Heading into this weekend's draft, there was a line of thinking outside the walls of Winter Park that the Vikings should do all they could to surround quarterback Teddy Bridgewater with offensive talent, perhaps one of the premier pass-catchers of this class and a lineman or two early.
The Vikings' top decision-makers had other plans, waiting to tackle offensive needs during the final day of the draft and instead using their first three selections to further strengthen coach Mike Zimmer's defense.
"I don't know if Coach Zimmer ever gets excited," General Manager Rick Spielman said Saturday after the draft. "But I know he is very happy we were able to get the defensive guys."
They started with cornerback Trae Waynes, the top-rated defensive back in the draft, on Thursday and then tripled down on the defensive side of the ball Friday.
Zimmer was mostly pleased with the progress his defense made in 2014, but the team's actions in this draft are proof that he feels there is still plenty of work to be done.
By adding a pair of players who could make an immediate impact to an impressive core of young defenders and taking on a longer-term high-upside project on that side of the ball, Zimmer and Spielman took more steps to stamp Zimmer's identity on the defense, one that could soon become one of the NFL's best.
"The nucleus here is one of the best in the NFL," Bleacher Report draft analyst Matt Miller said. "[The defense has] young talent the Vikings can build around for the next decade. It's an exciting time with so much talent on both sides of the ball and a coaching staff that has a proven track record of developing players."
Zimmer to mold Waynes
With the reigning NFL MVP, another 4,000-yard quarterback, five 1,000-yard receivers and a brand-new top-10 draft pick at wide receiver residing in the NFC North, the Vikings jumped at the chance to grab another gifted cornerback to pair with Xavier Rhodes.
Waynes thrived in bump-and-run coverage at Michigan State, a style that Zimmer often asks his Vikings cornerbacks to play, too.
"Waynes is a perfect fit for Zimmer's defense. He has length, is aggressive at the line of scrimmage and has the speed to turn and run with receivers down the field," Miller said. "There are holes in his game, but Zimmer's ability to coach up defensive backs makes Waynes' ceiling that of a consistent Pro Bowl selection. And with Rhodes on the other side, the Vikings have one of the best young cornerback duos in football."
When Zimmer was hired in Cincinnati as defensive coordinator in 2008, he inherited a pair of recent first-round picks at cornerback in Leon Hall (2007) and Johnathan Joseph (2006). With Zimmer coaching them, Joseph became a two-time Pro Bowl player and Hall a pretty good cover man in his own right. And with those two players manning the sidelines, the Bengals climbed from 27th in total defense in 2007 to 12th in 2008 and then all the way to fourth in 2009.
Rhodes and Waynes are different players than those two, starting with the fact that both of them are taller than 6 feet. But Zimmer hopes to recreate something similar here.
"When you don't have to worry too much about the corners … you don't have to give them much help, you don't have to cheat the coverages. You can do numerous things that allow you to attack offenses," Zimmer said. "But when you have to help a guy or protect a guy, use some more of your guys than you really would like to, then it makes it more difficult."
Waynes will compete with Captain Munnerlyn, Josh Robinson and free-agent addition Terence Newman for a starting job at left cornerback.
But the Vikings should not expect him to be a shutdown defender right away. Most cornerbacks, including Rhodes, have needed at least a year to adjust to the NFL, where the receivers are bigger, faster and more polished and the officials give less leeway when it comes to clutching and grabbing.
But the vision is that Waynes and Rhodes will eventually become one of the league's top cornerback duos, emboldening Zimmer to be even more aggressive.
More defense is better
On the second night of the draft, the Vikings continued to focus on defense by addressing a perennial need at middle linebacker and taking a flyer on an athletic but raw defensive end.
At the scouting combine, Zimmer and Spielman heard enough during a 15-minute meeting with UCLA's Eric Kendricks to conclude he was certainly smart enough to play the pivotal middle linebacker position. And on tape, they saw an instinctive player with three-down traits.
So they selected the 6-foot, 232-pound playmaker with their second-round pick.
The Vikings feel Kendricks can play both middle and weak-side linebacker in Zimmer's scheme, and the 2014 Butkus Award winner said he will arrive in Minnesota pro-ready.
And that's a good thing. Jasper Brinkley, their 2014 starting middle linebacker who was pulled from the field in passing situations, signed with the Cowboys, leaving a void. Chad Greenway will be back for another season in 2015, but he has limitations in coverage, too.
Whether Kendricks starts right away or not, he can immediately help the Vikings in their sub packages, lining up next to 2014 first-round pick Anthony Barr, his UCLA teammate.
"Kendricks is an explosive player with three-down talent," Miller said. "He showed the range at UCLA to attack in the flats and when asked to get depth in coverage. And he can shut down the run. …. He is a smaller player and isn't super explosive, but his instincts make up for it."
A round after taking Kendricks, the Vikings made a similar mid-round bet to what they made with Everson Griffen five years ago.
Like Griffen in 2010, Louisiana State defensive end Danielle Hunter was a pre-draft workout warrior. But unlike Griffen when he came out early, Hunter left school without many sacks.
The Vikings ultimately project Hunter, who is 6-5 with 35-inch arms, as a speed-rushing right end, the position Griffen plays. They used a third-round pick on reserve left end Scott Crichton last spring. He basically got a redshirt year, and Hunter could require one, too.
"He's a project that I know that we're going to have to work with," Spielman said.
Offense gets some help late
When the third day of the draft started Saturday, the Vikings finally addressed their offense, taking a trio of linemen, a tight end and a wide receiver. Spielman said the team ignored those needs early because that's how the draft board fell.
But whether it was by design or not, this draft was about continuing to fortify Zimmer's defense, especially after they picked Louisville defensive tackle B.J. Dubose and Edmond Robinson, an outside linebacker from tiny Newberry College, in the late rounds Saturday.
In Zimmer's first two years, the Vikings have used 12 of their 20 draft picks on defenders.
The Vikings improved drastically on defense, particularly against the pass, in 2014. And younger players such as Griffen, Rhodes, Barr, defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd and safety Harrison Smith all made major strides under Zimmer.
But even so, the Vikings brought in more of Zimmer's style of players this weekend, adding three early selections to an already-impressive young core of defenders.
"They've certainly added key pieces with high-level-starter upside at each spot, and it's on Zimmer now to develop them," said Eric Galko, an NFL draft analyst for the Sporting News. "There's a clear plan in place for how this defense should be built, and it's quickly been completed in terms of talent introduction to the defense."
