Do not understand why Vikings always trade out of third round

[Purplepain2018]

This has happened multiple times under the regime of Rick Spielman being that the Vikings always seem to trade out of the third round to gain multiple picks in the sixth or seventh round. When is the last time that a sixth or seventh round pick make a huge impact on the team? I do not understand when in the third round at pick #81 there were a lot of players that could help this team.
Players such as:

Damien Harris RB Alabama
Will Grier QB West Virginia

Still plenty of talent on OL, CB, LB

Just don't understand trading back for multiple sixth round picks that probably will not even make the team. The first trade
at #81 was with Detroit. Why are you trading with a division rival? If someone can help me understand the logic behind this I would really appreciate it.

[CharVike]

I agree gaining all these late round picks is a waster of time. Get another 1st, 2nd or 3rd. All these trades he made was for his own air time. Then he acts like he made great moves. Didn't provide any value at all. I would have bunched all them for a 2nd. He's basically drafting a bunch of guys he could have signed as FA after the draft. This waste cycles should be spent on other things.

[S197]

I'll take a stab at both sides of this argument.

On one hand, the draft is a relative crap shoot. So by trading down, you get more chances of hitting on a player. And there are times where Rick has found some solid contributors late in the draft. 2016 is a very good example of this with Weatherly, Kearse, and Morgan all taken in the 6th/7th.

But there's also years where he hasn't done as well. Like 2017 where he had 11 picks and grabbed guys like: Rodney Adams, Bucky Hodges, Stacy Coley, Ifeadi Odenigbo, Elijah Lee, and Jack Tocho. That's over half his picks and none of these guys contributed anything.

Even 2015, which was a really good draft for the Vikings had a lot of late round duds in Tyrus Thompson, BJ Dubose, Austin Shepherd and Edmond Robinson.

Now you compare that to when we did stick in the 3rd. Well, that's where you get guys like Elflein, Hunter and McKinnon. You get misses like a Scott Crichton but not nearly as much.

It's a tough tradeoff and I get we're up against the cap so depth players will likely need to be guys on rookie contracts. But at the same time, I think Rick goes overboard, he amasses all these picks and most of them don't ever make the roster. I do like that he flipped the script this year for once and focused on offense early with particular attention to OL. That was desperately needed and one area where it looks like he's learned from past mistakes. He seems to still be unwilling to draft a QB unless absolutely necessary, which continues to be one of his biggest flaws IMO. I don't know, I don't love the strategy but I think the draft went okay. I see other teams, like the Titans I mentioned in the other thread, who I think did a better job at similar draft position but we'll see. To me, Rick does his best work in the 4th and 5th rounds. I wish he'd put more of a concentration there than these 6/7th round fliers.

[CharVike]

I'll take a stab at both sides of this argument.

On one hand, the draft is a relative crap shoot. So by trading down, you get more chances of hitting on a player. And there are times where Rick has found some solid contributors late in the draft. 2016 is a very good example of this with Weatherly, Kearse, and Morgan all taken in the 6th/7th.

But there's also years where he hasn't done as well. Like 2017 where he had 11 picks and grabbed guys like: Rodney Adams, Bucky Hodges, Stacy Coley, Ifeadi Odenigbo, Elijah Lee, and Jack Tocho. That's over half his picks and none of these guys contributed anything.

Even 2015, which was a really good draft for the Vikings had a lot of late round duds in Tyrus Thompson, BJ Dubose, Austin Shepherd and Edmond Robinson.

Now you compare that to when we did stick in the 3rd. Well, that's where you get guys like Elflein, Hunter and McKinnon. You get misses like a Scott Crichton but not nearly as much.

It's a tough tradeoff and I get we're up against the cap so depth players will likely need to be guys on rookie contracts. But at the same time, I think Rick goes overboard, he amasses all these picks and most of them don't ever make the roster. I do like that he flipped the script this year for once and focused on offense early with particular attention to OL. That was desperately needed and one area where it looks like he's learned from past mistakes. He seems to still be unwilling to draft a QB unless absolutely necessary, which continues to be one of his biggest flaws IMO. I don't know, I don't love the strategy but I think the draft went okay. I see other teams, like the Titans I mentioned in the other thread, who I think did a better job at similar draft position but we'll see. To me, Rick does his best work in the 4th and 5th rounds. I wish he'd put more of a concentration there than these 6/7th round fliers.

That's some good 3rd picks you showed. These pos picks in the 6 and 7 round have basically zero chance of ever making the roster. I'd rather have 2 extra 3rds than 4 6th and 7th round picks. You can get a starter from the 3rd round that won't happen with this late bull crap. He made moves just to make moves. I also feel this draft is weak as hell and that should have indicated a move or 2 up. But I think the draft went ok. The 1st pick looks like an immediate step in starter and you can't beat that.

