Friday mailbag: Post-draft inquiries

Vikings fans have questions about scouts, draft charts and new schemes following the draft...

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By Matthew Coller

Happy Friday everyone! Now that the draft is over there’s lots to discuss. Let’s get right into it…

@4_starter Early Commemorative Mr. Mankato front runner?

There’s a debate every year over whether the award cutoff is the third or fourth round. If it’s the third round, Brian Asamoah probably starts as a favorite. Linebackers can make splash plays in preseason games that get people excited (See: Cole, Audie) and he seems like a guy who really flies around to the ball. After that, playmakers always have a shot so Ty Chandler and Jalen Nailor will have good odds.

@Conorm511 Does your view on the draft change at all if both Booth and Cine end up playing like 1st Rd talents ? With Booth’s answers on his health it seems as tho they might have gotten a steal

The views on everyone’s draft are going to be positive if the guy(s) turns out to be great. Yeah, if Booth Jr. is healthy and awesome, it was a steal. The Patriots had the biggest reach in the draft but if Cole Strange is the next Damien Woody then they will look like geniuses. If Jameson Williams becomes a great player and Cine/Booth both become great players, we’ll say the Vikings did a good job there getting two greats instead of one. But everything is about odds. By going 32 and 42, the odds of those guys being great players versus the 12th overall pick are historically pretty different. In drafts we’re always asked to judge the decisions right after the picks, which is why I always try to lean on percentage chances of different outcomes. That doesn’t mean it’s a guarantee or that they should move the franchise to Canada because they screwed up so badly. The differences in odds that it works out or doesn’t work out are small. If Williams becomes a superstar and the Vikings’ picks are only OK, we can go back and say that there were reasons to question it because it could have been predicted on draft day. If Williams is terrible, we’ll shrug and say they bucked history a little bit and nailed it.

Shout out to subscriber Matt Edin who made this chart with the history of each pick range:

@alexjjlarsen How do you view Ty Chandler? Purely a depth pick, or eventual replacement for Mattison (or Cook?)?

Drafting running backs in the later rounds is a good play. They have a better shot at becoming something from that round than most positions. The depth chart is going to start out Cook, Mattison, Nwangwu, Chandler going into this year and maybe if Chandler is good he’ll get on the field a bit. To your question: Yes. This might be the last year of Cook and Mattison’s in the final year of his deal, meaning they’ll have at least two other blazing fast options should Cook/Mattison not be around in 2023. Of course, we’ll know a lot more after a few weeks of camp. It was apparent right away that Nwangu had something there. We’ll see about Chandler.

@CoreyHermanson A thing that drives me crazy during post-draft analysis is people using the "draft capital" trade charts to analyze trades (JJ, Rich Hill) vs. the "expected value" trade charts (PFF, etc.). Isn't the entire goal of any sport to create more EXPECTED VALUE than the other teams?

The whole chart vs. chart thing is tough to parse through — even for people who actually are great at analytics. If you technically get value based on the pick but then use it to reach on somebody or take non-premium positions or take an injury risk, that changes the formula. It really has to be case by case.

All these things can be true: 1) The Vikings got good value in the trade but took the risk that they may have passed on a franchise-changing player at 12 2) they took a position at 32 where the guy has to be great to matter in terms of value over a veteran free agent and the guy at 42 has a scary injury history 3) if they rebuild the secondary with these picks, that’s really good for the future 4) the massive reach on the second-round guard is basically the whole reason charts say that they didn’t get expected value. One guy doesn’t determine the entire success/failure of the draft 4) day three reaches are much harder to call and I wouldn’t worry all that much about them.

Forming opinions on these things aren’t as simple as TEAM GREAT DRAFT vs. TEAM THEY BLEW IT. There’s a lot of nuance in studying this draft. But my friend Eric Eager says that teams “show their soul” during the draft. What we saw is the soul not being vastly different than it has been in the past.

@bulldogs13tv The Bears didn’t do much to help Fields this offseason… if Fields has a train wreck season could you see them moving on from Fields and going QB next year? what would you be willing to trade for fields if that happened?

If it’s a train wreck, yes, I could see that happening because that would mean they’d be picking in the top five. In a draft with better QB prospects, they’d be nuts not to take someone if Fields has a sample of two bad seasons. Teams who have tried to talk themselves into bust QBs just needing X, Y or Z in order to succeed usually end up like the Jets with Sam Darnold, just sinking their franchise for a few more years. If Fields is the real deal, he’ll at least be able to make his team competitive despite the lack of help. As far as trading for him, I don’t think the Bears would do that in the division but even if they did, there isn’t many instances of a QB going complete bust to start out and then magically getting it turned around. Is there any examples past 2000 of a QB doing that? I looked up QBs past 2000 that had at least 32 starts and the guys who were horrendous like Mike Glennon, Blake Bortles, Sam Darnold, Brock Osweiler and Joey Harrinton never turned it around. Derek Carr lost a ton of games but had respectable stats. So I don’t think there’s much reason to want somebody if their team is bailing after two years. That means it has to be really rough.

