Friday Mailbag: Onto draft season

The free agency period has slowed to a halt, now all eyes are on the draft

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By Matthew Coller

Happy Friday, everyone! Let’s dive into your questions…

Purpleswordsman…Vikings trade up for Jeremiyah Love. Their 1st and 3rd this year and 2nd next year plus Jonathan Grenard .
We get a game changing RB. I want Love
KOC now has reason to promote the Run game !!

While I share the sentiment with everyone else that Jeremiyah Love would be a tremendous addition to the Vikings offense, the price you’re offering there would be pretty close to the Ricky Williams trade.

There is a scenario where Love falls far enough to make a trade up worth it. The Vikings have to decide where that is. It’s definitely not the top five because the cost would be astronomical. The area that you might be able to convince me is if he gets into the 13-15 range.

Just to demonstrate how much it costs to move up in the first: By the traditional draft value chart (which still seems to be pretty accurate if we look at actual trades), it would cost No. 18 and No. 49 to get to No. 10. That’s an absolute no for me. Going up to No. 13 is still pretty costly but more in the range of No. 82 and 97.

But I don’t see a world where it makes sense to pass up on top-100 draft picks for one player. What if he gets hurt? Or struggles to make the transition into the NFL? Then you’ve thrown away potential starters across the roster.

When I look at the top RBs, certainly it’s obvious that Jahmyr Gibbs, Bijan Robinson and Christian McCaffrey are the best of the best and they were first-round picks. Yet there are plenty of guys who weren’t that are still extremely effective like Jonathan Taylor, DeVon Achane, Ken Walker, Breece Hall, James Cook, Travis Etienne etc.

If you gave me the choice between trading up multiple picks for Love or waiting until the second and picking Jadarian Price or waiting until the third and picking Mike Washington Jr., I’m definitely picking Price or Washington Jr., even if their odds to be superstars are lower.

Pickle Enjoyer…A while ago I read this article on Jeremiyah Love’s personality at ESPN, and I have a daughter who is very much like him. In other words, he almost 99.99% has autism. Is this something that could potential cause him to drop? Simply because, you know, sometimes the NFL is dumb?

Yeah, there was a great College Gameday feature on Love and his parents’ journey in regards to the possibility of him being autistic.

The NFL can definitely be dumb but I do not see that as being a reason that he drops in the draft or any potential issue with playing in the NFL. That’s because there’s a lot of pro athletes who are on the spectrum but they do not make it public.

Whichever team drafts him is going to be aware of it and understand that they may need to adapt their approach to coaching him or creating a certain environment to help him thrive but that happens all the time.

By the way, everyone should take a few minutes to research how the autism spectrum works and what “neurodivergent” means. You might discover that there are people in your life that are that way and maybe that can help in terms of being understanding of their differences.

Dermo Man…Thanks for all the content. There are a few players in the draft that have injury concerns, notably Caleb Banks. He’s allegedly a Top 15 prospect outside of the foot issue. At what number would you draft him ? Can you think of players in recent drafts that had injury concerns and how did they perform.

Injuries are by far the toughest thing to assess from the outside. A foot injury that required surgery and then got reaggravated is pretty scary.

It’s going to depend on whether the medical staff thinks it’s something that could be a long-term issue or not.

Every player and their injury is different, so it’s hard to compare to the past. The most recent example that I can think of was last year. Cornerback Will Johnson was supposed to be a top-15 pick and he ended up dropping because of medical concerns. If Banks was red flagged because of this foot thing, the earliest you’re picking him is probably the second round.

Lorne S… The Vikings have a lot of defensive needs and multiple draft picks. Given that Brian Flores has been reluctant to start rookies on defense, how do you see them filling those holes and do you think Flores’ philosophy will stay the same?”

I’m not sure that it’s Flores being reluctant to start rookies as much as it has been the team being impatient with young development project type players. They’ve shuffled in and out guys like Akayleb Evans, Nahshon Wright, Mekhi Blackmon etc.

We actually don’t know what it looks like when Flores gets a highly-drafted player outside of Dallas Turner (who I’m guessing would have played a lot more as a rookie if Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel hadn’t been Pro Bowlers).

Since 2023 when Flores arrived, here’s how many players the Vikings have drafted in the top 100 picks on defense: One. It’s Turner. That’s it.

If they were taking a first-round safety or corner, I would guess that player gets much more in terms of opportunity than the fifth, sixth and seventh-round picks of the recent past.

Derrick K… Your coverage about drafting a WR in round 1 and addressing other needs (like safety in a deep class) later has me excited. That Franchise guy did a collab mock draft with Connor and Trevor on their podcast and made the same argument as you with the WR pay vs other positions. I understand depth of a position being a reason to address positions at different points in the draft, but drafting a S over a WR/CB in round 1 seems risky because the benefit of surplus value is low. What’s the case to go S in round 1?

