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Ill get things going:
Bradbury. A. Should make immediate impact, will improve both G if he sticks at C.
Irv Smith Jr. B. This is a good value pick. He slipped down the board, but I'm not sure he is better than Sternberger who went to the Packers later in the draft.
Alexander Mattison. C. We should have NOT moved down, there were still a couple good OTs remaining on the board....20 picks later...there weren't. The young man is probably a bigger receiving threat out of the backfield. He will gain yards, but won't command the attention for teams to load the box.
Yeah Rick got to his "magic number" of ten again....big deal...How many of those ten will be starting? Bradbury yes, Smith, rotational. Mattison? Doubtful IMO. Wish we could have kept Latavius Murray. I can't tell you how many times the last couple seasons I've "thanked God" for Murray.
Even with the moving down there were viable WR options still left. But a 4.7 40 RB made no sense and what we got in the trades (a 5, 2 6th's, a 7) was peanuts.
Definitely wanted a RB Day Two...but I was thinking Montgomery or Sanders...looking a his tape, he seems like a great compliment to Cook...if we have to go to a cold weather road game late in the year, he can tote the rock...good receiver...Kubes running game has squeezed hard yards with similar guy.
Smith is the rare low mileage Bama guy...does everything pretty well...not sure if he is the guy who makes defences pay for doubling the WRs, but you can line him up multiple ways and he'll be effective...
Bradbury give us the biggest lift...Elf to G and Kline back in scheme he fits helps...34 reps and 35 Wonderlic...everyone on the O got better the moment we drafted him...
Grade B+
With three picks on O, I'm guessing Zim has a rash...
I'll still give it a solid B because Bradbury is an A and Smith is an A talent whose field time this year will be limited by Rudolph.
Mattison is a D. We just threw pick #102 at a 5th-round need/talent.
So far I'd give the draft a B. Bradburry is a perfect scheme fit, though time will tell if passing on Dillard was a mistake. Irv Smith is the move TE that they've been trying to find for years. It will be interesting to see how they use him in the offense and if he can take advantage of the opportunities created by Thielen and Diggs. Then the 3rd round happened. Spielman got carried away on a trade down frenzy, passed on some very good players, and makes a very questionable pick with Mattison. I get wanting to find someone to replace Murray, but they passed on higher impact players, and could have taken similar players if not Mattison himself on day 3. Spielman got too cute it & burned him. The first two picks were very good, but the mismanagement of the 3rd round is what stands out to me right now. Hopefully, they have a better day on day 3.
Quote: @Tyr said:
So far I'd give the draft a B. Bradburry is a perfect scheme fit, though time will tell if passing on Dillard was a mistake. Irv Smith is the move TE that they've been trying to find for years. It will be interesting to see how they use him in the offense and if he can take advantage of the opportunities created by Thielen and Diggs. Then the 3rd round happened. Spielman got carried away on a trade down frenzy, passed on some very good players, and makes a very questionable pick with Mattison. I get wanting to find someone to replace Murray, but they passed on higher impact players, and could have taken similar players if not Mattison himself on day 3. Spielman got too cute it & burned him. The first two picks were very good, but the mismanagement of the 3rd round is what stands out to me right now. Hopefully, they have a better day on day 3.
Amen!
I'd actually give this draft an A so far. Bradbury if he is as good as he is being billed then he is going to make us better right away. Smith is going to allow us to let Rudolph leave next year without issue, so this pick will likely net us a 4th to 5th round pick next year as well. Mattison is the perfect compliment to Cook. Cook is our guy and Mattison is replacing Murray and I'd say he might be a slight upgrade too.
I've been doing some light reading on draft value and what not. ( http://advancedfootballanalytics.com/index.php/home/research/draft/242-the-value-of-each-draft-pick-a-re-examination-of-massey-thaler-surplus-value-under-the-new-cba and http://www.profootballlogic.com/articles/nfl-draft-pick-value/ - a couple of good reads to understand my rating of this draft, and this link kind of ties it all together https://www.arrowheadpride.com/2015/2/20/8072877/what-the-statistics-tell-us-about-the-draft-by-round) This draft so far gets a huge boost in rating due to the picks we got by trading down. Just purely from a statistics standpoint we are more likely to get a starter from that pick than had we held the pick.
At some point I"d like to do a full quantitative analysis on this data, but right now I'd assume that we got 5 players for pick 81, pick 102, a 5th, 2 6ths and a 7th. The likely hood we are going to draft a starter has probably doubled. If we draft 4 offensive linemen with those extra picks we have a 58% chance we will get a starter out of those. That is slightly lower than drafting an OL in the 2nd round but better than drafting one in the 3rd.
So I'll put it to you this way, would you consider getting a comp pick at the end of the second round, to move down from 81 to 102 to be a good trade? I'm not even getting into the cost of these players just the likely hood a pick will turn into a starter. Everyone wants to talk about this player or that player being better, remember David Yankey (borderline 1st, definite 2nd round pick, that we got in the 5th), the draft is a numbers game, especially after the first 2 rounds.
I'm not a fan of Rick trading down to get his garbage picks that he loves, but we got need players at each position so far. Can't complain too much. I like the RB pick, excellent counter to Cook....but 3rd round?
1. I think Bradbury was the best lineman in the draft. Vikings got him at 18. Haven't been this convinced about a player since Aaron Donald. A+
2. Irv Smith Jr. was my favorite TE of the big three. I wouldn't have taken him over Hockenson, but I would have over Fant. Really didn't expect him to be there at 50. A
3. Frustrating to watch all those good players go off the board as we traded down repeatedly. But at least we stayed in the 3rd this time. Mattison wasn't on my radar at all but I'm REALLY liking what I'm seeing this morning. The biggest question about this pick is "could we have gotten him later?" Could the Vikings have taken a player like Davis or Pipkins or Ferguson or Edoga or Cajuste and STILL gotten Mattison in the 4th? No way to know for sure, but I think the answer to that is, yeah, probably. C
The TE is the key to the first 3 picks summing to a B or C for me. Time will tell.
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