@vikesfan1930 Friday Mailbag ?: Matt, who do you see the Vikings pursuing or adding in Training camp ? Pie chart Time : 1. JC Tretter 2. OBJ 3. Another def player 4. Another offensive player. 5. Punter /LS ( tribute to CC and her LS obsession ).

Well, there should be some punter and long snapper competition. That’s a virtual lock. The other parts, I’d go 20% Tretter, 5% OBJ, 50% another defensive player, 25% another offensive player. They have a little bit of room to work with but not enough to make any serious investments. Somebody asked the other day about the Giants corner James Bradberry. That would be a great addition but they only have a few more million than the G-men to work with. Situational rusher makes the most sense. Jerry Hughes remains an interesting one. Maybe there’s some WR4 competition after not drafting a receiver.

@WriterChurchill Now that the dust has settled, I want you to field a team of draft pics... let's say just offense. You can only field a team from the draft picks, every position, and they ALL have to start. Bonus points for defense. Whose gonna be undefeated?

I guess we have to take Kenny Pickett at quarterback since the NFL didn’t think anybody else could play. I’ll go Chris Olave and Jameson Williams at receiver, Trey McBride tight end, Charles Cross and Ickey Okwanu at tackle, Zion Johnson and Kenyon Green at guard and Tyler Linderbaum at center. A fun question would be: How many points would this group score? My guess is that they would be horrendous right away because rookie offensive linemen and quarterbacks usually struggle but by Year 2 or 3 they’d be really good.

I don’t think there’s a team in the NFL that has a case to be undefeated. Four of the 10 best teams in the NFL play in the same division (AFC West). If you told me somebody went 17-0 and I had to guess who it was, I’d say Tampa Bay. Their division is horrific and, well, Brady.

@NicholasM_1993 Which is more important for the 2022 Vikings: Good Interior OL play or good Secondary play? Which is more likely?

Secondary. As poor as the interior O-line play has been, it hasn’t demolished the Vikings’ chances to score points. They’ve had bad guard play since 2018 and still rank 13th in points since then. In order to really feel a massive difference, they’d need to go from the worst to really good interior O-line, which seems unlikely. If you can’t cover anyone in the NFL, you just get killed.

Something to watch in comparison to last year though: The Vikings were 15th in passing Expected Points Added because they had a lot of sacks and INTs. They were second in sacks and 10th in INTs. If they have similarly bad coverage and don’t get splash plays, it’s going to be ugly. They’ll be relying on Lewis Cine, Cam Bynum, Chandon Sullivan and maybe Andrew Booth Jr. to have an impact over what happened last year.

@alstrain Is it possible the Viking's draft felt like a Spielman draft because Kwesi had to use Spielman's scouts? So maybe this year isn't the one to read into trends and we have to wait until the FO can actually get their scouts in place?

It’s hard to know how much that would have made a difference in their decisions. Adofo-Mensah talked about watching the players himself. It’s not like he just found out about the draft and had to copy someone else’s homework. When Adofo-Mensah and the new coaching staff came in, they had meetings with all of the scouts to explain what they were looking for in players to fit their schemes. I also think the difference between these scouts and other teams’ scouts aren’t going to be wildly different. They are writing reports and the GM is taking that information and comparing it with what the coaches want and then they make decisions. The new Adofo-Mensah scouts (we don’t know yet if there will even be changes, by the way) wouldn’t see things through a totally different lens from the current group. Ryan Grigson also seems to have had a significant impact on the process as Adofo-Mensah’s senior advisor. He wasn’t a Spielman guy. They did draft differently in some cases, like focusing more on athletic scores than the Spielman regime. I think Adofo-Mensah did exactly what he wanted to do here. No excuses if it doesn’t work and I wouldn’t expect a completely new approach next year.

@JoshuaR_Smith I’m excited to see what KOC does with Kene (insert proper spelling of last name here). Are there any comps from the McVay-style offense for a RB of similar ilk? Have the new coaches spoke about him? How do you envision him being deployed on offense?

Yeah, Nwangwu. The Rams’ running backs have mostly been hot garbage since Todd Gurley stopped being great. Nwangwu does have a 99th percentile Relative Athletic Score though so it would be a mistake if O’Connell didn’t find ways to get him the football. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s simply rotated in from time to time. Maybe they have some tricky stuff like lining him up as a receiver and then running an end around etc. Really the guy just needs the ball in his hands 100 times. It also wouldn’t be totally shocking to me if he ended up as RB2.

