Kellen Mond is a statement, Wyatt Davis is a Day 2 victory
The Mond selection puts Kirk Cousins's 2021 in the spotlight but the guard the Vikings grabbed is top notch
By Matthew Coller
On Thursday night the Minnesota Vikings elected to move down in the NFL Draft rather than pick Mac Jones but they left a hint that Friday night could include a quarterback. Reports came out Friday that they looked into trading up to draft Justin Fields.
So when the 66th pick came around on Friday — a selection they nabbed from the New York Jets for moving back from 14 to 23 to take Christian Darrisaw — it wasn’t a total stunner that they drafted an athletic, strong-armed quarterback from a top conference in Kellen Mond
Of course general manager Rick Spielman said that Mond’s immediate job would be to compete for the backup job with Jake Browning and Nate Stanley but make no mistake, drafting Mond is about a heck of a lot more than that.
It tells us that the Vikings are well aware of the possibility that Kirk Cousins may not be the team’s quarterback long term. It says that they know they have to take other options seriously.
Investing a Day 2 pick with a roster that had plenty of other immediate and long-term needs gives us the indication that Cousins’s 2021 season will likely determine his future.
Taking Mond is similar to the Philadelphia Eagles picking Jalen Hurts with the 53rd overall selection in 2020. They downplayed the significance at the time but it became clear they were taking him as insurance in case they eventually moved on from Carson Wentz, which they did this offseason by trading him to Indianapolis.
The pick brings the Vikings to a fork in the road next season.
If Cousins takes the Vikings where they wanted to go when he signed in 2018, he very well may sign a contract extension and stay for a long, long time.
If the Vikings have another so-so year with Cousins at the helm, the Mond pick points the arrow toward moving on and focusing on the next QB, whether that’s Friday night’s third-rounder or not.
It’s also notable that their interests rested in Fields and Mond rather than Jones and Davis Mills. That tells us that they recognize the league’s shift toward athleticism at the quarterback position.
Spielman twice mentioned that mobility was a factor in picking Mond in answers about why they were interested in his services.
“I know with all our boot action and play-action passes that a quarterback with some mobility and can move and make plays outside of the pocket is something we wanted to look at too,” Spielman said.
“He has a little different skillset than Kirk but just talking with our offensive coaches we feel the mobility part may add some value to him as a quarterback and to this system,” the Vikings’ GM added.
In that vein, there’s a similar feel to the pick as with the 49ers going with Trey Lance at No. 3 overall to add an athletic element to the Shanahan offense in San Francisco despite the team having had success with Jimmy Garoppolo at quarterback.
No matter how much Cousins attempts to work on his mobility and off-schedule play, he won’t ever run a 4.59 40-yard dash like Mond.
And while offensive line play has been centric to some of Cousins’s shortcomings against opponents with good defensive lines, he was also responsible for 15.3% of his own pressure last year per PFF, which ranked 10th, mostly behind mobile or inexperienced QBs.
Of all people, Robert Griffin III made a similar observation about the differences between Mond and Cousins’s style on a Bleacher Report live stream during the draft.
“I can tell you right now that No. 8 in Minnesota is probably not real happy right now because Kellen Mond represents exactly what he doesn’t do well,” Griffin III said. “Kellen Mond is the big, physical quarterback. He can run it, throw it all over the field and I don’t think that’s something No. 8 is able to do but I think that’s what the coaching staff and administration is looking for.”
Call RGIII salty if you want but he made a salient point and brought about another question: How is Cousins going to take the move?
Spielman even compared Mond to Teddy Bridgewater, who Cousins had to listen to the team gush about prior to the matchup against Carolina last year.
Aaron Rodgers was unhappy when his team picked a possible successor. Wentz was unhappy when his team picked a possible successor. Will Cousins be unhappy too? Would this sway his feelings about any extension talks in the future?
It needs to be said that this pick does not guarantee by any means that Mond is the future. History isn’t exactly in Mond’s favor when it comes to picking third-round QBs. Since Russell Wilson was taken in 2012, here’s the group: Mike Glennon, Garrett Grayson, Sean Mannion, Jacoby Brissett, Cody Kessler, Davis Webb, CJ Beathard, Mason Rudolph, Will Grier.
There’s a wide array of opinions on whether Mond can be the next Vikings starting quarterback or if he’ll end up like the names listed above. NFL.com compared him to Colin Kaepernick while PFF said he’s more like Kevin Hogan. That’s a pretty huge gap.
But Spielman didn’t shy away from implying that Mond is a QB on the rise. If he does make quick progress, that could open the door for him developing next year and then forcing the Vikings into a decision before the 2022 season in which Cousins is set to carry a $45 million cap hit.
