FYI, if you are someone who puts a lot of stock in draft grades... this story might offend you. So move along, nothing for you to see here.
Now, for those of you who read draft grades out of sheer boredom, seeing as how now there's not much else football-wise going on now... OK, I do that too. So, in that spirit, I have decided to jump in and individually grade each team's draft, starting of course with our beloved Mighty Purple. Read on past the jump.
I grade the Vikings draft... an F. I also grade the other 31 teams of the National Football League with an ‘F', with the sole exception of the Washington Redskins, who get a ‘W', as I'm pretty sure they withdrew from the draft.
Seriously, has anyone seen the STATS on these guys?! They're atrocious! Good lord. Kyle Rudolph? The guy doesn't have a SINGLE yard in the NFL! And while Christian Ponder may not have thrown an interception... he also hasn't completed a single pass! Now I might be wrong, but that gives him in my book a ‘0' as a passer rating. What were we thinking?
But don't feel bad. The other teams did the same thing! Seriously. Why would Bill Belichick draft such talentless hacks? That's not like him at all.
OK, obviously all a bit tongue in cheek here. My point is this. Don't let all the naysayers get to you, my beloved Purple brethren. And with a lockout potentially interfering with the season starting... be prepared. Trent Dilfer is going to get a lot of extra time to spout off before he gets exposed as wrong... again. Analysts will continue to pour over the draft and tear everyone apart, particularly the Vikings for, ya know, addressing that whole ‘QB' position with the best possible candidate. We've got a while of hearing people say that we reached, that we drafted Ponder too high, that he's going to bust. We'll have a while of Packer and Bears fans telling us that we should have taken an OT or a CB. (Lions fans will be saying that as well, but I don't personally know any. I did meet one... once.) Even when the season starts, on time or not, it will take a few games of Ponder jamming a pass down his critics' throats before they choke on it and shut up. And G-d forbid the rookie QB ever has a bad game- boy will we hear it then. Cuz, you know, Peyton Manning has never had a bad game.
So for anyone out there who is feeling an elevated, and undue, sense of stress thanks to what the pundits and whatnot are saying about our draft, and the new members of the greatest franchise in NFL history, my best suggestion is this- turn off the TV. Close the browser. Put the newspaper away. (Haha! Just kidding. Nobody reads newspapers anymore...) Believe me, they're not going to shut up. Nobody's mind is going to change from now till then.
So buckle up and bear down, Viking fans. We've got a long while of people downing our draft picks. But you know what? It really makes it all the more sweet when we prove them wrong, wrong, wrong.