Who Do Vikings Select in Conor Orr's New Mock Draft?

In a new mock draft from SI's Conor Orr, the Vikings take a huge swing and usher in an exciting new era for their franchise. They pull off a trade with the Patriots to move up to No. 3 and take UNC quarterback Drake Maye, whose physical tools and gunslinger mentality give him elite upside with the right coaching and development. It's a flashy pick for the Vikings and it's a dream landing spot for Maye, who probably has the best chance of reaching his ceiling if he lands in Minnesota with Kevin O'Connell, Josh McCown, and an outstanding core group of complementary offensive players.

Orr: "As I’ve written, this is the only option for the Vikings. One rival source I recently spoke with said they would be stunned at this point if the Vikings didn’t plow their way into the top three and treated it like an inevitability. Minnesota cannot come out of the draft with the fourth-best passer and attempt to pass off to us the idea that he was really their favorite all along. Maye checks a lot of boxes and could be the solution for a decade in the Twin Cities."

There's plenty of reason to believe that O'Connell, GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, and the Vikings as an organization are big fans of Maye. They have no shortage of information on him and the other top-six quarterbacks, having met with all of them multiple times, including private workouts on their respective college campuses. The Vikings' QB coach is McCown, who coached Maye when he was a high school quarterback in Charlotte. O'Connell gave an answer last week about footwork being fixable, which sure sounded like he was indirectly talking about Maye. There have been lots of rumblings that the Vikings really like Maye and believe in his upside.

The issue is that in order to draft him, they might have to give the Patriots a massive haul to talk them out of taking Maye for themselves. As of recently, it's been reported that New England hasn't gotten what it believes to be a "serious" offer for that pick. And we know that Adofo-Mensah has lines he isn't willing to cross in negotiations, whether it be for a Kirk Cousins contract or any kind of trade.

If the Vikings are going to get Maye, O'Connell might just have to talk Adofo-Mensah into surrendering more draft capital than he'd like to. The baseline is presumably both first-round picks this year, next year's first-rounder, and then a sweetener on top of that.

It's going to be fascinating to see if that happens.

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