The Athletic: Graded the Vikings last of 32 teams. Though it was noted that because of the small quantity of picks the Vikings “were destined to appear low on this list,” it was noted that they had Jackson pegged as a second-rounder. It’s definitely fair to wonder, as I did Friday, if the Vikings could have traded down into the early second round, scooped up more picks, and still drafted their guy.
USA Today and NY Post: Gave the Vikings a C and a D+, respectively, with each having the Vikings in the bottom three of all teams.
The context: The majority of the critiques of the Vikings’ draft, and therefore the low grades, came from the fact that they just didn’t have that many picks. This is a condition of their own making, of course, since they didn’t have a lot of picks largely because of trades they made leading up to and during the 2024 draft.
Namely, they gave Houston their 2025 second-round pick as part of a move to add a second first-round pick (No. 23 overall) a month before last year’s draft. They wanted more capital in case they needed it to trade up for a QB. While they didn’t end up needing that pick to move up one spot to No. 10 for J.J. McCarthy, they sent their 2025 third- and fourth-round picks along with No. 23 to move up to No. 17 to get Dallas Turner.
McCarthy didn’t play at all after a preseason injury, while Turner played less than many of us expected as a rookie. If those two have significant impacts in 2025 and beyond, nobody will remember how much it took to get them, nor how much the moves to get them impacted the Vikings’ draft grades in 2025.
But if McCarthy, Turner AND this year’s limited class don’t produce? Well, it probably won’t be too long after that until someone new is in charge of making the plan for the Vikings.