SI.com Redoes Round One Of The 2013 NFL Draft

Yesterday, Ted brought you the story of ESPN's Mel Kiper re-grading the 2013 NFL Draft for all of the NFL's 32 teams, and the fact that he downgraded the Minnesota Vikings' draft last season all the way to a C+. I don't agree with that, but hey. . .that's what the man thinks.

Don Banks from SI.com re-did the entire first round of the 2013 NFL Draft from a "if we knew then what we know now" perspective, and the results are sort of interesting. It still has the Vikings making three first-round selections, though I'm pretty sure that would not have been the case had things fallen the way they do in Banks' do-over.

As you'd expect, wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson went much earlier in this re-draft than he did on draft day. Banks has Patterson being selected at #8 overall by the St. Louis Rams. The Rams moved up from #16 to #8 this past April to select a wide receiver, but their target was Tavon Austin, not Patterson.

As far as who the Vikings end up with in this scenario, there's one familiar face among the selections. Banks has the Vikings taking cornerback Xavier Rhodes, but he has the team selecting him with the first of their three picks at #23 rather than at #25. Not a huge difference, but that's the way the scenario fell. With pick #25, Banks has the Vikings selecting quarterback Mike Glennon, who wound up going to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the third round. Says Banks of the selection,

Maybe the Vikings wound up landing the wrong Tampa Bay starting quarterback in 2013. Instead of the ill-fated Josh Freeman signing -- money for nothing -- Minnesota would have been better off with Glennon, whose 13-game showing for the Bucs was better than anyone had the right to expect from the third-round pick. Glennon struggled against better competition, but he still led Tampa Bay to four wins, throwing 19 touchdowns against just nine interceptions, with an 83.9 passer rating that led all rookie passers. He didn't make the killer mistakes that Christian Ponder has been known for in Minnesota, and Glennon's 59.4 completion percentage and 2,608 yards represented very respectable first-year production.

I'm not sure if this helps or hurts the case for the Vikings waiting to select a quarterback in 2013. Glennon put together a pretty respectable performance for a third-round selection after being thrown into the fire this past season. It will be interesting to see how that falls.

With the third of their three first-round picks, Banks has the Vikings selecting wide receiver Kenny Stills. Stills averaged over 20 yards/catch for New Orleans in 2013, but I'm not sure if he would have had the same impact in a Minnesota offense that had its limitations at the quarterback position.

Sharrif Floyd, who the Vikings selected at #23 in the actual draft, was one of twelve players that was selected in the first round of this past April's draft that did not make the cut in Banks' do-over of the selection process.

What do you think of the re-draft that Don Banks did in terms of how it fell for the Minnesota Vikings?