@rinkygolf The draft did not yield a center, unless we weren’t informed that’s the plan for Ingram. What realistic options to Bradbury are still in play, either currently on the roster or still a free agent?

There aren’t many realistic options. Maybe Chris Reed. Austin Schlottmann has some experience there but doesn’t have promising numbers. I guess Wyatt Davis could take center snaps? It looks like Bradbury’s the guy again for this year. The Rams’ offense had great success with centers, they’ll be relying on that unless they make a last minute JC Tretter signing.

@StockMarketSco1 Which Vikings position group/player are we significantly overrating going into the season? Who will have a disappointing season?

Two candidates for being overrated would be receiver and defensive line. Certainly Justin Jefferson will be himself but that unit overall probably ranks closer to the middle than it does the best WR unit in the NFL considering how many teams have amazing receivers. The D-line still can’t pressure the QB up the middle and they’re one injury away from us saying things like, “Patrick Jones now gets his big chance.”

If I could tell you who will have a disappointing season though, I’d charge more for this newsletter haha.

@piccuresque Do you think that we will ever see Kwesi take the gloves off? Or is he just happy to be here and emphasize collaboration and “competitiveness”? Can’t he see that this formula wil never compete for a title? Does he care (or ownership for that matter?) It feels more likely at this point the Wilf’s would be happy to employ Kwesi for 15 years as a competitive, 7 to 10 win operation, rather than actually give him the ability to go for a title. It’s a fairly depressing conclusion to come to.

I guess, like you, I expected Adofo-Mensah to do a bunch of stuff that was outside the box and then when he didn’t, we were all left wondering what happened there. I’m not sure that we should assume none of these moves were what he really wanted to do but it’s also fair to wonder if collaboration means serving a lot of different people whose ideas might not be as good. It seems that their “time horizon” is the next two years. They will take a shot at winning and then be forced to reset things after 2023. Maybe at that point if Adofo-Mensah had very different ideas about what was supposed to happen this offseason, he’ll deploy them. That’s not the route that most folks thought was right after getting the same results year after year. Either we’ll all be wrong and they’ll be great or we’ll be asking: Why didn’t you guys let Adofo-Mensah go hog wild on the roster and rebuild it all in his analytical vision?

@SrEconomy After seeing a couple different posts, is the Jimmy Johnson draft trade value chart obsolete? Will the PFF analytics become more of the norm? If so, then Kwesi and his analytics background may very well be ahead of the curve.

The Vikings aren’t the only one with analytical charts. If there was a Billy Beane in football, it would be Bill Belichick doing analytics back in the early 2000s and not telling anyone about it or it would be the 2017 Eagles. Everyone knows about all these things now. The reason people around the league still use the JJ chart is that it’s a language everyone understands. Maybe there’s a gap that they can exploit when one team thinks they’re winning by the JJ chart but another team has something sharper. Still, the JJ chart tends to favor high draft picks because those guys become Hall of Famers and All-Pros — and the research on that bears out. The risk factor of those top picks beings busts is more baked into the PFF chart, it seems. We can use charts all we want to say that they won or lost the deals but this thing will be judged on the actual players. It’s about who they gave up in Jameson Williams and who they got in Lewis Cine and Andrew Booth Jr.

@spardisjx Here’s one for you Coller: Do you think the Vikings should consider shopping Ezra Cleveland at some point? He’s a serviceable guard, but it’s obvious his natural position is tackle. But we already have O’Neill and Darrisaw, so he kinda feels like the odd man out. Thoughts?

It was hard enough for this team to get a halfway decent left guard, they shouldn’t be looking to get rid of them. We have no idea if the guy they drafted can play. Remember when we slotted Wyatt Davis in as the hands down starting right guard? Davis was only picked one round later. I’d guess they want the guy they drafted to compete at right guard with the veterans and then eventually take that spot in 2023 if he’s beaten out by Jesse Davis/Chris Reed. Trading linemen who can play shouldn’t be on the table. Also those guys improve as they go along, even into their mid/late-20s.

@bgarmani What do you think of the kicker the Vikings picked up as a UDFA? Is a three-year contract standard?

The three-year contract part of it is standard for UDFAs and that’s only if the guy makes the team. I’m sure he got whatever number of dollars guaranteed is the only part they owe him if he doesn’t make it. My thoughts on him are: Yay training camp kicking competition. I have no other thoughts.

@AlNotino Why do you think the Vikings passed up on so many good receivers in the first few rounds? It seems like a huge missed opportunity. Do they really think their current cohort is good enough to contend for a Super Bowl? Or was it something else?

