The Minnesota Vikings have significant needs at multiple premium positions in the upcoming NFL draft. How they go about addressing them will be fascinating, as this is the first full draft cycle for both Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell.
ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. released his fourth mock draft just 16 days before the annual selection meeting and he has the Vikings taking Mississippi State cornerback Emmanuel Forbes.
Cornerback is a clear need area for Minnesota, which replaced Patrick Peterson with Byron Murphy but has plenty of available corner reps. Forbes needs to grow into his 6-1 frame — he weighed in at 166 pounds at the combine — but he is a great cover corner. He had six career pick-sixes in college, and he never missed a game because of injury. He needs to be more consistent, but he has outstanding instincts and his ceiling is high. The Vikings also could target a wideout to complement Justin Jefferson with this pick.
In his first two mock drafts, Kiper Jr. sent the Vikings a cornerback and the one prior sent them a wide receiver. Forbes himself is an interesting player. He had 14 interceptions at Mississippi State, including taking six of them back for touchdowns.
The difficult part of his evaluation is that Forbes weighed in at 166 lbs. That is a historically low weight in the zero percentile. Betting on an outlier like that is something that would be difficult for the Vikings to do in round one.