[StumpHunter]

My thought is this. If you draft a guy who you really like, that guy has a great chance of working out for you. If you draft someone because you feel he is the best player available, that is not necessarily the case, since the best of a bad lot is still bad.

So while trading back might net you the opportunity to draft a bunch of best 6th and 7th round players available, it does not necessarily get you the player you want.

[Pondering Her Percy]

I'll take a stab at both sides of this argument.

On one hand, the draft is a relative crap shoot. So by trading down, you get more chances of hitting on a player. And there are times where Rick has found some solid contributors late in the draft. 2016 is a very good example of this with Weatherly, Kearse, and Morgan all taken in the 6th/7th.

But there's also years where he hasn't done as well. Like 2017 where he had 11 picks and grabbed guys like: Rodney Adams, Bucky Hodges, Stacy Coley, Ifeadi Odenigbo, Elijah Lee, and Jack Tocho. That's over half his picks and none of these guys contributed anything.

Even 2015, which was a really good draft for the Vikings had a lot of late round duds in Tyrus Thompson, BJ Dubose, Austin Shepherd and Edmond Robinson.

Now you compare that to when we did stick in the 3rd. Well, that's where you get guys like Elflein, Hunter and McKinnon. You get misses like a Scott Crichton but not nearly as much.

It's a tough tradeoff and I get we're up against the cap so depth players will likely need to be guys on rookie contracts. But at the same time, I think Rick goes overboard, he amasses all these picks and most of them don't ever make the roster. I do like that he flipped the script this year for once and focused on offense early with particular attention to OL. That was desperately needed and one area where it looks like he's learned from past mistakes. He seems to still be unwilling to draft a QB unless absolutely necessary, which continues to be one of his biggest flaws IMO. I don't know, I don't love the strategy but I think the draft went okay. I see other teams, like the Titans I mentioned in the other thread, who I think did a better job at similar draft position but we'll see. To me, Rick does his best work in the 4th and 5th rounds. I wish he'd put more of a concentration there than these 6/7th round fliers.

You missed Stephen. He was also a 7th round pick. Either way, it's hard to please everyone. Especially fans. We'll see how it goes come September.

[Texas Vike]

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone paying attention to Rick's comments leading up to the draft.

I think there’s a lot of deep positions in this class. I think when we looked at our front board, this is the most number of players we have that we think are draftable. I don’t think every team has [a board] with 234 draft picks and say 234 players are draftable.

[Pondering Her Percy]

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone paying attention to Rick's comments leading up to the draft.

I think there’s a lot of deep positions in this class. I think when we looked at our front board, this is the most number of players we have that we think are draftable. I don’t think every team has [a board] with 234 draft picks and say 234 players are draftable.

Yes I heard that in his presser. Well given he got Samia in the 4th and Watts in the 6th, he might have hit that one on the head.

[StumpHunter]

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone paying attention to Rick's comments leading up to the draft.

Yes I heard that in his presser. Well given he got Samia in the 4th and Watts in the 6th, he might have hit that one on the head.

They probably could have gotten those guys without trading back though, and gotten more talent in the 3rd.

Time will tell what trading back cost us or gained us, but it is statistical fact that the higher a player is drafted, the more likely they are to succeed.

[fiestavike]

I'll take a stab at both sides of this argument.

On one hand, the draft is a relative crap shoot. So by trading down, you get more chances of hitting on a player. And there are times where Rick has found some solid contributors late in the draft. 2016 is a very good example of this with Weatherly, Kearse, and Morgan all taken in the 6th/7th.

But there's also years where he hasn't done as well. Like 2017 where he had 11 picks and grabbed guys like: Rodney Adams, Bucky Hodges, Stacy Coley, Ifeadi Odenigbo, Elijah Lee, and Jack Tocho. That's over half his picks and none of these guys contributed anything.

Even 2015, which was a really good draft for the Vikings had a lot of late round duds in Tyrus Thompson, BJ Dubose, Austin Shepherd and Edmond Robinson.

Now you compare that to when we did stick in the 3rd. Well, that's where you get guys like Elflein, Hunter and McKinnon. You get misses like a Scott Crichton but not nearly as much.

It's a tough tradeoff and I get we're up against the cap so depth players will likely need to be guys on rookie contracts. But at the same time, I think Rick goes overboard, he amasses all these picks and most of them don't ever make the roster. I do like that he flipped the script this year for once and focused on offense early with particular attention to OL. That was desperately needed and one area where it looks like he's learned from past mistakes. He seems to still be unwilling to draft a QB unless absolutely necessary, which continues to be one of his biggest flaws IMO. I don't know, I don't love the strategy but I think the draft went okay. I see other teams, like the Titans I mentioned in the other thread, who I think did a better job at similar draft position but we'll see. To me, Rick does his best work in the 4th and 5th rounds. I wish he'd put more of a concentration there than these 6/7th round fliers.

