The first round of the 2023 NFL draft is going to be fascinating to watch. The top quarterbacks and how they come off the board are going to be interesting. The board after the quarterbacks is relatively similar from pick 20 to about pick 50.
ESPN’s Bill Barnwell wrote about what each team should do in the first round and he believes the Vikings should trade down.
Minnesota general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah moved all around the first two rounds of the draft a year ago, trading down twice (both times within the NFC North) and moving up once. As someone who was part of the analytics side of the building in San Francisco earlier in his career, it’s easier to imagine Adofo-Mensah making the choice to trade down here, especially if there are teams that want to jump ahead of the Giants for a wide receiver at No. 25.
While the Vikings won 13 games a year ago, a trade up would be less about the 2023 team and more about the seasons that follow. Quarterback Kirk Cousins will be a free agent in 2024, and the only quarterback behind him on the roster is former 49ers backup Nick Mullens. If the Vikings were to try and head way up the board for something significant, it could be for a quarterback.
Getting a quarterback is the most likely scenario for a Vikings trade up, but what is most interesting about this scenario is who might trade up.
The wide receiver run is likely to start right around 20 and jumping the New York Giants makes a ton of sense here. They could fetch potentially a day two pick to move down so a team could take one on Zay Flowers, Quentin Johnston or Jaxon Smith-Njigba. That would be a best-case scenario for the Vikings who only have five picks in the 2023 NFL draft.