I always loved the 2nd and 3rd rounds picks. You can hit on these guys and everyone has a favorite or two.
Would have been awesome with watching those picks heading into the wolves game.
Oh well
Back when I would watch the draft, I enjoyed these rounds quite a bit too--faster paced than the first round, still a lot of familiar names, and such, but the level of impact for the Vikings 2nd/3rd rounders over the years has been underwhelming. Having some time on my hands, I started with 1981 (a magical year for me, as it was the first year I followed the draft and the Vikings had three 2nd rounders that year, with Jarvis Redwine the marquee name) and looked at all the picks from these rounds through last year.
80 picks in total and I identified 28 significant contributors through the years (pretty inexact science, but I included the likes of Alfred Anderson and Fred Robbins in the mix, so I felt I was generous). Here are those names:
QB: Tarvaris Jackson
RB: Dalvin Cook, Alfred Anderson, Moe Williams, Alexander Mattison
WR: Jake Reed, Sidney Rice, Qadry Ismail, Nate Burleson
TE: Kyle Rudolph, Jim Kleinsasser
OL: Tim Irwin, Terry Tausch, Phil Loadholt, Ezra Cleveland, Brian O'Neill, Ed Ingram, Kirk Lowdermilk
DL: Henry Thomas, Al Noga, Fred Robbins, Danielle Hunter
LB: EJ Henderson, Eric Kendricks
DB: Cory Fuller, Mekhi Blackmon, Orlando Thomas, Brad Edwards
I guess an argument could be made that Irv Smith Jr., Pat Eilfein, Cam Dantzler and others should be included, as they each logged several starts for the Vikings during their time on the team, but I didn't give too much ground to players who were cut/didn't get a second contract.
So, yes, there's some really solid names on this list, but the hit rate isn't too high, even for these rounds. And despite all our grumblings about the Vikings over the years, they've been one of the more consistently good franchises in the last 50 years, so I'd venture to say their success rate isn't an outlier to the rest of the league crushing these rounds of the draft.
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My response here is not so much to refute the original post, but I've been feeling salty about the whole idea of valuing later round picks, particularly after reading an analysis from a ESPN writer that ripped the Vikings for giving up too much to get Dallas Turner. There's no guarantee that Turner's going to become a solid/star player in the NFL, but I'll take my chances with him over two or three 4th/5th round picks. The inflation of the value of these mid-round picks feels a lot like the hoarding of 2nd round picks in the NBA draft--yes, you can hit on winners and we love to marvel at the underdog story (does anyone recall what round Tom Brady was drafted in?), but I love the move that the Vikings braintrust made to get Turner.
