2014 Draft: Consensus Rankings v3.0

This is a long overdue update of the consensus rankings, but the timing of it is actually quite good. The combine and free agency frenzy are distant memories, and most if not all college Pro Days are finished. This means that the draftniks have pretty much all of the information they're going to get about these prospects in hand. It also just so happens that we here at the Daily Norseman have begun piecing together our community Big Board of which this consensus ranking can help inform our decisions! For those just catching up, the Consensus Draft Ranking collates the rankings of 10 of the top online draft sources to arrive at an average "consensus" ranking of prospects at positions of need for the Minnesota Vikings. This can give us a better (hopefully more accurate) idea of relative value of the NFL's top draft prospects to keep us better informed when looking at mock drafts, or the eventual real draft in May. In order for a player to make the consensus ranking, they had to appear in the top 10 of at least one positional ranking source I consulted.

In this latest installment I have decided to drop defensive tackles from consideration, since we went out and signed Linval Joseph and Tom Johnson in free agency and resigned Fred Evans as well. It would appear to be much less of a need than it was back in March before free agency started. In place of defensive tackle I have included offensive guard, although with the resigning of Charlie Johnson this may also be slightly less of a short-term need. I considered including safety, but I actually like our two starters in Smith and Sanford and our depth appears decent with Sendejo, Raymond and Blanton. It recently got even better after signing free agent Kurt Coleman. I also could have included running back, but opted not to for lack of time. In any case, I have kept the rest of the positions of need: quarterback, inside linebacker, outside linebacker and cornerback. Lastly, I had to adjust which sources I consulted ever so slightly. I dropped Optimum Scouting as a source, since they haven't updated their Big Board since January, and have instead adopted the Great Blue North ranking, which has consistently high accuracy marks from the Huddle Report. That means I consulted the following ten ranking sources: NFL.com, ESPN, CBS, SB Nation (Dan Kadar's Top 200), Walterfootball, Draftek, Draft Countdown, Scout on MSN, Great Blue North and the National Football Post, all of which have been updated since the last version of the consensus rankings. And lastly, due to lack of time I have dropped the "overall change" statistic. For anyone curious to see how much movement each player has made in detail, please consult the v2.0 ranking manually by clicking this link and comparing the previous ranking with this one!

Quarterbacks

The fall of Teddy Bridgewater, unfortunately, is very real. Blake Bortles has officially leap-frogged Bridgewater as the #1 quarterback in the draft...based on the positional rankings. But don't go anointing him king just yet. If you notice, Bridgewater's overall ranking is still higher. That means that the few ranking sources that have Bridgewater ahead of Bortles, have him ahead by a much larger margin than majority of those that don't. So, it's not quite a full-blown consensus that Bortles is ahead of Bridgewater, and their average positional rank is only a difference of 0.2, hardly significant. Derek Carr continues to have an overall rank just outside the 1^st round. Tajh Boyd continues to tumble down the draft board while all of the quarterbacks ranked 8^th or lower drop some in the overall ranks. If the overall ranks are to be believed, all of these quarterbacks should be available at #8, but as we know from the past, this position is always over-drafted. It's not a question of if a quarterback will be drafted within the first seven picks, it's a matter of who, and how many.

Inside Linebackers

As before there is C.J. Mosley, and then everyone else. No other inside linebacker receives a 1^st or 2^nd round grade in the average overall rankings outside of Mosley. So, if the Vikings pass on C.J. Mosley (who I personally think is every bit as good of a prospect as Luke Kuechly was), they should be fine to wait until the 3^rd round for a guy like Chris Borland or Shane Skov, who swapped positions (Borland has been climbing many rankings since March). It's worth pointing out that the list of inside linebackers is much, much smaller than in the last update. This is because the rankings did not have nearly as many highly ranked linebackers and the ones on the list almost all saw a drop in the overall rankings. This draft doesn't feature a lot of elite inside linebackers and contains a whole slew of just a bunch of "guys", unfortunately.

