Posts tagged: markelle martin

Inside Our War Room: #MockFour Remaining Rounds

April 26, 2012, by No comments yet

(Note: This is a continuation of a series where we take you inside our War Room for the #MockOne draft series. This particular version is for #MockFour. If you are unfamiliar with what it is all about, you should probably start off by reading about what we did in the previous #MockThree. For prior #MockFour posts, check out #MockFour Begins and The Risks Continue.)

Alright guys, I have to be absolutely honest here. I kind of dropped the ball on this one. Things got very busy at work and I ended up going out of town last weekend so I wasn’t able to keep you all updated with #MockFour as much as I wanted to. Nevertheless, I wanted to get our draft out there before the actual Vikings have theirs. (You know, just so we look like geniuses when the real Vikings draft looks exactly like ours!)

So, here’s how we’re going to do things this time around. I’m going to list out how the draft went, the trades we made, who was selected, etc… Then Adam and I are giving to give our input and background on each pick.

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Inside Our War Room – Round 4

April 11, 2012, by 15 comments

Alright, back to update you all again on our progress in the #MockThree online mock draft. I’ve touched on it a couple times already (so I won’t again here), but if you missed the first three rounds as well as the general background information on what the draft is all about, use the links below to catch up.

Round One

1.03 – LT Matt Kalil, USC
Trade – 2.03, 4.03 and 6.03 for Bengals 1.21
1.21 – CB Dre Kirkpatrick, Alabama

Rounds Two & Three

3.03 – S Markelle Martin, Oklahoma State

After making the Markelle Martin selection at the top of the third, we again had to wait almost two full rounds to make another pick (as a result of the Dre Kirkpatrick trade). And again, it was tough to watch so many players we were targeting fly off the board.

Before making the Martin selection at the beginning of the third, I was pushing for us to take a wide receiver. Let me rephrase that: I was pushing for us to reach on a wide receiver. I had done a ton of scouting on various later-round wide receivers and was convinced that we should take a certain Juron Criner. I really liked Criner’s size and physicality. In watching his tape, he always seemed to come down with the ball and get up the field quickly. Criner fought for extra yardage after the catch and had good hand-eye coordination. I thought it would have been a solid pick as well as address a need that the team had. The GM of our War Room mellowed me out a little bit and told me it would be a reach; that Criner would probably still be there for our compensatory picks at the end of the fourth round. So, we took the safety Martin instead and crossed our fingers that we’d have another shot at Criner with our 4.33 pick.

Juron Criner was selected at 4.25, capping off a frantic run for wide receivers during the fourth.

We were all a little disappointed that Criner didn’t fall just a few picks further. We would have (meaning Josh, our GM, would have…) looked like geniuses! But, alas, we were left without Criner and going back to our board to see what other wide receivers were available that would still fit that ‘BPA’ title and be a good value.

I proposed we take a wide receiver who had fallen a little bit and was still, in my eyes, a great value pick at that point. Somebody who had the size, speed and verticality to stretch the field. Our GM proposed we take a different receiver, one who was a little further down on our board and, while still very promising, didn’t fit the role of a receiver who could be a legitimate threat down field.

So, here it is:

With the 33rd pick (compensatory) of the fourth round of the 2012 #MockThree NFL draft…

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Inside Our War Room – Rounds Two & Three

April 9, 2012, by 10 comments

For those that don’t already know here, over the past few days, I’ve been participating in an online community mock draft called #MockOne. It just so happens that this particular iteration is the third time it’s been done, making it #MockThree. And, of course, I am one of the lucky people representing the Minnesota Vikings. For a more in depth explanation of how the draft works, check out my previous post explaining what we did in the first round. Today, I will be reporting back the moves we made (or didn’t make) in the second and third rounds. The reason I am combining these two rounds is because, if you remember, we traded our second round pick to move up and grab Dre Kirkpatrick towards the end of the first round. Or, in other words, we didn’t have a second round pick. We did have a third round pick though, and in just a moment, I will tell you who we targeted and who we actually ended up selecting.

As you’ll remember from my previous post, I was partial to not trading picks to move up into the second round. It’s not that I don’t like Dre Kirkpatrick; I believe he would make a great addition to the team and immediately bolster our secondary. Rather, for a team with so many needs, I felt that we should be hanging on tightly to the large amount of picks we already had and potentially even trading down to amass more. Again, I don’t think it was a bad move, it just wasn’t the ideal move in my mind.

It hurt to watch so many great players go off the board in the second round – a round in which we didn’t have any picks. Granted, Dre Kirkpatrick was essentially our second pick, but still… Wide receiver Stephen Hill, a prospect I would have pushed hard for, didn’t make it to the pick we would have had in the second round which made me feel a tad bit better. Hill was acquired by the St. Louis Rams with the first pick of the second round. And Hill was just one of many wide receivers to come off the board. Alshon Jeffery, Mohamed Sanu, Brian Quick, Joe Adams and Marvin Jones were also selected in the second round, in that order.

So, by the time our third round pick rolled around, taking any of the remaining wide receivers in the draft would have been a huge reach. So, instead, we used the pick to address one of the Vikings other biggest needs (arguably the biggest, according to Adam), safety.

With the third pick in the third round of the 2012 #MockThree draft…

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