy. Yeah. Corners seem to never be healthy, but there's only so much you can do. Uh, when it comes to that, I think here is the place to go with a wide receiver. I like the idea of AT Perry, but let me search all the receivers and see if there's anybody else that we should be looking at. We've

got, uh, yeah, Kayshawn. Uh, I think it was, what, Booty is how it's pronounced. Kind of a disappointment. Parker Washington is somebody that people have talked about. Jonathan Mingo is a guy that a lot of people have talked about as being a real blazing fast wide receiver. So there's a lot of options. And I think that right here, this is kind of making the case for you can wait on some of these wide receivers and there will be some

intriguing prospects uh parker washington is another one who's undersized so our top two guys michael wilson and at perry are a little bit uh of the opposites where wilson didn't play a lot and perry played a ton and was very productive um but you know i I don't see anybody past that down our list here that is worth looking at. But I think that we should go with either Perry or Wilson. And I tend to lean toward Perry. Anybody got any disputes about that? Now, okay. So some of you are asking about Dorian Thompson Robinson. And my guess is that, yeah, he's probably still on the board, but I am, I am not for that idea. So yes, he is still on the board. He's also ranked number 163. So we would be overdrafting the heck out of them. According to PFF, I'm not really on board with that idea unless it's like the seventh round. You know, actually it's a a it's a good question from why is why is perry so low if he's productive

and i don't know the answer to that and i don't know that it's even right that this is where he's going to go um you know because he you know the nfl could see him higher or lower i'm not sure pff doesn't have him that high i have noticed that some of my favorite analysts of the draft, Matt Harmon from Yahoo, who studies wide receivers, or Derek Klassen, who's been on this show, both those guys really like A.T. Perry. So let's go for it. Six foot three, super productive wide receiver.

Let me check his relative athletic score. This is the draft room, folks. This is the draft room right here. This is the draft room right here. This is how it's going. We're having this last-minute conference. 98th percentile is what he is as far as the athleticism. Now, we're doing this. 98th percentile athlete who is productive.

And I understand the argument would be the conference he played in, but he dominated, we're doing it. We're taking AT Perry. All right. So now we're dropping down to our last draft pick of this draft SIM, which is number one 19, because we're not going seven rounds and we can do a lot of different things

here, but let me make a case and you guys are going to hate it. I know you guys are going to hate it, but what if we went with a running back here? You guys hate it. I mean, it's the fourth round. So we're kind of down into that range. This is a draft that has a lot of running backs and let's just assume that they are going to trade away, uh, you know, Delvin cook, right? I mean, so this would be somebody, if you're looking in the fourth round that they could pair potentially with Alexander Madison, uh, not sure about, you know, Ty Chandler. I think you want to give Ty Chandler a look. A linebacker is definitely another position

to look at here, but when we're talking about when it's time to take a running back. I think that the fourth round is the right time. If you get to the fifth, sixth, seventh round, then you're probably missing out on all the good players. If you're taking it before that, then it's probably too soon. This is where you could get someone who could be a potential very good player and could play right away potentially and have an impact right away. Now, Roshon Johnson is a guy that I am actually very interested in. He's mentioned in the chat here because he has, I mean, really good numbers. I mean, average 5.8, 5.9 yards per carry. And he did not have a ton of work, did not have tons of carries.

But, you know, neither did someone like Alvin Kamara and Johnson's averaging almost six yards of carry. There's a few other guys who are out there that are kind of interesting. Kendra Miller was a really good player for TCU this year. He was averaging over six yards of rush as well in that sort of spread offense. Keaton Mitchell is like an undersized guy who had unbelievable numbers, seven yards of carry, incredible rushing grade. There's a lot of good running backs that are here. I could make the case to take one now. We could also make the case to kind of move down. As far as the offensive line, I don't look at offensive line as a position they need to take here. The kid from Appalachian State seems to

be gone, I think, unless I overlooked him. But I think with the offensive line, they're kind of set with players that are starters for a long time or developmental players. And I guess one thing you could say about the running back position is there are a lot of good ones that are still on this list. A kid from Pitt here who I'm not really sure. Abanaconda, how to say his name. I have not seen him play before. Let's take a look at the linebacker position. See what we got at linebacker. Because you talk about fatigue though. The Vikings taking mid-round linebackers. There is some fatigue. So we've got Ivan Pace Jr. is an interesting one. Great numbers for Ivan Pace Jr. A an interesting one great numbers for Ivan Pace

Jr. a guy who's kind of looked at as being undersized which we know the Vikings like good against the run average and coverage by PFF you know I mean at this point you're kind of taking somebody that you know who knows as far as the trade offers go you know we do have a trade offer with maybe jacksonville here i guess we could trade back and take two players can we get that let's see let us do that i usually don't trade midway through let's just take a player and and then we'll call it a day uh so let's see if you guys are okay with it. I think I am going to go the running back route though. I think I'm going to go with Rashawn Johnson out of Texas. Everybody good with that defensive tackle.

