Next year is make or break for 2019 draft class
If it takes three years to grade a draft class, well, you're up 2019 -- and the Vikings' top picks from that year have plenty to prove
By Matthew Coller
On Thursday we wrote about which positions transitioned the fastest from college to the NFL. In that article our focus was on the Minnesota Vikings’ present needs and whether they could be filled by a first-year player.
One noticeable trend from the PFF data was that center and tight end are two positions that historically peak in Year 3. Those two spots are not among the Vikings’ needs this year because their top two picks from the 2019 draft are expected to follow the path of their predecessors and elevate themselves into solidified starters in their third seasons.
Of course, those trends apply to a large group of players. Will that be the case for the Vikings’ recent picks?
Will we see Garrett Bradbury, Irv Smith Jr. and the other remaining 2019 draft picks raise their games in 2021? How important is the progress of the 2019 draft to the team’s success?
Let’s have a look at how the 2019 class has performed in their first two seasons and what will be expected of them in Year 3…
Pick 18 — Garrett Bradbury
As we evaluate Bradbury’s second season, we have to include a note from Mike Zimmer that seems to tell us a little about where the team stands on their first-round center and his second season.
“Bradbury is a good player,” Zimmer said. “He was dinged up a little bit this season but he's a tough kid, never says anything, doesn't want to miss any time.”
It’s hard to know exactly when Bradbury got dinged up but through 10 weeks of the 2020 season, PFF ranked him as the fourth best overall center behind Corey Linsley, JC Tretter and Frank Ragnow. At the end of the year he was 23rd of 32.
In those first 10 weeks, he was in the bottom third still in Pass Blocking Efficiency and grade but his numbers were close to average and not too different from many other centers like Jason Kelce, Austin Blythe and Alex Mack. By the end of the year, he ranked 32nd in pass blocking grade.
We can’t throw out the larger sample completely. Over two years the numbers have point toward a bottom-third overall player. However, we can say that for more than the first half of the year, the elite run-blocking center that the Vikings were looking for when they drafted Bradbury was on the field.
By putting the data under a microscope, we can also say that Bradbury wouldn’t be the only highly-drafted center to have his first two years produce underwhelming PFF grades and then improve to a quality level.
Here’s all the centers taken within the first 80 picks and how they graded in their first three seasons:
The most comparable first two years to Bradbury’s scores belong to Austin Corbett and Travis Swanson. It should be noted that Corbett’s draft position is listed as center but ended up largely playing guard. The Browns were not satisfied with his first two years and dealt him to Los Angeles, where he ranked as the 11th best guard by PFF one year after posting one of the lowest grades among guards in 2019.
Not everyone improved. Players who graded lower than Bradbury — Price, Pocic, Erving and Martin — never reached their potential.
When we evaluate some of the shortcomings of Bradbury’s game from the initial scouting reports to his most recent sample, some things may not change. His arms won’t get longer. Hands won’t grow bigger. Weight isn’t likely to change significantly. Improvements will have to come in strength and technique.
“I feel like I improved from last season,” Bradbury said. “I felt like I did some things good and there’s always things to improve on. So looking to take another step. Like I’ve always said, my goal is just to be better today than I was yesterday. And so I’m going to do what I need to this offseason to get bigger, faster, stronger, get healthy, get ready for Year 3 because I really like the direction our room is heading in.”
Bradbury’s progress is significant to the Vikings on multiple levels. Last year 16.5% of pressure that Kirk Cousins faced came from the center per PFF, the fifth most in the NFL. Cousins ranked second in the NFL in passer rating when kept clean so any reduction in pressure would have a positive impact on the passing offense.
“Our job up front is to protect Kirk and there’s times we didn’t do that good enough this year,” Bradbury said. “Going back this offseason, training your craft, getting better, making that an emphasis going into next year, for sure.”
The Vikings also went out on a limb to pick a center at 18. The last enter picked higher than 18 was in 1999. Being that it generally isn’t considered one of the most valuable positions his success will reflect the decision making of the front office (the positional value could be debated but the NFL’s highest paid center is $12 million average annual value versus left tackles who top out at $23 million).
While Zimmer said multiple times that he’s happy with how the offense performed last season, there was still a good distance between the Vikings and the top offenses in the NFL. By Expected Points Added, they were ninth but still 143 points behind Green Bay. Even if Bradbury’s biggest jump is only capable of closing the gap so much, improvement would certainly trickle down to the rest of the offense and push the Vikings’ offense in the right direction.
Pick 50 — Irv Smith Jr
If you look back at any Vikings 2020 preview article, there’s probably a section about Irv Smith Jr. stepping into a bigger role. After a strong training camp, expectations were raised to the point where it would have been surprising if he wasn’t TE1 by the end of the season.
That’s exactly where he ended up but the journey was not without bumps.
“I feel like everything is a learning curve,” Smith Jr. said. “You can always find positives out of something. Obviously, the season didn’t go as planned, but as an offense, and me personally, I just try to grow each and every day, take it one day at a time. For me, I got to play a lot more football this year, get more comfortable out there, get a better feel for the game and just try to finish this year out as strong as possible, because I’m going into Year 3 now, which is honestly crazy.”
Smith Jr. got off to a nightmarish start to 2020, catching just one pass in the first quarter of the season and grading by PFF in the bottom three among all tight ends who played in a game.
Then the light came on.
From Week 5 through Week 17, Smith Jr. ranked eighth among tight ends by PFF grade, ninth in yards per reception, seventh in catch percentage and second in QB rating when targeted (148.0). He was also used in a versatile role that had him as a slot receiver 25% of the time and wide 12% of plays.
He particularly rose to the occasion in the final four weeks without Kyle Rudolph in the lineup, catching 15 passes and three touchdowns.
