In the old days, we’d say that the Vikings’ phone was ringing off the hook right now with teams looking to make a deal for one of their first-round picks.
Fewer and fewer calls are placed to phones that actually have hooks, so it’s probably more apt to say that their phones are vibrating out of their pockets with just over 24 hours to go before the draft gets underway in New York. However you want to paint the picture, the Vikings say they are hearing from a lot of teams right now.
“I’m telling you, it’s been the most active it’s been in a while,” Vikings General Manager Rick Spielman said, via Dan Wiederer of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “Because of where we’re picking. And I don’t know the reason why, but there are a lot of teams that potentially are jockeying from the top of that second round and there are some teams jockeying potentially in the bottom of the first round to come up to one of our picks.”
We’d normally say this sounds like a man trying to drum up a market for one of his two first-round picks, but the placement of the two Vikings picks does make them look like a prime trade candidate. With the 23rd and 25th picks, the Vikings seem well-situated for a team that might want to deal back into the first round. There’s plenty of speculation about teams wanting to do that to get a quarterback, which could wind up setting the Vikings up with more picks this year or next to use to keep the team in the playoff position they earned last season.