2020 Redraft With 2020 Hindsight

Is this the Vikings best draft since 2015? Jefferson is a star, Gladney is improving, Cleveland looks solid, Wonnum is becoming one of the best rookie DE, and a bunch of project players with potential. If they keep improving this rebuild might not last long!

100% yes but the bar isn’t very high. All the players from 2016 are gone, 2017 only has Cook and Odenigbo, 2018 has O’Neill and no other impact players and 2019 is yet to be determined (though Bradbury and Smith are both trending the right way).

If someone like Wonnum turns out to be a rotational rusher, that’s a win for a fourth-round draft pick. Nice get. What really matters is Jefferson turning into an instant superstar. That’s a franchise-altering pick.

Although they will have to hit on some of the late-rounders from 2019 and 2020 considering the cap is going down and their depth will almost entirely be made up of draft picks over the next few years

In the case of the Minnesota Vikings 2020 draft class, the folks who grade drafts in May have turned out to be right. The consensus across the board from analysts was that the Vikings came away with numerous players who could impact the team right away and build a foundation for the future.

After a rough start, the rookie class have trended in the direction of achieving exactly that was projected for them and their growth has played a significant role in the team’s turnaround.

“I think we’re getting a lot of production from a lot of young guys,” head coach Mike Zimmer said. “One thing I do like about the young guys is they they’re really tuned in to what we’re trying to do with the techniques and with everything and they’re playing hard.”

Clearly the Vikings’ draft is already a franchise-changer with the instant stardom of Justin Jefferson. While Zimmer insists that Jefferson is still making rookie mistakes, he’s currently graded as PFF’s fourth best receiver. He’s also third in total yards and third in yards per reception.

There’s no jury out on Jefferson. That one is decided.

The rest of the key rookies — namely Ezra Cleveland, Jeff Gladney, Cam Dantzler, DJ Wonnum, Troy Dye — will be tested much more over the final four weeks.

The combined record of the Vikings’ opponents over the past four games is 13-33. The next stanza of the season will see the Vikings go on the road three times and match up with teams that have a 27-21 combined record. And the two sub-.500 opponents are within the division.

That means by the time the 2020 season is over, we will have a very good idea of where the class stands heading into 2021.

Ezra Cleveland, O-line difference maker

The Vikings have had a carousel at right guard this season but in reality it’s been two versions: With and without second-round pick Ezra Cleveland.

The former Boise State left tackle has adapted quickly to playing right guard, where he ranks as the second highest graded guard in the rookie class by PFF.

Cleveland returned from an ankle injury that kept him out two weeks to play well against a Jacksonville team that threw numerous blitz packages at the Vikings’ O-line. He was credited with allowing just one QB pressure.

“A big thing I kind of base myself on is not making the same mistake twice, so getting all of these pressures that I might not have seen before, it’s nice to see, because if I do it wrong, I’m not going to do it wrong again,” Cleveland said Monday. “Getting all of these pressures in that last game and watching tape and figuring out what was going on and the tendencies and what the defense does that you can key on and identify coming in the future definitely helps. I’m happy that I can put that in my tool belt.”

This week the Vikings face a Tampa Bay team that ranks sixth in sacks and grades by PFF metrics as the seventh best pass rush team. Defensive tackle William Gholston has 40 QB pressures this year, which ranks seventh among DTs.

In five games, Cleveland has two well above average games and two well below average games. A standout game against the Bucs would go a long way toward solidifying an offensive line that has struggled for years.

The corners

Cameron Dantzler didn’t just have a decent game against Jacksonville, he had a spectacular game against Jacksonville. Mike Glennon went 1-for-7 passing into his coverage with an interception and Dantzler forced a key fumble. He graded as the NFL’s best corner in Week 13 by PFF.

“He showed up in camp and he was making plays pretty early,” safety Harrison Smith said. “I think getting into the games and facing some good quarterbacks early, some tough competition, allowed him to learn a lot, and he’s starting to put it to use. He’s playing decisively and making plays on the ball.”

To extend the sample size out farther, since coming back from a worrisome injury against Green Bay, he’s the fourth highest graded corner and has given up just five completions on 14 targets.

Since the bye week, Jeff Gladney’s performance has varied from week to week but overall he’s only given up 8.7 yards per completion into his coverage, second best in the NFL among starting corners.

Early in the season, both players were getting smoked. The learning curve is already steep enough without the lack of OTAs, minicamps and preseason but this year has been especially difficult.

Zimmer talked on Monday about the uphill battle that’s always getting tougher on corners.

“There’s a lot more combination of routes and zone they have to learn [than in the past],” Zimmer said. “The man-to-man [coverage] is fairly the same but you get in a lot of different condensed splits and things like that that you have to change up on that you didn’t have to worry about before. There’s little things like that that get to them, but you know so many over routes now. Guys from one side of the field running to the other side of the field. Those have been showing up recently in the last four or five years.”

While the version of Tom Brady that the Vikings are preparing to face is not exactly the same player who threw 50 touchdowns in 2007 but he still has a 95.1 rating and grades as PFF’s fifth best QB. Brady is also fifth best in the league in snap-to-release time. Because of that, he’s the sixth least pressured quarterback in the NFL.

It might not get much easier after that if Drew Brees returns to a blazing hot New Orleans team and a Detroit offense that appeared reinvigorated last week.

The rest

It won’t just be Jefferson, Cleveland, Dantzler and Gladney undergoing trial by fire. DJ Wonnum has grown into a significant role on the D-line. Troy Dye has taken over the role previously held down by Eric Wilson before Anthony Barr went down for the season. KJ Osborn has struggled to adapt to NFL punt returning. Harrison Hand and Josh Metellus are special teams regulars and depth in case anyone gets hurt.

Over the final four games, the Vikings are likely to need all of their first-year players to perform like veterans if they want to hold down a playoff position.

“I don’t think any of us think of ourselves as rookies,” Cleveland said. “Once we got our opportunity, we knew that we had to step up and do the best we could. I think we’re really playing with a chip on our shoulder and wanting to do the best for the team and not have the rookie label. We don’t want people to think of ourselves as rookies when we’re playing, if that makes sense.”