Does the math add up to a Vikings trade down?
The Vikings GM broke down the decision on whether to trade down or stick and pick
By Matthew Coller
EAGAN — Heading into the NFL Draft, the Minnesota Vikings are in a position that screams: “Trade down!”
Even in a normal draft, the back end of the first round is usually a very active place because some teams at the top of the second want the fifth-year option or see picks 20-30 as their last chance to get an elite prospect at a certain position but this year the argument is even stronger for trading back because A) the Vikings do not have a desperate need B) prognosticators are suggesting that players who are ranked between the mid-first and mid-second rounds are not that different in quality C) the Vikings have four draft picks.
Does Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah agree that trading down makes the most sense? He answered question from the Twin Cities media about his philosophy on moving back in the draft on Thursday. There were two words from the GM that stood out: “Scarcity” and “impact.”
As the use of analytics has increased in the NFL so have the arguments for trading down. When researchers have looked at the history and results of trades that go down the board to gain more capital, they often come out on the positive side. There are also draft pick value charts that have been invented to better represent the actual value of each pick than the “Jimmy Johnson” chart from the 90s that was based on trades that had been made in the past. The more analytical guides to pick value like the Rich Hill Chart and the Fitzgerald-Spielberger Chart from OverTheCap.com really display why moving down is a winning play.
For example: On the Fitzgerald-Spielberger chart, the 24th overall pick is worth 1,389 points and the 32nd + 100th picks would be worth 1,910 points. That’s a pretty big gap. What does that mean? The methodology behind the OTC chart is based on average post-rookie deal contracts for each range in the draft relative to position.
Adofo-Mensah points out that there are a lot of different ways of trying to figure out how much a pick is worth.
“It's something that I've been fascinated by. I built the chart myself,” Adofo-Mensah said. “I've seen other different charts, and they all take different assumptions. Quite frankly, this is a hard exercise.”
What makes it challenging is the scarcity part. Certain positions are extremely difficult to find in free agency like quarterbacks, wide receivers and defensive tackles, whereas safeties, corners and linebackers are more readily available in most years.
“How do you value a great player in a great position, you could assign a number to it, right?” Adofo-Mensah explained. “When you assign that number to it, does that incorporate the scarcity of that type of player? If you don't get that player in the draft, you can't typically get that player in for agency. So how do you put a number on that aspect of it?”
We can reasonably take away from his comment that the charts are a good guide but there are other considerations. If we apply that to our hypothetical trade down, let’s say the Vikings move back from 24 to 32 and miss out on two top defensive tackles like Kenneth Grant and Derrick Harmon, is that worth getting an extra third-round pick whose odds are low of being a difference-making player?
“A lot of times, it's impact,” Adofo-Mensah said. “And that impact can be one great player or multiple good players also realizing that it's uncertain and you don't know necessarily for sure that the one player is going to be good and and all those different dynamics. So that's really the conversation you have.”
There’s that word “impact.” The concept of trading down makes so much sense because there are no guarantees and taking a swing at two players is better than putting all the eggs in one basket. However, if the total value of the 24th overall pick hitting is higher than the 32nd and 100th both working to an expected outcome based on talent, it makes more sense to stay at 24th. More or less, it’s not that hard to find medium-impact players, whereas it’s very hard to find guys that drive success and have a trickle-down effect on others around them.
The Vikings have several examples of that on the roster with players they picked in the 20s. Justin Jefferson and Christian Darrisaw. Receiver and left tackle are two positions that greatly increase the success of the quarterback. They are elite and cannot be replaced anywhere in free agency. You have to draft players of that caliber.
So if the Vikings are talking about an elite talent at cornerback vs. a solid guard and a decent receiver prospect, they would think hard about taking the swing at the corner and hoping he maximizes his talent.
Another thing that goes beyond the draft charts is the context of each individual roster.
How the available players at 24 fit within the Vikings’ depth chart for 2025 and 2026 matters a lot to the equation. Adofo-Mensah said that he always thinks in two-year windows when it comes to roster building so he could be looking for players who will either have an impact right away or be ready to take a key player’s spot in 2026.
But the Vikings are not in a position where they need to fill a particular position. Adofo-Mensah even quipped that they call them “wants” rather than needs. In many previous years that has not been true, particularly in 2024 where they needed to take a quarterback by any means possible. This time around they spent huge dollars in free agency to bring in two interior O-line, two interior D-line, re-sign a running back and add another one in free agency, re-sign a corner, bring back a starting safety and add another one in free agency and pick up depth at linebacker and receiver.
“You have to earn the right to be the type of team, the type of organization that drafts for impact and not need,” Adofo-Mensah said. “I think we're able to do that a lot in what we did in free agency.”
Maybe you’re getting the picture by now: The idea of the Vikings trading down is far from a sure thing for the Vikings. If anything, Adofo-Mensah poured more cold water on the idea than he did leave the door open for a move back from the 24th pick.
Is that the right approach? I called an engineer who studied the problem and one league source familiar with using analytics in the draft process to find out.
The engineer is Amaeya Deshpande, a Vikings fan who went to UCLA and currently works for a tech company called ServiceNow. In 2022, he posted a study on trades in the draft on a blog called Bruin Sports Analytics. In his analysis, Deshpande pulled together every first-round trade up and down from 2011 through 2019 and looked at the results. Here’s the chart from his piece with the dark colors representing star players:
Deshpande then used the Pro-Football Reference statistics Approximate Value (similar to a Wins Above Replacement number). He found that the teams that traded down outperformed the teams that traded up.
“The mean difference in Career AV assessed by each trade individually is an astounding 20.125, which is equivalent to about two to three years of good production,” he wrote, noting that the gap would be even larger if not for the wild success of the trade up to get Julio Jones. The numbers would also be different a few years later if Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes’s current careers were included. It’s also noticeable that if we take out the quarterbacks there are very few players outside of Julio, Chandler Jones and Dont’a Hightower who turned out to be very good.
