Vikings' Draft Moves: Hidden Gems and Bold Surprises That Could Change the Game

The NFL Draft is still a little over a month away, but for the Minnesota Vikings a lot is riding on this draft. Vikings president and co-owner Mark Wilf made that clear in his statement following the release of general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah at the end of January, and he’s right. Between the Vikings salary cap situation and some aging starters, the Vikings could use an influx of young talent on rookie contracts.

Vikings Recent Draft Woes

While the firing of Adofo-Mensah may have coalesced around quarterback decisions that turned into a fiasco in 2025, Adofo-Mensah’s drafts have also been poor. That’s not all on him- there is collaboration with scouting and coaching staff- but he makes the final decisions and it is the GM that owns the results. And how well the team and coaching staff develops draftees is at least as important as the scouting process in the final outcome. And luck is definitely a factor too, as most GMs will admit. The Vikings had some bad luck in recent drafts, mainly due to injuries to draft picks that didn’t have injury/durability concerns in college. Guys like Lewis Cine and J.J. McCarthy- both first round picks that are expected to be quality starters early on. And fourth-round pick Khyree Jackson was killed in a car accident a couple months after he was drafted.

The graph above shows the results of each team’s average draft pick from 2022-2025 based on Pro Football Reference’s approximate value (AV) metric. This is based on the number of starts, post-season honors, and other production metrics where available. For non-starters, their degree of participation and other production metrics are used. The chart uses approximate value over expectation (AVoe), which provides the AV compared to the historical average for the draft picks in the same draft number overall. The vertical axis measures AVoe for defensive picks and the horizontal that for offensive picks.