Vikings Have Players A-Plenty—Purple Draft Breakdown
Joe Oberle
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Vikings Territory Breakdown
The NFL Draft was completed last Saturday, so the days of player speculation and mock drafts have ended. The Vikings picked up six players in the draft and signed a slew of undrafted free agents, so let the days of speculation about who will make the team and how they will perform officially begin. The mocks are off the clock and the picks are now trying to stick.
Vikings GM Kwesi Adolfo-Mensah and his draft-day sidekick head coach Kevin O’Connell surprised some observers by sticking, themselves, to their position in the first round of the draft and selecting USC wideout Jordan Addison at pick No. 23. Many had the Vikings moving for a quarterback and others (myself included) had them trading back for more picks, but the Star Tribune’s Mark Craig predicted they would take a wide receiver at 23—particular Zay Flowers, who right ahead of the Purple and Gold to the purple and black in Baltimore. But from that point, Kwesi got his trade-happy feet moving and start moving around the draft.
The Vikings eventually got back in the game at the end of the third round and selected Mekhi Blackmon, a cornerback from USC, who probably knows the team’s first-round pick very well from college practice. They selected, LSU safety Jay Ward in the fourth, nose tackle Jaquelin Roy from LSU in the fifth, and then a couple more surprises to finish the weekend: BYU quarterback Jalen Hall in round five and UAB running back DeWayne McBride in the last round (pick #222). The Vikings were “surprised” to see the QB still on the board and Vikings fans were surprised to see the team add another running back to the room that contains four already. (Sad to say, “We’ll seeya, Dalvin.”)
So let us continue the post-draft speculation on these picks right here (Hopefully we get it in under the wire before the much-too-early mocks for the 2024 NFL Draft start appearing—too late you say? Yeah, well, I suppose.) On the Vikings Territory Breakdown, Craig and Oberle will dissect the draft and see where the Vikings reached, see what they missed and see if we can make sense of where the team is going as OTAs and minicamps and such are preparing to commence. There is so much to discuss—in particular how Mark did on his mock and finding out if has started his 2024 mock draft yet. Tune in to the VT Breakdown podcast and check it out.
