Draft Grades

We all know that the cost for pick 17 in this years draft cost way more than the charts say it should have. However, if we are getting the #1 defender in the draft as the consensus clearly showed it wasn't too high of a price. I go with the consensus. Best defender in the draft worthy of the draft capital we paid. 

They didn't give up the farm for either in all honesty, so it doesn't. I tend to look at Turner a bit different in that 23 was acquired for a QBOTF and ultimately wasn't used for that purpose. As such, I don't really look at the cost to get 23 as part of the cost to get Turner. They simply saw that they had a blue chipper available at 17 and decided to go for it using pick 23. I probably do the same thing there though. I don't fault KAM at all. I'd say the odds of Turner being a better player than JJM are pretty high too. That's not a knock on JJM, just a knock on the price you pay to take a decent QBOTF.

As you said, if both end up as good players, no one will care. And if one busts, the franchise isn't crippled from it. If both bust, we probably need to start talking about some changes to FO/scouting/coaching.

Certainly, they didn't go full Herschel Walker or Ricky Williams, but they gave up a lot of draft assets for these two players. Those are opportunity costs that you will never see, but you can't just ignore them. Good teams are built with second and third round picks.


If the Vikings rated these players on their draft board much higher, as they likely did, the moves make sense in that regard. That doesn't mean they did a great job making those trades, and I don't see any trade KAM has made that he has received value on paper.

That we traded up twice in the 1st round for JJ McCarthy and Dallas Turner? No  

Lol. Possibly. I suspect it will be JJM as soon as Darnold is out of here