The NFL Draft is almost upon us and like a kid the few days before Christmas, the anticipation is both draining and palpable. In a week the Mock Drafts will be behind us and we will have discovered who our favorite team has selected. Like that kid at Christmas we will have regrets for things we did or did not get and in time discover that the wrapping was either better or worse than its contents.
With this in mind I will give you my Draft list for the Minnesota Vikings. If I had to pick three positions that I want the Vikings General Manager, Rick Spielman to wrap up and leave under the proverbial tree and yes I do know it is MAY!
Like most teams the Vikings have more than three needs on the team but for the sake of clarity I will limit it to three positions with problems, two of them in my eyes are quite obvious and the third was really a coin toss. So let’s get the wrapping paper and sticky tape and get to work.
QUARTERBACK
This position is so obvious that I joked about how many words I could use on it. Christian Ponder isn’t a bad quarterback; he just isn’t the franchise QB that the Vikings had hoped for. Spielman reached for someone who in Ponder’s own words wasn’t expecting to be drafted in the first round.
There is an argument to be made for player management and coaching choices in his development and I would find it hard to disagree with them. Bringing Donovan NcNabb in as a starter and announcing that fact before camp was a bad move instigated by Les Frazier. So too was Frazier’s loyalty to Ponder once he had embedded himself as a starter. Bill Musgrave’s offensive system was far too simple, making it easy to read, as it was noted he carried the smallest play call card in the league.
With the re-signing of Matt Cassel, Spielman has done one thing he needed to do, bought a future QB time. Cassel is a competent passer; he worked well in the Vikings passing game last year, making Greg Jennings finally earn his pay day. Where as the rumour mills are going nuts that the Vikings are likely to trade up to get their future starter, logic dictates that Spielman will trade down from 8th overall and then trade back into the first later to get their QB (the new CBA gives a 5th year option to all first round picks). Which brings me to my second must-have position,
LINEBACKER
This is the only position that doesn’t have a solid starter across the board at the moment. Chad Greenway has been the team leader since E.J. Henderson retired but he was terrible last season and has already restructured his contract this off-season. None of the LB positions have had any major addition this off season. Yes, Jasper Brinkley was brought back from exile but he was never more than a competent back-up. Audie Cole was a pleasant surprise at MLB late last season. The additions of Gerald Hodges and Mike Mauti in last years draft make me hope the position isn’t as bad as everyone is making out. Rick Spielman is a massive believer in developing players having the third most drafted players still on his team since 2008 (25) along with the second most starters from the late rounds in the league (surprisingly it is only four) My gut tells me this is where the team’s first pick will be used but after a trade down.
SAFETY
This problem was a toss up for me, between safety and cornerback. The reason I went safety is that it has the potential to be a shut out position very easily. Harrison Smith is considered one of the best young players at his position, besides an unusual injury last season he has been solid and a breath of fresh air in an otherwise terrible secondary. Teams have to watch where he is, as his aggression and instinct for the ball has seen him dominate when in a passing situation. Pairing Smith with another outstanding safety will see the Vikings emulate the Seattle Seahawks where teams can’t go over the top without fear of being intercepted. It was glaringly obvious when Smith was not in the game that the secondary wasn’t the same, the Vikings slipped to the second worst points scored against them in team history and came close to breaking the NFL record for most points conceded.
Most of the Vikings off-season additions have been on the defensive side of the ball and I expect this side to be worked on a lot more in the draft, as the defense was a mess last year. Besides the obvious issue at quarterback the offense is quite impressive, there are issues with left guard and depth at running back but this team has the talent to win games on offense, last season showed how scary Cordarrelle Patterson can be when given the ball. Adrian Peterson is still on course to be called one of the best running backs to play the game and Kyle Rudolph can become one of the best tight ends in the league.
This draft in all likelihood will determine the future of Rick Spielman, and it will focus on one position, that of quarterback. Spielman has been a genius in previous drafts in all but that one position. He has said himself that he has failed when it comes to QB appraisal and that is one of the reasons Norv Turner was brought in.
As a fan I adore Spielman when it comes to the draft, he is exciting, clever and a complete mind (expletive deleted). He pulls off crazy trades that are beyond obvious and still gets away with it, be it making the Browns move up one spot to get Trent Richardson, when it was obvious we wanted Matt Kalil to shipping off the very openly disgruntled Percy Harvin to the Seahawks for a first and two third round picks, he knows how to play the game and to win at it in all but one regard.
So Rick, pay extra attention wrapping those presents and put them under the tree for Vikings fans, as they are expecting a master class in how the draft works from you this year.
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