Yeah. Defensive tackle. I, yeah, I mean, the thing with the thing with defensive lineman for me is I really think you have to mostly get them early on. If you want somebody, I mean, yeah, somebody to be a run stuffer, but they've already got Kairos Tonga in there. They, you know, Asasia Tomo was maybe a development guy from the mid round. This is where I feel like you can draft a player and have him actually be an impact guy out of the fourth round where all those other positions, maybe not. So that's what we're going with. All right, let's pull up the draft here. Let's take a look at what we ended up with. And

then I want you guys to give me your feedback. It's okay if you hate it. I'd prefer you love it, but let's see. So there's our draft. Will McDonald, the fourth, DJ Turner, the wide receiver out of Michigan, AT Perry, the receiver, and Rashawn Johnson, the running back out of Texas. Grade me, chat. Tell me what you think of this draft. Do we like it? Do we hate it? What do you think? And then we can answer any final off-season questions over the next few minutes and call it a fun time. So there's our draft. I'm holding it up on the screen for everybody to take one last look at. And you guys can tell me what you think. They don't love your trade.

Oh yeah, I should tell you what PFF thinks of it. For those listening on the podcast feed, they hated the trade, gave me a C plus, but they gave me an A minus for the overall draft. Right? Not too bad. I think, yeah, the picks that they liked the most were dj turner in the third round and at perry in the third round as well they didn't love the running back

ken's giving me a meh uh i'm getting some i'm getting some good feedback here an a on the list solid b plus if this is the draft the vikings come away with i think we're all going to feel the same ways ken's giving me a b william's giving me an a minus or b plus i think you uh derrick says it doesn't move the needle i think that that feedback is fair he felt giving me a b um wish the vikings could have put together a stud offensive or defensive lineman. The offensive lineman is just, I don't know. I think that they think they're set. It was a struggle still, but they brought back Bradbury. Cleveland, I'm not sure about his future, but they're going to play Ed Ingram at right guard in the future. They're not going to bail on that after next year.

So they've really got their five. They brought back Schlotman. They brought back Ole Udo. Like the offensive line is set. Defensive line, yes, they probably could use an interior rusher. But once you get past that first, second round, that's hard to find. Now, you can say that it doesn't move the needle. And I feel you. I feel you. But your defense has been a laughingstock for several years. Like if you get an edge rusher for the future, a corner who turns out like if you get these things and you start putting together a group of good defensive players who are young under Brian Flores, it does move the needle on the whole. Does Will McDonald next year or DJ Turner, do they turn into the best players ever? Probably not. But in the long run, they're going to have to rebuild this entire defense at some

point. So an A.T. Perry, I think, has a chance to be a good wide receiver. You're still asking him probably to be a number three to K.J. Osborne right away in the best case scenario. But we've also seen a lot of second and third round receivers succeed. So I like that pick. And the running back is somebody to jump right into the mix after assuming that they trade Delvin if they don't, but that's a fourth round draft pick. That's 119th overall. So I'm going to defend it as a potentially needle moving with what they have for draft capital. If I could get you eight defensive players, you know, probably, but they're, you know, they probably would move the needle a lot more right away. These couple of guys in the first four rounds, and that's even with a trade down.

I mean, that's how few draft picks the Vikings have right now. So yeah, I didn't take a wide receiver in the first round, but the receivers that I was looking at were gone at that point. Your Jordan Addison's and so forth. Let's take a look also at how the first round played out. Let's see, see if there's anything crazy. Bryce Young going first. I think that's going to happen.

CJ Stroud, Anthony Richardson to the Colts makes a lot of sense. Will Levis to the Raiders. Sure. Jalen Carter to the Lions. I think you probably, as much as I have major concerns about Jalen Carter, I think as if you're the Vikings, you don't want that. Let's see. Jackson Smith and the Jigba going to the Eagles at 10 would be crazy, but I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think they're going to look at a wide receiver. Nolan Smith going pretty early now. So how close were we to getting Kalijah Canty?

20th. So he would have been off the board. Jordan Edison off the board. Oh, so Zay Flowers, had we not traded down, would not have been off the board. Same with Deontay Banks, who probably is a good fit for the Vikings. So very interesting, fun stuff. That's why we do Draft Sims. It's a good time. So hopefully you guys had fun with that. And I'll just throw it out there. Any last questions that anybody wants

to ask? Were there any linebackers left, Johnny? I didn't look closely at the linebacker group as far as late in the draft yeah there were there were some but uh mostly like undersized guys the types that you get in the fourth round the vikings have really done a lot of that uh yeah this in in my little research about why they've drafted badly on the defensive side. Here's another crazy stat for you. They out of 29 players between 2016 and 2021, 16 of them were linebackers or safeties that like the most non-premium position. So I don't know, like the, the Spielman era did not care at all about positional value. And last year, didn't really either, but maybe this year they will. Let's see from Miles, where does a quarterback have to fall for the Vikings to say we have to do it?

