It’s A Winfield Payback

Works for me. I am so happy for Antoine. Wished he would have been a Viking.

Love it Antoine Jr!   Thank you!

Love the kid! Just like pops and i really thought we'd take him. I wish the kid nothing but the best.

@"Vikergirl" said: Works for me. I am so happy for Antoine. Wished he would have been a Viking.

Me too....Especially with where Dirty Harry is in his career arc. Wasn't meant to be unfortunately. 

When was the last time we draft someone from Minnesota? Carl Eller?

It would have been awesome to have him as a Viking in so many ways - imagine the draft class with Winfield instead of Gladney. 

@"Jor-El" said: It would have been awesome to have him as a Viking in so many ways - imagine the draft class with Winfield instead of Gladney. 

Given his family history and character and the fact that the Vikes needed a Safety it was a mistake not to target and go get Winfield jr . 

FWIW Vikiing Fans wouldn't have complained IMO, he was worth the risk.

No player is guaranteed to pan out. Winfield jr has intangibles that are hard to find. 

The best any team can ask for from any drafted player is they give their  best effort, and with Winfield IMO everyone knew he'd work his ass off in the same way his father did.

I was pounding the table for Winfield B4 the draft - and I aint not draftnik. The intangibles were there and obviously the pedigree and stats from UofM. 

The draft just didnt fall our way unfortunately. 

Bucs grabbed two really good Gophers who should be contributing to their team for a long time. Would have loved to have seen em both in Vikings purple instead. 

We needed a S?

Huh? We just lost our top 3 CBs, had two vet S under contract, but we needed a S?

Ok. 

@"BarrNone55" said: We needed a S?

Huh? We just lost our top 3 CBs, had two vet S under contract, but we needed a S?

Ok. 

Yeah I'm with Barr here that we made the two right decisions with Jefferson and Gladney. While Winfield was awesome this year, Safety was not our number 1 priority at that time because the Vikes were discussing extending Harris (trading him as well). I wanted Winfield too, but we needed WR, CB, and OL and our first 3 picks were just that.

@"BarrNone55" said: We needed a S?

Huh? We just lost our top 3 CBs, had two vet S under contract, but we needed a S?

Ok. 

We had Harris on the franchise tag and there were numerous reports the Vikings might trade him for cap relief.  Even though they didn't, I don't see how we would have kept him long term.  He's likely gone as a FA now...  we definitely could have used a S as much as a CB.  I'd say our needs we're about equal there if we are planning for the future.  Heck, we could have pulled the tag on Ant and rolled his cap savings into this year if we drafted Winfield.  That probably would have been a smarter move in hindsight.

@"Wetlander" said:

@"BarrNone55" said: We needed a S?

Huh? We just lost our top 3 CBs, had two vet S under contract, but we needed a S?

Ok. 

We had Harris on the franchise tag and there were numerous reports the Vikings might trade him for cap relief.  Even though they didn't, I don't see how we would have kept him long term.  He's likely gone as a FA now...  we definitely could have used a S as much as a CB.  I'd say our needs we're about equal there if we are planning for the future.  Heck, we could have pulled the tag on Ant and rolled his cap savings into this year if we drafted Winfield.  That probably would have been a smarter move in hindsight.

I realize this is 20/20 hindsight, but look at last preseason overall, and we did this:

FA: Let Rhodes, Waynes, and Alexander leave, kept Harris. 3 CBs unsigned, 1 S on Franchise tag.
Draft: Picked Gladney. (I don't think the team could "plan" getting a starting CB in round 3.)

You could argue that Winfield would have fit our draft plans fine if we had kept even 1 of the CBs - we did expect that Holton Hill and Mike Hughes would be starters. . My preference would have been to re-sign Alexander: he only got something like $4M and started this year after returning from IR in Cincinatti. I know, something turned Alexander against the team. I could also suggest that this coaching staff should have been able to "fix" Rhodes as well as the Indy staff, but maybe that's a lost cause...

Point is, a LOT of draft capital has been invested in CB, and the fact that so much of it did not become long-term Vikings (due to coaching issues and/or salary management) led to this team needing to keep investing more at the position.