Report: Vikings Trying to Keep No. 23 Pick in Trade Up

“And you got Minnesota armed with two first round picks. This is the team that could be active. I’ve talked to several teams who believe that Minnesota at least right now, doesn’t want to part with that second first rounder, which is in the 20s. They want to try to preserve that, which could be tough to move up into the top five for a quarterback. So the feeling is they’re looking around at potentially McCarthy there, one of the quarterbacks, but they might not want to give up enough to get there.”

Jeremy Fowler – Sportscenter (ESPN)

Until this 2-minute hit, it was widely assumed that general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah already had the No. 11 and No. 23 picks packaged and wrapped up in a nice bow, ready to ship out to whichever team was willing to offer the best draft pick in the top-10.

Drafting a franchise QB will be a lot harder without the No. 23 pick, unless…

If Kwesi isn’t willing to part with the No. 23 pick, as Fowler reports, then moving into the top-10, let alone the top-5 will be A LOT more difficult. Does that mean the report isn’t true? Not necessarily, but the fact that it came out of nowhere, right in the middle of lying season, tells us we should be skeptical.

It is interesting, however, that Fowler’s report dropped a day after Mike Florio (ProFootballTalk) was wondering out loud if the Vikings might be hoping for the NFL to force the Falcons into a pick-swap that would land them the No. 8 overall pick, instead of No. 11, after the active tampering investigation comes to a completion. If they’re up at No. 8, they might be able to get JJ McCarthy without using the No. 23 pick.

This time of year, especially in 2024, we have to take every piece of information that comes out, with a grain of salt. We consume the info, if it’s from a reliable reporter (which this most certainly is), NEVER overreact (because it’s lying season) and we stash said information into the memory bank for future use.

Then, as we collect more and more reports and get closer and closer to the draft, all of that information will (hopefully) start to expose some trends on what is worth believing and what isn’t. Of course, there’s always the option of burying your head in the sand for the next dozen days.

Either way, this whole thing is building up to be one of the most exciting drafts in Minnesota Vikings history.