The Vikings acquired the No. 23 pick in a trade. What will they do next?

If the Vikings are planning to make an aggressive move to the top of the first round for their next quarterback, they acquired more ammunition to do it on Friday.

They received the 23rd overall pick in this year’s draft from Houston, in exchange for picks No. 42 and 188 and the Vikings’ second-rounder in 2025. The Vikings also received pick No. 232 from Houston in the deal.

The predraft swap means the Vikings have two first-round picks, and while those picks could turn into two first-round players for the first time since 2020, it’s entirely possible they will be used for a different reason.

The Vikings have been scouting the prospects in a deep 2024 quarterback class since last year, with an eye toward drafting Kirk Cousins’ successor in the first round. Sources said they had explored a move to the top of the first round for a quarterback in 2023 but didn’t have the draft capital to move up from No. 23 last year, given the fact they sent their second-round pick to Detroit in the T.J. Hockenson trade.

When Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud and Anthony Richardson were gone within the first four picks, the Vikings decided to stay at No. 23 and pick USC wide receiver Jordan Addison. With players such as USC’s Caleb Williams and North Carolina’s Drake Maye in the 2024 draft, the Vikings also knew 2023 wouldn’t be their only shot at a QB.

This year’s draft figures to be a different story. The Vikings now have the 11th and 23rd picks in the first round; they could add another player later in the first round after drafting a QB at No. 11, but they could also package the two picks to move up several positions in the draft, where players such as Williams, Maye and LSU’s Jayden Daniels are expected to go.

By itself, the trade seemed to come at a steep cost, given the Vikings surrendered their next two second-round picks to move up 19 spots. And if the Vikings did send the two first-rounders to another team in a trade for a QB, they’d be short on picks for the rest of this year’s draft.

They no longer have a Day 2 pick, as they sent their third-rounder to Detroit as part of the Hockenson trade in 2022 and dealt their second-rounder to the Texans on Friday.

But if the end result of the Vikings’ draft maneuvers is a quarterback they can build around for the rest of the decade, the price they paid to get that player won’t seem like an issue.

According to the Rich Hill draft trade value chart, which assigns a point value to each pick in the draft to help evaluate trades, the Vikings’ two first-rounders are worth 603 points, putting the value of their picks between No. 2 (717 points) and No. 3 (514 points) overall.

The teams with the first three picks in the draft — the Bears, Commanders and Patriots — are each in the market for a quarterback, so the Vikings might have to include another high-value pick to get one of those teams to give up its opportunity to take one of the draft’s top QBs.

By including two first-rounders this year, however, they might be able to strike a deal by including one future first, not the two additional years of first-round picks the 49ers included to move up from No. 12 to No. 3 to select Trey Lance in 2021.

With General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and coach Kevin O’Connell heading into their third season together, the Vikings have been charting their future at the QB position, hoping they could retain Cousins and develop a quarterback behind him this year.

Adofo-Mensah said Thursday that Cousins’ departure for Atlanta on a four-year, $180 million deal doesn’t require the Vikings to take a QB in the first round this year.

“As we enter this draft, we have the flexibility to go either way,” he said.

But the Vikings, who continued scouting the country’s top college quarterbacks this fall and met with many of them at the combine, have seemed intent on finding a franchise QB in this draft.

League sources believed they took a measured approach to contract negotiations with Cousins because of it, and their trade on Friday provided them with further capacity to move up toward the top of the first round.

The Vikings have never drafted a quarterback higher than 11th overall; they took Daunte Culpepper in that spot in 1999. On Friday, it appeared more possible than ever they could move up to take the first top 10 QB in franchise history this year.