Minnesota Vikings 2022 NFL Draft guide
The NFL Draft has arrived with the Minnesota Vikings set to pick No. 12 in the first round Thursday night, followed by picks in rounds 2 and 3 Friday, and then rounds 4-7 on Saturday.
Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O'Connell, working together and in charge of the draft for the first time in their careers, are tasked with rebuilding the team while attempting to stay relevant in the rough and tumble NFC. Doing so will require hitting on multiple picks, but the question is how they will view areas of need like guard, cornerback, and edge rusher compared to high-impact positions like quarterback and wide receiver.
Bring Me The Sports and Purple Insider have you fully covered. Here's your guide, through a collection of stories, to prepare you for the Vikings' 2022 draft.
Who will the Vikings take with the No. 12 pick in the NFL Draft? Will they trade down?
We'll find out when the draft starts at 7 p.m. Thursday. Here are the final mock draft predictions from the big wigs who cover the NFL.
Read: What Kiper, McShay, King and others think the Vikings will do
Following a regime that felt like it was completely run by two football men, Adofo-Mensah came out projecting a bat signal that “collaboration” isn’t just a buzz word, it’s how he’s operated the pre-draft process.
“I told them at the end of that meeting, ‘We can’t control what happens this weekend. All we can do is prepare like crazy and move as a unit, move together,” Adofo-Mensah said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen at the draft, but we have a lot of scenarios planned for it and we will best respond to whatever comes our way.”
Read: Decoding Kwesi Adofo-Mensha's pre-draft press conference
The Vikings have already spent their free agent dollars on the defensive side, so the strong receiver class expected to start coming off the board in the middle of the first round may be a good way for new GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to break the Rick Spielman mold and go all-in on offense.
Let's take a closer look how Jameson Williams, Garrett Wilson, Drake London, Chris Olave and Treylon Burks could fit with the Vikings.
Read: A closer look at the top receivers the Vikings could target on draft night
This is a massively important draft for the Minnesota Vikings. The lack of draft success in the last few years means there are hardly any “prospects” currently on the roster that have a reasonable chance to develop into starters.
So now that we’ve set the stakes, let’s make some predictions.
Read: Making NFL Draft predictions for the Minnesota Vikings
It's impossible to know for sure what direction Kwesi Adofo-Mensah will take the team -- and the event is so fluid that he could have many different possible paths depending on how the board falls -- however, there are some indicators based on studies of the draft of ways in which teams can get the most out of their picks. Let's have a look at five draft hacks the Vikings should keep in mind as they formulate a philosophy for picking their next wave of players...
Read: Can the Minnesota Vikings hack the NFL Draft?
With GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell at the helm, there’s no predicting their first draft and it’s impossible to say whether they would pick a quarterback with any legitimate chance to be the future of the franchise. Considering Kirk Cousins will be 34 this year and is only under contract through 2023, it probably shouldn’t be as widely dismissed as the mock world believes.
Read: What should and shouldn't be 'off the table' for the Vikings in the NFL Draft
This year there has been a lot written about the five quarterbacks who have a chance to be taken in the first round of the NFL Draft — Malik Willis, Matt Corral, Kenny Pickett, Desmond Ridder and Sam Howell — but nobody knows which players the league will value most.
Read: Are any of these quarterbacks in the NFL Draft worth taking?
For the past several weeks, Vikings fans have been looking at mock draft data, betting markets, and consensus big boards to try and decipher who could be available when the Vikings pick at No. 12 next week.
Now ESPN released its own draft predictor. It too has flaws. Unlike a consensus big board, it is taking big board data from only its crop of draft analysts. That narrows its scope a bit. But it still is the most concise and digestible predictor that I’ve seen this draft season.
So let’s take a look at the results and what it means for the Vikings.
Read: Who will be available when the Vikings are on the clock?
After carding a 91.7 PFF grade in 2019, he had a 72.2 grade in 2020 and a 66.6 grade in 2021. His completion percentage allowed was 34.7% in 2019. That jumped to 46.7% in 2020 and 60% in 2021.
Should the Vikings consider a guy who has dealt with injuries and struggles the past two seasons, but was considered the best corner in the country as a freshman in 2019?
Read: Should the Vikings be all-in on Derek Stingley Jr.?
In recent years, the Vikings haven’t drafted particularly well. Since 2016, the only hit in the first round has been Justin Jefferson (jury still out on Christian Darrisaw). The second round has been more friendly with Dalvin Cook, Brian O’Neill, Irv Smith Jr. and Ezra Cleveland being taken, but the third round and beyond — woof.
Alas, there’s nothing new GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah can do about the past. But we can look back at what we thought on draft nights from recent years and look for clues about how the Vikings can repeat successes and avoid pitfalls.
Read: What we can learn about draft strategy from Vikings picks of the past
Sometimes the guy in charge has to call the shots. And if you polled 1,000 Vikings fans on whether they wanted Adofo-Mensah, an analytically-savvy, Wall Street-trained, Princeton man to call the shot or if he wanted to leave it to new coaches and front office people who have largely been here for the whole downfall of the last four years, you might make your bet with Adofo-Mensah.
