. . . There is little question that the Vikings have "gone offense" in the draft ever since Spiellman came on board. This is a draft that should scream defense. Wide receiver is an exception, it seems a perfectly reasonable request and should be honored. Guard,perhaps not so much, and may have to wait.

. . . What I would like to see from the draft is significant improvement in defensive tackle, linebacker, wide receiver and defensive back. A second of each would actually be nice, along with an OL or two, but there aren't enough picks to do everything.

. . . My plan for the draft would be to reserve the second round pick for WR and pick best available at need for the other rounds. No trades were included nor any FA acquisitions. Trading back in first round for 2nd + 3rd or 4th would be fine with me but not a sure thing so I went with what they had for sure.

. . . An interesting thing about drafting later in the round is it requires almost a mini-big board for Viking picks. As a side note, having a Vikings big board allows each mock drafter out there to do half your work for you, theoretically, as plopping your big board onto their draft would give you a quick Vikings draft. If a site like SB nation could set up a format that allowed "team big boards" and "mock drafts" to read each other then one could get a much more likely idea of the actual draft each philosophy would produce. This would seem a potentially useful thing for it could correct for the greatest source of errors in mock drafts, that is, picking for teams one knows little about. Unfortunately I would not have the first clue how to go about how to make them interactive but it sure would be nice to plop a "Vikings big board" onto any mock draft and come up with an instant Viking Mock draft. Add "tweakability" and the site would have a real draw "you betcha" . . . think of it each team site makes it's own "big board" and voila instant mock draft capability, just fill in favorite player available for each round . . . team sites can vary their big board by popular demand even. What a fun tool, I wish I was young and brilliant and powerful too while I'm at it so I could make it happen . . .

. . . And that way we could argue about the important stuff like the big board makeup and draft philosophy rather than just ridiculing the mock draft "yeah, like HE'LL be available THEN . . ."

. . . Anyway, my Viking Big Board for the first pick is something like this: Star Lotulelei, Sheldon Richardson, Johnathan Hankins, Jarvis Jones, Alec Ogletree, Dee Milliner, Xavier Rhodes, Kenny Vaccaro, Johnathan Jenkins, Kevin Minter, Manti Te'o, Sharrif Floyd, Matt Elam, Keenan Allen, Purvis Short, Johnathan Banks

. . . And here are two Viking Drafts that emerged with very different ideas of who will be available when:

1) Alec Ogletree olb

2) Quentin Patton wr

3) Phillip Thomas ss

4a) Brandon Williams dt

4b) Tyrann Mathieu cb

5) A. J. Klein ilb

7a) Marcus Davis wr

7b) Chris Barker g

. . . And using a very different source for who will be available when

. . . Gives you a different draft

1) Kenny Vaccaro ss

2) Da'Rick Rogers wr

3) Akeem Spence dt

4a) Desmond Trufant cb

4b) Gerald Hodgins olb

5) A. J. Klein ilb

7a) Keith Pough olb

7b) Emory Blake wr

. . . I like the first one better, but I'll take either of them as defensive upgrades. Da'Rick Rogers over Patton was more of a personal choice, but I'm not tied to it. And yes, my motto for building a defense is "Safety First . . ." as it frees up a lot else, like Winfield for example, gotta make him last the season and beyond. But if any of the top three DTs are around I'd start there . . . .