I wouldn't close the door on Ifeadi Odenigbo yet. Other than that, it is a question of degree. Obviously trading all your picks for 32 7th rounders is not good value. Trading all your picks for one 1st rounder probably isn't good value. Moving back 20 spots in the middle of the draft and getting 4 extra picks probably is good value. As has been pointed out, a 7th rounder is basically a priority FA. No one of them is likely to pan out, but having 3 or 4 more priority FAs is valuable across time. The Vikings clearly take this philosophy to heart, which is why they have been paying above market value to secure college FAs as well as trading back to acquire picks over the last several years. Finding a backup or special teams contributor from that pool is tremendously valuable to a team's success, the occasional starter or star makes an even more massive impact. There are only about 30 starting positions to be filled. Filling any of them with 6th-7th round or priority FAs is a huge leg up...or failing to do so is a huge disadvantage.

[PurpleKoolaid]

BS. We havent gotten anywhere with Rick doing this every year. No SBs, and thats all that matters. I think its a poor way to run a draft, and Rick is known for doing this, its all he cares or talks about.

[fiestavike]

BS. We havent gotten anywhere with Rick doing this every year. No SBs, and thats all that matters. I think its a poor way to run a draft, and Rick is known for doing this, its all he cares or talks about.

I don't think you are using a metric that makes any sense, but you are free to use it.

[PurpleKoolaid]

BS. We havent gotten anywhere with Rick doing this every year. No SBs, and thats all that matters. I think its a poor way to run a draft, and Rick is known for doing this, its all he cares or talks about.

I don't think you are using a metric that makes any sense, but you are free to use it.

The proof of a good draft is getting to the SB. And/or excelling in the playoffs. How many times has Ricky gotten us there?

[Pondering Her Percy]

I'll take a stab at both sides of this argument.

On one hand, the draft is a relative crap shoot. So by trading down, you get more chances of hitting on a player. And there are times where Rick has found some solid contributors late in the draft. 2016 is a very good example of this with Weatherly, Kearse, and Morgan all taken in the 6th/7th.

But there's also years where he hasn't done as well. Like 2017 where he had 11 picks and grabbed guys like: Rodney Adams, Bucky Hodges, Stacy Coley, Ifeadi Odenigbo, Elijah Lee, and Jack Tocho. That's over half his picks and none of these guys contributed anything.

Even 2015, which was a really good draft for the Vikings had a lot of late round duds in Tyrus Thompson, BJ Dubose, Austin Shepherd and Edmond Robinson.

Now you compare that to when we did stick in the 3rd. Well, that's where you get guys like Elflein, Hunter and McKinnon. You get misses like a Scott Crichton but not nearly as much.

It's a tough tradeoff and I get we're up against the cap so depth players will likely need to be guys on rookie contracts. But at the same time, I think Rick goes overboard, he amasses all these picks and most of them don't ever make the roster. I do like that he flipped the script this year for once and focused on offense early with particular attention to OL. That was desperately needed and one area where it looks like he's learned from past mistakes. He seems to still be unwilling to draft a QB unless absolutely necessary, which continues to be one of his biggest flaws IMO. I don't know, I don't love the strategy but I think the draft went okay. I see other teams, like the Titans I mentioned in the other thread, who I think did a better job at similar draft position but we'll see. To me, Rick does his best work in the 4th and 5th rounds. I wish he'd put more of a concentration there than these 6/7th round fliers.

I wouldn't close the door on Ifeadi Odenigbo yet. Other than that, it is a question of degree. Obviously trading all your picks for 32 7th rounders is not good value. Trading all your picks for one 1st rounder probably isn't good value. Moving back 20 spots in the middle of the draft and getting 4 extra picks probably is good value. As has been pointed out, a 7th rounder is basically a priority FA. No one of them is likely to pan out, but having 3 or 4 more priority FAs is valuable across time. The Vikings clearly take this philosophy to heart, which is why they have been paying above market value to secure college FAs as well as trading back to acquire picks over the last several years. Finding a backup or special teams contributor from that pool is tremendously valuable to a team's success, the occasional starter or star makes an even more massive impact. There are only about 30 starting positions to be filled. Filling any of them with 6th-7th round or priority FAs is a huge leg up...or failing to do so is a huge disadvantage.

That's my thing too. We traded back 24 picks. Yeah seems like a ton. However, that netted us 4 more picks. Plus the 3rd round pick that we still used. So we went from having our normal slate of picks to 4 more. Like Fiesta said, if you trade all your mid and late picks away just to get a first, that's not good value and you're getting 2-3 players in the entire draft max. If you trade back a few rounds just to gain a ton of 7th rounders, it's probably not good value. But we literally went from picking in the mid-3rd to the late 3rd and then added a mid 5th, 2 mid 6ths and an early 7th. That's good value if you ask me. You just turned one pick into 5 total picks. If you go by a draft value calculator, we lost some value, not much but if you go by Spielman's philosophy of the more picks you get, the better chances are you hit, then you definitely gained value.