The case for safety is this: If you get a great one, it’s an absolute nightmare for opponents to play against. Think about the impact of Troy Palamalu, Ed Reed, Harrison Smith, Tyrann Mathieu, Antoine Winfield Jr… the best of the best will ruin your life as an offense. If Dillon Thieneman ends up being Winfield Jr., then the Vikings have a freaky monster for the next 10 years. That’s Kyle Hamilton, maybe Derwin James and probably Nick Emmanwori. With Brian Flores calling the shots for Thieneman, you’d give it a decent chance that he ends up working out.

The problem is that you have to reach a very high bar to be worth it. There are a decent amount of guys that are the next level down from Harrison Smith. That’s Budda Baker, Xavier McKinney, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Brian Branch, Jessie Bates, Jevon Holland… they’re all awesome but they aren’t impossible to find.

And the next level down from that has a bunch of guys who can get the job done. TreVon Moehrig, Cam Bynum, Julian Love, Justin Reid etc.

If you spend a first-round pick on a guy who becomes Cam Bynum (very good player!), then you haven’t gotten anywhere near the value you’re looking for. If you spend a first-round pick and the guy becomes a third-tier receiver, you’re getting Alec Pierce, who’s out here making $29 million and his team never lets him hit free agency.

Rob P… I do believe that a Kyler run offense will be better than last year (in my opinion in the 10 - 15 range). However, I have real concerns about the age of key players on Defense and their health profiles. Cashman, Van Ginkel and Wilson are all critical to the success of the Defense and the first two always miss time in a given year. They are all over or near 30. If there is regression no matter how much of a wizard Brian Flores is, the defense will take a step back. Is this really a roster that can compete in the NFC? Even a great draft won’t really bear fruit until 27 and 28.

Very reasonable concern. The one thing we can say is that they had a horrendous amount of injuries last year and were able to work through it and the 2023 defense was legitimately bad in terms of talent and they finished in the top half of the league.

I think about this every year when we get to the Super Bowl. Look at the 2024 Eagles or the 2025 Seahawks. Those teams have nobody hurt. Things have to break your way no matter what. The 49ers showed us last season that a team can’t run through the playoffs when you’re playing a bunch of backups.

The thing is, there’s no actionable suggestion we can make here. You just have to pray. There’s no such thing as depth in the NFL, there’s only survival during stretches were guys are out and injury luck down the stretch and into the playoffs that has to go your way.

I wish there was a better answer.

IceColdNorth… Many draft prognosticators mock Oregon safety Dillon Thieneman to the Vikings at #18. The operative assumption is apparently that this draftee could step into Harrison Smith’s shoes if Smith retires and be able to replicate what Flores has had Harrison Smith doing in his defense. What’s your take? My understanding is that LB Blake Cashman has the green dot role for communications for our defense, so I’m trying to figure out what role Smith still plays in calling/directing defenses and whether it is likely that any rookie safety would be able to assume Smith’s role in this regard in the fall of 2026. Relatedly, which safety prospects are you comfortable taking at #18 this year, or would you wait for a Day 2 selection?

Yep, I can explain that.

So Cashman gets the call into his helmet and then distributes that to the rest of the defense. They line up exactly the way Flores called. When the offense walks out and gets into their formation and starts moving parts around, that’s where Harrison uses his signals to adjust the coverage.

Imagine that it’s second-and-10 at the 50-yard line and the offense lines up in a shotgun formation with three receivers in a bunch to the left and a tight end on the other side and single back.

Let’s then say Harry has seen that the opponent loves to run an out-breaking route with the lone tight end to get a quick completion and set up third-and-short but if that’s not there they like to have in-breaking routes on the opposite side with a deep post (the “drive” concept maybe, if you’re a big X’s and O’s person). That allows the QB to read the out route on the left back to the in-breakers so he isn’t working all the way back across.

At that point, Harry is going to signal to play Cover-3 because he wants the deep safety in the middle and another man in the box to take away the underneath in-breaking stuff and the outside corner on the tight end’s side can handle that one-on-one.

The quarterback then realizes Harry has made that adjustment and he yells out, “can! can!) and changes to a 2x2 formation with four verticals that attack the seams. Classic way to beat Cover-3. But Harry realizes the adjustment that the QB has made and there’s 5 seconds left on the play clock, so he waves to the secondary to switch to Cover-4 to manage the deep stuff.

It’s also possible that within that adjustment to Cover-4, Harry realizes that the center has adjusted his protection to block to the left after Eric Wilson and Blake Cashman mug up on the A gaps and notices the RB anticipating an A gap blitz. So he decides that there’s not going to be anybody blocking him if he rushes off the right side. He was probably supposed to be running back into his Cover-4 deep quarter zone but he knows that if Theo Jackson sees him blitz that he’s going to take anything over the top and the hook and flat defenders will deal with anything underneath.

The idea is also that the QB is going to see him coming free and try to get rid of the ball quickly, so the Cover-4 won’t get exposed for suddenly becoming Cover-3 with the offense running four verticals. Instead the QB will throw hot and the underneath zone defenders will rally to make a tackle or break up the pass because they are also ready for the ball to come out quick so they are jumping routes.

