So I'm new to this (as will probably be seen in my work). However, seeing all these mock drafts and being a young math nerd I got an idea in my head. Because the draft, outside of our third pick, depends so heavily on who happens to drop to us, I decided to create a diagram of some of the many possible directions the draft could go.

There seems to be almost a consensus, especially with us resigning Erin Henderson and signing Schwartz, that the four first positions the Vikings need to address in the draft are LT, WR, CB, and Safety. So, with these, I created a diagram of the likely selections in each round in each possible order we could take them with Matt Kalil being the obvious first round pick at this point. Also, with most people reading this sight having read up on each of these guys plenty by now, I didn't feel the need to list colleges and tid-bits about each of the players.

As I delved further into the chart I realized that my rankings of each category were too much of my own opinion and who knew if any of the players in each category would actually be there when our pick came. From there i decided to make a small database of nine different mock drafts recording the places of each person I listed. Using this data I used some stats and found the probability of if a player would still be on the board at a given pick. Given that some drafts and boards I used created outliers, I was forced to delete some of these positions as to fit the data correctly onto a bell curve.

Anyway, each row represents the next vikings pick and the percent next to each of the players' names is the percent chance of them being available at the pick (according to my data). After the initial positions of need are filled, I placed some other players at positions of need that could be picked up with our comp. picks and our 5th rounder. Because of lack of room and a lack of time, I could not account for possible slips that would drastically change my pick (like if Luke Kuechly or Dontari Poe dropped to us in the second :D). So, I hope this is as insightful as it was fun to create, haha.

Mock Draft Tree

I'm sorry I didn't make the letters bigger, but I couldn't make the picture any bigger without the side of it getting cut off.

1st Comp Pick % / 2nd Comp Pick %:

Audie Cole LB 2.8%/NA

Emmanuel Acho LB 39%/18%

Nick Jean-Baptiste NT 78%/68%

T.Y. Hilton WR/KR 12.8%/4.2%

James Michael Johnson LB 42.9% /28%

Akiem Hicks NT 97%/93%

After the comp picks the positions at where people are selected vary too much to get any reasonable conclusions so I will use the classic cop out of Best Player Available. But, guys like Dale Moss WR from South Dakota State who have gone under the radar until their pro day I would be happy to take a chance on.

Sites I used for positions:

http://www.draftsite.com/nfl/mock-draft/2012/round1/

https://docs.google.com/a/bethel.edu/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmUe7pRsZI8PdGJDakFtSFctT0tITnVMUThVZ0ljeFE#gid=7

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1120923-2012-nfl-mock-draft-matt-millers-7-round-predictions-with-compensatory-picks

https://docs.google.com/a/bethel.edu/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Au_NykMAUAyWdFBmUFpINklCcXJXOVBWRGNRX0MzcUE#gid=0

https://docs.google.com/a/bethel.edu/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Au_NykMAUAyWdFJfV0VDUG8xQ2trSXRBcWVhRXcwSHc&pli=1#gid=0

http://walterfootball.com/draft2012charlie.php

http://walterfootball.com/draft2012.php

http://www.draftnasty.com/football/position_list/?list=FULL&year=2012&ccm_paging_p_b=1

http://www.drafttek.com/CMDRound1.asp