It seemed like the goal heading into the draft was restocking the defense. Choosing not to go with Jameson Williams or the second rounders like Skyy Moore, George Pickens or the three other second-round receivers is something we’ll be thinking about next year. The way the board went, however, they may have wanted one of those guys at 59 and instead they went off the board right before the Vikings picked. It is interesting though because the Rams just kept adding and adding to their receiving group. Maybe we’ll have a shocking OBJ signing right before camp. Otherwise, yeah, I think they’re playing with fire a little bit by not adding.

@mattverick Would you ever give up your journalism gig to work inside a draft room and help put together a draft board and such? Basically, would you like to be inside the room knowing why they picked someone rather than outside guessing?

If some wacky team wanted me to be part of their front office, I’m not sure I could turn it down — if for no other reason than to really see what goes on behind the scenes. I’m also a pretty competitive fella and it would be something to have stakes on the line with each decision. But mostly the thing that would interest me the most is being able to write and/or talk about the experience with all of you folks, so I wouldn’t want to do it if I couldn’t tell the tale later.

@orangesuds What’s the most footbally football workout you’ve ever encountered?

The offensive linemen running full speed and diving into a 6-foot rolling foam donut cannot be topped.

@youvikethat1 Should a Vikings fan be nervous about the Lions or do they have to prove to be better than they have been in the past?

Absolutely. Remember where I came from before this? Buffalo. They missed the playoffs for 20 years in a row and now they’re the favorite to win the Super Bowl next year. Things change. The Saints were a massive joke when I was growing up and then Brees showed up and everything changed. It can happen fast if you rebuild the right way and then hit on the QB. If they build that roster strong and then draft a QB next year and he’s good, they could be a force. Think of the talent at premium positions they’ve gotten in the last two drafts with Sewell, St. Brown, Hutchinson and Williams.

@Aoki5Chuck Might we see Cine/Harrison/Bynum on the field together? And if so, what exactly does that look like?

It basically means making one of them a linebacker or they use three deep players and they can move guys pre-snap in and out of those spots based on what they see from the offense or whatever disguise they want to show.

Maybe it looks like this in a nickel:

Hunter — Phillips — Tomlinson — Z. Smith

H. Smith — Kendricks — Hicks — Sullivan

Cine — Bynum

It’s possible they could use a 3-3-3 look where they have all three guys deep like this:

Hunter — Phillips — Smith

Kendricks — Hicks — Sullivan

Smith — Cine — Bynum

All sorts of options.

@AndyOnTheAM What free agents could still be brought in that make sense? Is Anthony Barr on that list?

I would be surprised if bringing back Anthony Barr is on the list. It seems like he’s a guy that some contender is going to sign at the last minute hoping that he can contribute something but his health is very questionable at this point. They are the Vikings so last-minute big-name signings are kind of their thing but I’m not sure they can do much more than adding someone on a one-year, $3 million type deal. Hard to attract too much talent that way.

@jakroupa80 Can you do a deep dive on advanced stats/DVOA, all that of the 98 Falcons and Vikings. Want more info if I am biased thinking it was a fluke or if the Falcons were much better than I thought. Thanks.

That Falcons team was incredible. They were fourth in points scored and fourth in points against in ‘98 and beat a 49ers team that had the third best offense in the NFL that year in order to play the Vikings in the NFC Championship game. They finished with a plus-153 point differential. The most insane stat is that Chris Chandler averaged 9.6 yards per attempt that year when the league average was 6.9. Terance Mathis and Tony Martin both averaged 18 yards per catch. Their D-line was good, their secondary was amazing. It’s not like the Vikings lost to a bunch of nerds.

@BIG_dannn I know after reading chad graff article about McCardell passionately telling the war room to not draft a WR with a high pick..BUT Idk if it would work money wise but OBJ for a one year? I mean comes for the second half the season I mean why not..or we rolling with what we have?

Adofo-Mensah did not give any details about when McCardell didn’t want them to take a receiver but maybe it was Jameson Williams that they were talking about since, well, they didn’t pick him. The hard thing about signing OBJ is money. Is he taking practically nothing or would they do the void year thing to get him enough cash to come to Minnesota? And does he think the Vikings are going to win a Super Bowl? I’m not sure OBJ is going anywhere where unless he thinks they can play deep into January.

@nathan_t_wright With the Vikings going with Brian Asamoah over Nakobe Dean. Do you think they are expecting him to contribute immediately, considering that was the only knock on Dean?

Who knows what their medical information was about Dean but it seems like they really feel that Asamoah can be a versatile player. He does have a lot of Kendricks-y sideline-to-sideline in him. That’s the best I can do there. I thought Dean might be a fit because he was a really effective blitzer but the health thing obviously scared a lot of teams off.

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