Outside Linebackers

While inside linebackers look pretty thin in this year's draft the outside linebackers continue to look very good with a lot of excellent depth. Mack has asserted his way into the Top 5 overall pretty decisively, and Ryan Shazier has been climbing a few spots in the 1^st round as well. DeMarcus Lawerence has made huge climbs from 84^th overall in the last ranking to 49^th in this latest update. We lost a few names at the bottom of the ranking as they no longer appeared as a top 10 player. It's worth pointing out that if the top 3 quarterbacks in the draft are all taken by pick #8, the Vikings would be very wise to go after Mack, Barr or Mosley with their 8^th pick as one of those three players will almost surely be available and address a huge position of need. If they did that, then they could address the quarterback position by drafting the best available prospect at pick #40, or trade back into the 1^st round with their extra 3^rd round pick and a few other selections to get a guy like Derek Carr if they feel he will go sooner than #40. As I've said before, there would be excellent value at outside linebacker right around our 8^th pick.

Cornerback

Cornerback continues to be one of the deepest positions in this draft, and Dennard and Gilbert have solidified themselves as the two elite prospects. Dennard has a slight edge over Gilbert in the positional ranks, but Gilbert has the edge in the overall ranks. Like Bridgewater and Bortles, these two prospects are ranked almost identically. After that there is a group of four, 2^nd round graded players and then a slew of 3^rd and 4^th round graded players as well. A full 20 prospects are ranked in the top 10 of at least one ranking source of which 19 have a grade in the 5^th round or better, the most of any position relevant to the Vikings. Based on overall value, it probably doesn't make sense to draft a cornerback with the 8^th overall selection, but if the Vikings were to trade down a few spots taking either Dennard or Gilbert at #10-15 they they would get a lot more value than standing pat at #8. Or, they could wait until the 2^nd or 3^rd round and still get a very good prospect.

Offensive Guard

This list of offensive guards appears to be long and deep at first glance with 18 names appearing in the top 10 of at least one positional ranking source. However, if you look a little closer, the bottom six names all receive a 5^th round grade or worse in the overall ranks, and only one prospect grades out as a first round talent. Also, after the top 7, the talent gap is huge and many of these prospects project more as an offensive tackle or center than they do a guard. In reality, this is a very weak draft class for offensive guard. If the Vikings want to secure a top talent at guard, they are going to have to address it in the 2^nd or 3^rd round. Otherwise, they're looking at trying to develop a late round prospect as they have tried to do in the recent past. After getting lucky with John Sullivan in the 6^th round of the 2008 draft, they've tried to repeat their late round offensive line selections with guys like Travis Bond, DeMarcus Love, Chris DeGeare, Jeff Baca and Brandon Fusco with rather mixed results.

Top 10 Overall

In a stunning turn of events, Clowney has secured a unanimous #1 ranking from all 10 online draft sources. This is a very difficult feat to achieve, and it just speaks to the value that Clowney has as a "can't miss" prospect in this draft. Based on this new information, Houston will look very foolish if they pass on Clowney, despite their severe need for a quarterback. If they don't want Clowney, they would be wise to entertain trade offers. The top 5 remains unchanged, although the order has shifted a bit. Bridgewater drops 2 spots in the overall ranks, but retains his #6 ranking here. Taylor Lewin and Mike Evans climb up the boards a little bit as does Blake Bortles. Meanwhile, C.J. Mosley and Johnny Manziel fall a bit. Defensive tackle Timmy Jernigan falls off the ranking completely as no source has him as a Top 10 prospect, and wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin is viewed by most as a 2^nd round prospect (or lower) despite his one appearance in the top 10.

If the draft fell according to this consensus ranking, the Vikings would land Anthony Barr with the 8^th pick and I wouldn't be upset with that at all. But seeing as how Teddy Bridgewater, Blake Bortles and Johnny Manziel would all be available under that totally unrealistic scenario, it's very hard to project who will be there for the Vikings. Despite the fact that both Greg Robinson and Jake Mathews are ranked so highly, there are not a lot of teams that desperately need a franchise left tackle ahead of the Vikings in this draft. It will be interesting to see if any teams below the Vikings are willing to trade up for one of those blue chip prospects, which would potentially cause a quarterback to fall in our lap.

Normally I would offer up a potential mock draft and boil down the value of all these positions as it relates to the Vikings draft selections, but Mark has done a good job of cornering the market on mock drafts around here. So instead, I'll leave you with a poll.