So in the end of the 3rd round trade downs we gave up:

-mid 3rd (#81)
-late 6th (#209)

And we received:

-Late 3rd (#102)
-mid 5th (#159)
-mid 6th (#191)
-mid 6th (#193)
-late 6th (#204)
-early 7th (#217)

This is where you fill out your needs and depth on your roster. The more picks, the more depth. The only players I would have taken between 81 and 102 is Khalen Saunders, Damien Harris, Connor McGovern or Miles Boykin. I wouldnt have taken Ferguson. I think he's somewhat of a headcase. Passing on McGovern I can live with because we got Samia shortly after. If it comes down to Harris and Mattison, I give the edge to Mattison. I had him ranked at 4 and Harris at 5 pre-draft. Saunders I loved but we landed Watts.

So in the end,
-Passed on Harris but gained Mattison
-Passed on McGovern for Samia
-Passed on Saunders for Watts

The only one we didnt really make up for was Boykin. Maybe Mitchell but I doubt it. Watts is going to be an impact player, maybe even quicker than Saunders would. McGovern and Samia are near even. And I give Mattison the slight edge over Harris. And then we add more value with the picks we gained along the way. Point is, we didnt really pass on as much as some may think.

[S197]

I'll take a stab at both sides of this argument.

On one hand, the draft is a relative crap shoot. So by trading down, you get more chances of hitting on a player. And there are times where Rick has found some solid contributors late in the draft. 2016 is a very good example of this with Weatherly, Kearse, and Morgan all taken in the 6th/7th.

But there's also years where he hasn't done as well. Like 2017 where he had 11 picks and grabbed guys like: Rodney Adams, Bucky Hodges, Stacy Coley, Ifeadi Odenigbo, Elijah Lee, and Jack Tocho. That's over half his picks and none of these guys contributed anything.

Even 2015, which was a really good draft for the Vikings had a lot of late round duds in Tyrus Thompson, BJ Dubose, Austin Shepherd and Edmond Robinson.

Now you compare that to when we did stick in the 3rd. Well, that's where you get guys like Elflein, Hunter and McKinnon. You get misses like a Scott Crichton but not nearly as much.

It's a tough tradeoff and I get we're up against the cap so depth players will likely need to be guys on rookie contracts. But at the same time, I think Rick goes overboard, he amasses all these picks and most of them don't ever make the roster. I do like that he flipped the script this year for once and focused on offense early with particular attention to OL. That was desperately needed and one area where it looks like he's learned from past mistakes. He seems to still be unwilling to draft a QB unless absolutely necessary, which continues to be one of his biggest flaws IMO. I don't know, I don't love the strategy but I think the draft went okay. I see other teams, like the Titans I mentioned in the other thread, who I think did a better job at similar draft position but we'll see. To me, Rick does his best work in the 4th and 5th rounds. I wish he'd put more of a concentration there than these 6/7th round fliers.

I wouldn't close the door on Ifeadi Odenigbo yet. Other than that, it is a question of degree. Obviously trading all your picks for 32 7th rounders is not good value. Trading all your picks for one 1st rounder probably isn't good value. Moving back 20 spots in the middle of the draft and getting 4 extra picks probably is good value. As has been pointed out, a 7th rounder is basically a priority FA. No one of them is likely to pan out, but having 3 or 4 more priority FAs is valuable across time. The Vikings clearly take this philosophy to heart, which is why they have been paying above market value to secure college FAs as well as trading back to acquire picks over the last several years. Finding a backup or special teams contributor from that pool is tremendously valuable to a team's success, the occasional starter or star makes an even more massive impact. There are only about 30 starting positions to be filled. Filling any of them with 6th-7th round or priority FAs is a huge leg up...or failing to do so is a huge disadvantage.

All good points, which is why I said in another thread there is an inflection point.

The main reason I don't particularly like it is because of the value that was on the board. Or my perceived value because who knows.

AJ Brown was sitting there and we passed. I think that was a mistake even if I think Irv will play an integral role. I'd rather have Rudolph/Conklin/Morgan and Diggs/Thielen/Brown.

Had we gone McGovern in the 3rd, we wouldn't need Samia in the 4th. And Amani Hooker was sitting there in the 4th, which was a great value BPA pick.

You could still grab Watts, Boyd and a few other late picks including a RB, which is really the only place you lose.

Basically, I'll take Bradbury, AJ Brown, McGovern, and Hooker over Bradbury, Irv, Mattison, Samia, and a bunch of guys who are unlikely to make the team.

I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But seeing what we passed on makes it real tough to give this draft a good grade.