I think out of the top 10 is probably the answer. If Anthony Richardson were to drop out of the top 10, I don't know about Will Levis. I think he's getting debated a lot more these days, it seems like Will Levis and whether he's even, some people are even saying they don I think he's getting debated a lot more these days. It seems like Will Levis and whether he's even, some people are even saying they don't think he's a first round pick, which would be kind of crazy because it's been this top four, but there's always somebody who surprises us. If they really liked Will Levis, I think it has to be out of the top 10. And then you got to dip into your next year's draft capital. You might have to throw a player in there. Like it's not easy for this team to compete with other teams in terms of the draft capital. That's kind of, that's kind of how it is. Let's see if, uh, if Stroud or young fall out of the,

to three, would you trade up? I guess my answer would be, how would you trade up? Like, how do you get to the number three pick if you're the vikings what can you give uh it i mean three three firsts like this year next year in the year after maybe that would be the only way you could do it are you giving three firsts to go all the way up and i don't think i mean those two guys i think are going one and two and i i don't i don't know i just don't see any way that those franchises that are so desperate for quarterbacks are not taking those guys one and two. Let's see. An SI article has the Vikings as a sleeper to slide to the number three overall pick. I just don't see how I like, that's the thing is, I mean, yeah, I guess if you gave up your entire, no, actually I

checked on this. I checked on this. So here you want to hear how little draft capital the Vikings have. So, and this is by the Jimmy Johnson chart, which I know people are saying isn't in vogue anymore, but listen to this by the Jimmy Johnson draft chart, the highest highest the Vikings could trade from 23, if they gave up every pick they have, is 16. So they would have to give up every pick they have, future firsts, players, I mean, everything. And I still don't think those teams are doing it. Now for number three, but the problem is, there's so many other teams that can just give more than the Vikings can.

They have more draft capital. They have other players that they can move. You can't move Hunter unless you take a big dead cap hit, which we talked about. It's not a situation that they're really in a spot to move up. That's the tough part of it. From William, still think we get our future QB next year and improve the defense this year. I agree with you, man. I agree. If I'm putting down the money, if I had to do that, I don't bet on anything. But if I did, I would bet on the Vikings draft quarterback in 2024

and draft kind of just the way we just did. I was trying to do this draft, this draft sim, and we could do another one for sure next week in a way that I thought the Vikings would probably go about it, which was to look for defense, give Brian Flores some new toys to play with, to develop, to use his scouting skill, and then really look at next year for the draft. If they do go the hooker route or whatever, then okay. But I would be surprised at this point. I mean, you never know, but I would be surprised. Are there any late round quarterbacks? I know you got a lot of you guys like Dorian Thompson Robinson. He's like six, one and 195 pounds. I mean, it's pretty tough. If you are, if you aren't Kyler Murray or Russell Wilson or Bryce Young, it's really tough to be that small. And I, you know, Stetson Bennett is like

25 years old. I mean, I don't know what's his ceiling, like a Colt McCoy or something. I don't look at anybody. Clayton Toon is the one that's the most interesting. And people have pointed out that Clayton Toon has really good numbers and is a good athlete. But if he was the other parts, he'd be talked about as a first round pick. If you look back in recent history at middle round, late round quarterbacks, I know Brock Purdy was just good. So everyone's going to say, maybe we got Brock Purdy. But it's a horror show. Dak Prescott is literally the only good quarterback between the time Kirk and Russell Wilson were taken in the fourth till present in the middle rounds. So if

you take like the third, fourth, fifth rounds, the only guy who's become an above average starter is Dak Prescott and there's only I think I added this up there's only three guys who have even become starters at all and one of them is Jacoby Perseck the odds are just so low of getting a good quarterback in the mid rounds it's all in for the top quarterback or nothing uh and we're not even sure in like the Brock Purdy example we're not even sure he's actually good like I liked how he played I thought he looked excellent but he played like five games so we saw Case Keenum look excellent for five games with a great team I'm not even convinced that he really

is their franchise quarterback so I think it's if you want to draft one in the sixth or seventh feel free like you're probably not missing out on anything else. You might as well, but your odds of it working out are very low. So anyway, great questions, great conversation as always guys. Super fun. I think this worked out great. Hopefully you all could kind of see the draft board and everything who watched on YouTube. And hopefully for those listening on the podcast feed, we talked through it well enough and uh you know we'll have a lot more to come this should be a fun week chris trapasso's back on we've got some good ideas eric edholm of nfl.com is going to join uh eric eager keeps begging to come back on the show and talk drafts so we got a lot of good guests coming up and then after that we are almost there folks this is a weird time leading up to the draft but we are almost there, folks. This is a weird time leading up to the draft, but we are almost there.

So thank you all so much for playing along and listening to the show and participating. And we will do it again actually tomorrow night. We'll be at Hot Routes with me and Jonathan Harrison. So we'll see you all then. And if there's ever any breaking news, make sure you're subscribed to the channel because we will jump right on it. So thanks again, everybody. And we will talk to you all soon.