There are few guarantees in life, and there’s only one guarantee in this year’s NFL draft: The Bears will select USC quarterback Caleb Williams with the No. 1 overall pick.
What are the three best-case scenarios for the Vikings in the NFL draft?
Things could break a lot of different ways for the Vikings in a little over two weeks as they pursue a quarterback in the draft. Let’s take a look at the best possible scenarios.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
April 9, 2024 at 9:29PM
After that happens a little over two weeks from now on a Thursday night, the draft gets interesting — and perhaps anxiety-inducing for the Vikings and their fans.
Minnesota has given itself options by already adding the No. 23 overall pick in a trade with Houston to go with its own No. 11 pick.
Options, however, are not guarantees. In their search for a quarterback, the Vikings are still quite dependent on the actions of other teams.
On Tuesday’s Daily Delivery podcast, Star Tribune Vikings writer Andrew Krammer and I broke down the five quarterbacks potentially available to the Vikings: LSU’s Jayden Daniels, North Carolina’s Drake Maye, Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy, Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. and Oregon’s Bo Nix.
With those five QBs and that podcast discussion in mind, here is my evaluation of the plausible best-case scenarios for the Vikings on draft night:
1. A quarterback the Vikings like starts falling on the board. I’m clearly more of a natural pessimist than Krammer because this scenario hadn’t really occurred to me until he brought it up. But it wouldn’t be without precedent for a hyped-up QB to start sliding. Maybe the Patriots decide they like Marvin Harrison Jr. at No. 3 and pass on Maye. Perhaps McCarthy has been oversold and won’t end up going in the top five.
If one of those quarterbacks started to slide, either enabling the Vikings to wait to take him at No. 11 or requiring less trade ammunition in order to obtain him, it would be a huge win for Minnesota.
2. New England isn’t sold on Drake Maye and trades the No. 3 pick for fair value. I’ve already ruminated on what happens if the price to move up seems to steep. But assuming Maye is the Vikings’ top realistic target, simply being able to execute a fair value trade for him would be a win. To me, that means the Vikings send both No. 1s this year and next year’s No. 1, but New England also sends back a day two pick in one of the next two drafts in addition to the No. 3 pick.
3. The Vikings actually prefer either Michael Penix Jr. or Bo Nix to one or more of the projected top four quarterbacks. A lot of projections are based on assumptions that the Vikings are zeroing in on Maye, with McCarthy as a fallback option. But what if they are convinced that Penix’s arm talent or Nix’s processing provide the framework for a franchise QB, and they prefer one of them to, say, McCarthy? That would allow them to perhaps trade down from No. 11, recoup value, and add other talent in addition to a quarterback.
If you aren’t convinced these are going to happen and want a more pessimistic take, don’t worry. I’ll have the three worst-case scenarios Wednesday.
Here are four more things to know today:
*Also on Tuesday’s podcast, I took a look at reasons why the Twins offense has been sputtering so far this year. Factors in play: Overconfidence based on last year’s second-half results, which didn’t factor in enough regression; some bad luck on hard-hit balls; small sample size; and a gaping hole left by the absence of Royce Lewis.
*It probably won’t help to point out that former Twins prospect Spencer Steer, dealt in the ill-fated Tyler Mahle deal with the Reds, is tearing it up and was just named National League player of the week. Ex-Twin Miguel Sano, meanwhile, is off to a decent start with the Angels and even pitched in a blowout the other day.
*Columnist La Velle E. Neal III caught up with a lot of people in Tessa Johnson’s orbit after the former St. Michael-Albertville standout’s dominant performance in Sunday’s NCAA women’s title win for South Carolina.
*Columnist Jim Souhan is expected to be my guest on Wednesday’s podcast, checking in from Augusta, Ga. on the eve of The Masters.
When he was hired after the disastrous 2016 season to reshape the Twins, Derek Falvey brought a reputation for identifying and developing pitching talent. It took a while, but the pipeline we were promised is now materializing.