“It’s almost completely different as a scenario when a quarterback is involved,” Deshpande said over the phone. “The Vikings last year, if it was just pick-for-pick, under most circumstances it would probably not be justifiable [to move from 11 to 10] but they were looking for the quarterback of the future so it certainly was.”
The teams that traded down didn’t quite get players of Julio or Chandler Jones’s level but there were some stars mixed in with Vita Vea and Jaire Alexander along with stars that were acquired with the extra picks like Mark Andrews and Justin Houston.
“Teams who are willing to trade up are probably the more eager ones than teams trading down so when it comes to the actual compensation the team that is trading down can negotiate that a little bit more and end up coming out with more value than their pick is actually work,” Deshpande said. “The charts can’t be completely accurate but oftentimes the team trading down is getting more value.”
Where it gets interesting in the history of trades up and down is the players that teams pass over by trading down. The list is riddled with Pro Bowlers and some guys who became all-time great players like Lane Johnson, JJ Watt, Luke Kuechly, Khalil Mack and Mike Evans.
That’s where the argument about impact players comes in. If you move down and take a good prospect but pass over a prospect of the caliber of Khalil Mack in order to grab a middle-round receiver, the math just doesn’t add up.
Mike Lopez, who is now senior director of data and analytics for the NFL, did an analysis back in 2018 of draft pick value where he weighed in the importance of stars and the probability of landing a star at each draft slot. His breakdown showed how much more valuable picks in the top 20(ish) picks are because the odds of landing a superstar sinks dramatically from about 20% at pick 32 under 5% by pick 64. Here is a look at his star-weighted chart:
Do the Vikings want to go from a 15-20% chance to 10% or less to land a star by moving back?
“If you are trying to find a solid starter or a good player, then, yes, the numbers almost always tell you to get more dart throws because the odds are that it’s a better possibility you get a contributor, but you’re not going to trade down and get Nick Bosa,” a league source said. “It’s rare you’re getting a how-do-we-stop-this-guy every week type of player by moving down.”
Whether the Vikings make the move down or not is very likely to depend on whether any of their top-rated players remain on the board or if the teams ahead of them have scooped them up already.
“I've been on teams where we've picked at, like, say we've picked 22, and we've taken our ninth best player at 22,” NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah said on his annual conference call. “I've been on teams where we've picked in that same range, say the same number, 22, and we've got our 21st player. We just got wiped out.”
The context of the actual draft matters greatly into this discussion. The Vikings only having four picks does matter into the equation of the decision to trade down, even if they are sacrificing some percentage chance at a star.
“Something that I didn’t look into but would be interesting for the Vikings is how many picks the teams had that traded down,” Deshpande said. “The Vikings this year, it’s ideal to trade back given their number of picks.”
The strength of this draft does matter. While one person in the NFL suggested that every year is talked about as being strong in the middle, the analytical-based source said this year is truly different from past years.
“In a draft like this, the feedback we’ve been getting is that nobody is confident, the narrative that it’s a bad class has fallen away a bit but from picks 30 to 80 we love the draft,” the source said. “That’s emblematic of what we’re talking about…if you can turn 24 into 37 and 70, that could be huge.”
The fact that some teams believe the draft is strong between 30 and 80 could also reduce the Vikings chances of being able to make a move because there isn’t likely to be teams scrambling to get a particular player unless there is a quarterback involved.
“Teams at the top are just not going to have a market,” the source said. “[Top 10] teams are trying to move down and have no suitors for their picks. But it could be a scenario of, once we get to 20 and a team has an early second-round pick, then maybe Minnesota starts getting phone calls. If the Saints don’t take a QB and Dart isn’t taken yet…maybe they call [the Vikings].”
One of the phrases Adofo-Mensah likes to use is “champagne problems.” It would seem that having the decision to stick and pick or trade down at their disposal rather than being forced to do either one is a champagne problem. No matter where they go, the team is built to win in their two-year window and is looking for additional talent and future pillars of the roster rather than trying to save the 2025 season on Thursday night. That’s a good place to be.
But in a world where the math is driving so much in the NFL, this might end up being a decision that is less about whether the math of a trade down works and whether the organization falls in love with a player at 24 or not.
“You're picking 24th you better be able to call 24 and have 24 names that you're willing to stand up and clap and feel great about,” Adofo-Mensah said.
To a certain extent, what is being implied is that while QBs are the most premium of positions (nobody is trading for or getting Mahomes in FA) some other positions (LT, stud DTs) have more premium than the market has given them and that factors into the trade pricing.
SF was built on 5-7 studs and the rest interchangeable guys (all decent, but not like the true stars)..
The great Tony Stark once said, “I can’t do the equation unless I have all the variables.”
Who are the absolute stick and pick players for the Vikings and are they available when the Vikings are on the clock? Are there half a dozen very attractive players you could still get in moving down 5-10 spots? Everyone says this is a weird year for the draft so I wonder if some of the normal data Matthew cites is as relevant?
For me the stick and pick at 24 are Grant, Zabel, and Banks, but if they’re gone and Kwesi can pull off some Jui jitsu and get 2 of these players in the second, G Donovan Jackson, CBs DL Alexander or Collins, CBs Amos or Thomas that would be amazing, wouldn’t it?
In the end I have my favorite players like most of us do, but even if I don’t love the idea of Starks or Emmanwori, or Booker, or Nolen, or Barron or Revel or Morrison for a variety pack of reasons… all I really hope is that whoever they pick is good to great. Given the hit and miss nature of the draft maybe this year gives us several hits—it's time for the anti-2022 draft.