And that’s just the most basic way I can put it. It’s actually more complicated than that.

What did we learn?

No, Dillon Thieneman will not be able to do that right away unless he is a genius.

However, Josh Metellus can. So if they eased Thieneman into the mix by having him do his job at first and then as he got more and more comfortable they put more on his plate, the hope would be that by 2027 he could be the guy leading the charge.

Remember, if you’re drafting Thieneman, you’re hoping he’s with you for a really long time, not just right away. But it absolutely is going to take a lot of time before he can understand how the NFL works with the cat and mouse game.

Paul C…. To take a safety at 18 seems high when you have so many other needs. I would go defense with the pick and have Flores decide if he wants a safety, cornerback or d tackle. Make sure he commits to playing him as a rookie!!

Looking into the future, the defense is going to need a refresh after 2026, so they could really pick just about any position there and not be wrong. Even if they got a pass rusher, that would be justified considering Jonathan Greenard’s situation and AVG’s contract.

On the thing about playing the rookie right away: It’s always going to be impossible for folks to accept that rookies aren’t instant superstars. Occasionally you get a Justin Jefferson situation but almost every player that the Vikings have drafted that became a Pro Bowler needed time. Danielle Hunter, Eric Kendricks, Xavier Rhodes, Harrison Smith, Christian Darrisaw… none of these guys immediately blew away the NFL.

I don’t think of them developing Dallas Turner over two years as being a bad approach. It was probably the best thing for him. So it’ll all depend on the player. At 18 (or trade down), you’re hoping to get a contributor immediately who can eventually become a star.

jcphitman…Two questions:

1. Would trading up whatever is required for Love be worth it vs. waiting at 18 to draft a player like Thieneman? Would trading for the consensus best RB in the draft at a position the NFL usually doesn’t invest a ton in be worth the picks and passing on another potential position of need with someone like Thieneman?

2. Out of Hopkins, Reader or any of the remaining FA’s left that have been tied to the Vikings - which one is the most realistic with the small amount of cap space and roles available they could sign?

I’d rather wait until 18 to take a great prospect at a non-premium position than ever trade up for a running back. As much as we always think “this guy is different!” it’s easy to forget that RB4 was the best of the lot last year.

The Bijan and Gibbs draft was special but Zach Charbonnet, De’Von Achane were also in that draft in the second and third rounds. The 2022 draft had three second-round picks who all turned out to be good (Hall, Walker, Cook) and in 2020 the top guy went bust and D’Andre Swift, Jonathan Taylor, Cam Akers, JK Dobbins and AJ Dillon went after that. All those guys were good to some degree.

Love is a tremendous prospect. If they did it, then it would be some kinda offense if he clicks. It’s just very questionable to trade up for a position where there are a lot of good players and their success is often dictated by what’s around them.

To Part 2: I don’t mind the idea of Hopkins because it seems like he’s at peace with what his role would be and he is very close with Kyler Murray. But Reader might have more left in the tank and I think experience is very much needed at DT.

Brad… Seems like that past few months everything on McCarthy has been the Vikings are down on him and that they should be looking to trade. Now in the past weeks it seems there are reports that the Vikings actually like what they’re seeing from him behind the scenes(obviously not enough to give him the job again) is this all the Vikings keeping a tight ship and people are just speculating for clicks? Or is there more to it.

On a positive note I am looking forward to Kyler having a true wr1 again. He can make all of the throws he needs to and Jets should be able to catch them all!

Yeah, there was one report from Alec Lewis that the Vikings were “optimistic” that his work with former NFL’er John Beck would help him come back improved. I’m not sure that’s really strong evidence, maybe more of a flicker of hope that he can have a full offseason of work end up paying off.

The Vikings and “tight ship” went out the window with the Aaron Rodgers stuff. I’d say that in regards to reporting on McCarthy, what they have done says it all. They went and got a former No. 1 pick, true starting NFL quarterback, not Joe Flacco or Marcus Mariota to compete with him. I’ve always said: Watch what they do more than listening to what is said.

One thing you can definitely say for Kyler is that when he has top talents like DeAndre Hopkins and Trey McBride, those guys are going to get the football. I expect the same for Jefferson.

Jason… Is this the year for Zimmer’s always-use-more-corners approach? I’d be ok if we walked away with three from the draft.

It’s interesting because the Vikings under Flores have invested basically nothing in corners outside of Byron Murphy Jr. and they’ve still had top-notch defenses. He identified Isaiah Rodgers as a guy that was better than his previous playing time and nailed that.

At the same time, it’s hard to disagree with Zim here because the high-end guys are very tough to get your hands on. Look at what Indy paid for Sauce Gardner or the Rams gave up for Trent McDuffie. Decent ones hit free agency all the time but not the really good ones.

This is the struggle that I’m having with this draft. Unless you suggest the Vikings draft a kicker, I’m having a tough time thinking any argument is bad for a given position because I can see them needing a lot of different spots soon. Not having a real No. 1 corner since Xavier Rhodes is a pretty compelling case to grab Avieon Terrell and apologize to nobody.