Still Smith Jr. had some absences of his own, sitting out Week 10 and Weeks 12 and 13 with injuries. In total he finished the season with just 30 receptions.
Smith Jr.’s case is easier to compare directly to his peers because two other tight ends were drafted high in 2019. TJ Hockenson and Noah Fant both caught more than 60 passes last year and graded higher than Smith Jr.
With Rudolph now manning the TE2 position for the New York Giants, Smith Jr. will carry the weight of the TE1 job in Minnesota next year. That comes along with pressure to sustain success over 17 weeks rather than having to split his numbers into some “from Week X to Y, he ranked….” concoction in order to look good.
The TE position is expected to be significant in Klint Kubiak’s offense. Rudolph’s role may have diminished last year but he caught 109 passes on 131 targets between 2018 and 2019 and scored 11 touchdowns. He also played 864 offensive snaps in 2019.
For the second straight year, Smith Jr. will enter the season with questions about taking his game to the next level. Similarly to Bradbury, there will be pressure to sustain the offense’s passing efficiency and pressure from the perspective of the 2019 draft’s results. The pick after Smith Jr. was Tennessee star AJ Brown. Seattle receiver DK Metcalf and Washington receiver Terry McLaurin went shortly after that (along with some others who didn’t succeed like Paris Campbell and Jalen Hurd).
If he can’t take the next step, the pick and decision to move on from Rudolph will be questioned. Like selecting a center, if a team takes a tight end it has to be a hit, otherwise the positional value risk wasn’t worth it.
Pick 102 — Alexander Mattison
The 20/20 hindsight reviews of the Bradbury and Smith Jr. draft picks can’t be written yet because the 2021 season offers an opportunity for both to rise to the occasion. We can, however, judge many of the other picks from the 2019 draft, including Alexander Mattison.
The Boise St. standout was picked to replace Latavius Murray as the man to spell Dalvin Cook. That has never come to fruition. Through two seasons, he has just 196 carries. Nearly half of his 2020 rushes came in two games, one in which Cook left with an injury vs. Seattle and the other in a meaningless Week 17 game.
Despite Mattison averaging 4.6 yards per carry in his small sample size, he simply isn’t used as any part of the offense. In comparison, Murray has seen the ball 292 times on the ground and caught 57 passes as a New Orleans Saint over the last two seasons while playing alongside Alvin Kamara.
The Vikings picked a good player at the most replaceable position where the majority of value exists in the first few seasons. They traded down repeatedly in the third round to do so. It feels counter intuitive to call a pick that turned out to be a quality player a “bust” but he hasn’t been given a chance to provide any value over replacement.
Pick 114 — Dru Samia
Last summer, GM Rick Spielman touted Samia as one of the players on the rise. His performance when called upon, however, went south quickly. Of all guards who played in a game last year, Samia ranked as the third worst (of 132) by PFF. He will get a chance in training camp to battle for position and the Vikings have given their picks plenty of shots in recent years but this one would require a massive turnaround not to be a miss.
Pick 162 — Cameron Smith
Smith had a tough break last year requiring heart surgery before the season. He looked to be on a special teams path before that.
Pick 190 — Armon Watts
The Vikings hoped they found a diamond in the rough following some flashes in 2019. Instead Watts produced zero sacks, just 12 pressures and a below average run defense grade from PFF in his first year as a regular rotational player. With Dalvin Tomlinson signed, it feels like a long shot that he’ll be penciled into a significant role this season.
Pick 191 — Marcus Epps
The Vikings’ best late-round pick from the 2019 draft is playing for another team. In 365 snaps with the Eagles, he graded as the 13th best safety by PFF. Epps allowed just a 59.5 QB rating on 22 throws into his coverage last year.
Pick 193 — Oli Udoh
Udoh has gotten repeated mentions as part of the tackle group but he was rarely active last year and the team brought back Rashod Hill, signifying that he remains a project.
Pick 217 — Kris Boyd
Boyd got his first significant cornerback opportunity last year and gave up a 121.3 rating into his coverage. The team signing Mackensie Alexander made it clear they aren’t planning to rely on him again.
Pick 239 — Dillon Mitchell — Cut following 2020 camp
Pick 247 — Bisi Johnson
After getting WR2 snaps in the first two games, Johnson finished the season as WR4 with just 14 catches, seven of which came in one game. He appears to be a replacement-level receiver.
Pick 250 — Austin Cutting — Cut midway through the 2020 season
The bottom line
It’s often said that a draft class can’t truly be judged until three years after the picks are made. That statement very much holds true with the 2019 Vikings draft class, even if we already have the answers on a number of players.
As is often the case, the success of the class rests on the top two picks, who will both be asked to handle big roles and make improvements in the process in order to push the offense to its maximum output.
This year will also be vital in the Vikings deciding whether they want to exercise Bradbury’s fifth-year option and/or sign Smith Jr. to a long-term contract extension.
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This is a good analysis of the weird inflection point that this class is at. So curious how this draft class still has a high chance of being evaluated as terrible (if both Bradbury and Irv Smith take a step back) or average (if both turn into only slightly above players), while also having a maybe 25% chance of turning into a great draft (if both turn into dependable top-ten-ish long-term starters, while simultaneously two or three other players such as Mattison/Cameron Smith/Udoh/Watts/Bisi turn into useful rotational pieces).
If I were to guess I would suggest that it'll turn into an average class (any draft where you get two useful starters and a handful of other interesting guys is not a bad draft), but I wouldn't bet on it.
My concern here with this class is that the philosophy is playing a significant role in the lack of development. If the Vikings aren’t going to throw the ball why draft Irv Smith? Why draft Mattison if your only going to use him 10 snaps a game. I don’t think they are bad players (except Samia) I think they are not using them correctly but maybe that changes this year who knows.