“You try to track that as they come out whether they’re spiraling up or spiraling down and we felt he was on the right trajectory and has a lot of upside to develop,” Spielman said of Mond’s growth.
So we’ll have to see if Mond draws any buzz in training camp and preseason — then things could be interesting. The Vikings certainly created a storyline to follow on Friday night.
While Mond will (rightfully) dominate the conversation, the Vikings made a monster pick late in the third round by getting offensive guard Wyatt Davis with the 86th overall selection.
Back at the beginning of the college football season, some analysts mocked Davis as the clear-cut best guard and a potential first-round pick. His stock fell throughout the year as he didn’t perform as well in 2020 as 2019 but he has a great chance of starting at right guard Day 1 and bumping Ezra Cleveland over to left guard.
The most notable thing about the Davis selection is how much different he is than previous guards the Vikings have run out there. From Nick Easton to Tom Compton to Josh Kline to Pat Elflein, the Vikings’ guards have been pushed back in pass protection by powerful defensive linemen for years on end. At 6-foot-4, 315 pounds, Davis is a different shape than the recent bunch.
“There was pretty much a directive from Zim, going into scouting this fall and throughout the season, ‘Let’s get bigger up front,” director of college scouting Jamaal Stephenson said.
And unlike the aforementioned guards, Davis’s main highlighted strength by draft analysts is not his run blocking.
“He almost never loses one-on-one in pass protection,” PFF’s Mike Renner wrote in the PFF Draft Guide.
Certainly there will be a learning curve for Davis. Renner pointed out that all three sacks that Davis allowed in 2021 came on blitzes and stunts, which are trickier at the NFL level. But the process is right. Passing success will ultimately determine how far the offense takes them and PFF ranked the Vikings 29th in pass protection last year.
With Cousins lacking pocket mobility and ranking 16th in snap-to-release time last year and 20th in 2019, putting together a group of sound pass blockers is essential to his success. Better late than never. Even if there are some rookie moments, Davis’s pass blocking alone should easily clear the bar set by the Vikings’ recent guards.
For the long term, if Davis and Darrisaw are even average players, the Vikings will have five young starters to build upon for the future with Garrett Bradbury considered an ascending player by the team and Cleveland showing flashes last year. That makes the Davis pick and easy A grade.
And if someday they do move on from Cousins, the next QB will inherit an O-line that can protect him.
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Great summation of the Mond pick and the Davis pick, Matthew. In group text with friends last night the question was asked how we felt about the Mond pick, especially given the high number of mid-round train wrecks at the position. I said it directly correlates to how much you like or dislike Cousins--and I include his salary and all the limitations that come with it--as the QB. Put it this way: I like the Mond pick.
The Davis pick, coupled with Darrisaw in the first, said Vikes are tired of getting pushed around up front. We'll see first year growing pains, but an O-line of Darrisaw-Cleveland-Bradbury-Davis-O'Neill feels better than anything we've had in years. Put me down as one of those who thinks Davis plays RG like he did his whole college career with Cleveland moving back to his more natural left side.
Also, while I like Surratt at LB, I would have much preferred to have WR Dyami Brown with that pick. As much as I get fatigued by Purple Insider's pitch for wide receiver in round one, in this place in the draft for that good of a player, it was a mistake to pass on the much higher ranked wide receiver for the linebacker. Maybe you'll cover that in a different article, but if you go on a rant about that, you have my full support.
Last, I hope we see some help in the secondary today. Jamar Johnson at safety and some development CBs like Trill Williams, and Mike Renner (and Mel Kiper?) favorites Tay Gowan and Rachad Wildgoose would ace this draft in my mind. Plus, ya know, I just like Duck...Duck...Wildgoose!
As per my rant yesterday, I really don't like the idea of taking a QB in the 3rd. Especially given the talent on the board, it honestly felt like an analytically terrible decision.
THAT SAID, I do really appreciate how you laid everything out here. The Vikings have been a very very good team for a long time, but it has felt like they were stuck in the mud in a few ways (insisting upon small OL, reupping on Kirk, neglecting the offense over less impactful improvements to their defense), and the draft so far seems to indicate that maybe this tiger is learning to change its stripes, which is very hopeful.
Also, not that Mond is on the team I will root for him. He does have some very exciting traits, and also a marvelous haircut, and frankly getting a 4 year starter that improved each year that is only 21(!!) is pretty damn impressive. I still won't bet on it, but I'll enthusiastically cheer for it.
Also Wyatt is the way. I am struggling to comprehend that the Vikes have 5 OL that are interesting that each give you reasons to be excited. 2021 is definitely better than 2020 so far.