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First off, I want to thank all of the Daily Norseman members who participated in the Live Mock Draft last night. It was a ton of fun, and this kind of event continues to prove how great of a community we have here in our little corner of the web. You can read through all of the comments of the story stream to get a good idea of how things went, but I thought I would provide a bit of a recap for those of you that didn't want to wade through hundreds of comments.
The draft started shortly after 7:30pm CST with all 32 team owners accounted for, and the 1st round was full of trade proposals and wheeling and dealing. Things got off to a pretty dramatic start as the Buffalo Bills pulled off an epic trade with the Houston Texans to move up from #9 overall to #1 overall. In addition to swapping 1st round picks, the Bills also gave up a 2015 1st rounder and 3rd rounder, and 2016 3rd rounder and their 3rd and 4th round pick in the 2014 draft. The Texans pulled off quite the haul, while the Bills promptly selected Jadeveon Clowney #1 overall. There were many other trades in the 1st round, which delayed things a bit as I had to verify if the trades were possible and sufficiently balanced. The first round took nearly an hour and a half to complete as a result, but pulling off trades of this nature is half the fun in a mock draft! The first 7 picks had some major surprises. First off, only one quarterback came off the board: Johnny Manziel to the Rams 2nd overall. Secondly, no offensive tackles were taken until the Dolphins moved up to #11 to take Greg Robinson. And lastly, there were three wide receivers and two linebackers taken in the top 7 selections: Sammy Watkins, Mike Evans, Odell Beckham, Khalil Mack and Anthony Barr. In my opinion this seems unlikely to happen tomorrow night, but stranger things have happened in the real NFL draft.
In any case, when the Vikings were on the clock at #8 we had a lot of options. MarkSP18 who was controlling the St. Louis Rams were interesting in trading up from #13 with their other 1st round pick, but those of us present to discuss the pick couldn't reach a consensus soon enough on whether we should do it, and Mark pulled the offer from the table. Bridgewater, Bortles and Carr were amazingly all still on the board, as were C.J. Mosley, Darqueze Dennard and Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix. After the trade was pulled, it basically came down to a choice between Teddy Bridgewater or Blake Bortles, and more people wanted Teddy Bridgewater, so he was our 1st round selection. With Clowney, Manziel, Mack, Barr and Watkins all gone by pick #8, it made the choice of Bridgewater pretty easy.
The 2nd round went a little more smoothly as there were less trades for me to deal with, but it still took over an hour to complete. The Vikings didn't have a lot of options in the 2nd as most of the top flight cornerbacks and safeties had already been taken. Kyle Van Noy was the clear favorite and an easy choice for us to make, although we did consider a few other options before taking Van Noy. By the time the 2nd round finished it was nearly 10pm CST and we debated about going forward with the 3rd round or not. But, enough people wanted to continue so I agreed to see it through to the bitter end, with one exception: no more trades. We whizzed through the 3rd round in under an hour and the whole mock draft took about 3 and a half hours to complete...going just a little bit longer than I anticipated.
As we got deeper into the pool of draft picks, things began to get a little bit murky. We had such good consensus on our 1st and 2nd round picks that it made the 3rd round seem much more difficult. There were a lot of suggestions for pick #72 but it came down to a choice between OG Cyril Richardson and CB Bashaud Breeland. In the end, Richardson appeared to garner just a few more votes and ultimately I let Arif's Consensus Big Board ranking cast the deciding vote as Richardson was ranked nearly 40 spots higher than Breeland. It was a similar situation with our other 3rd round selection #96 overall. Things were even murkier there and it came down to a choice between three different prospects: LB Yawin Smallwood, RB Terrance West and CB Jaylen Watkins. In the end, Jaylen Watkins scored a few more votes than Yawin Smallwood and he became our second 3rd round selection. So, our first four draft picks once again were as follows:
#8: QB Teddy Bridgewater, Louisville
#40: LB Kyle Van Noy, BYU
#76: OG Cyril Richardson, Baylor
#96: CB Jaylen Watkins, Florida
I'd say we successfully addressed the team's four biggest needs in this draft, and managed to find some pretty good value in the process. The following is a table of all 100 draft picks in the 2014 Daily Norseman Live Community Mock Draft.
Team |
Player Selection |
1. Buffalo Bills (from Houston Texans) |
Jadeveon Clowney |
2. St. Louis Rams (from Washington Redskins) |
Johnny Manziel |
3. Jacksonville Jaguars |
Sammy Watkins |
4. Cleveland Browns |
Mike Evans |
5. Pittsburgh Steelers (from Oakland Raiders) |
Khalil Mack |
6. Atlanta Falcons |
Anthony Barr |
7. Tampa Bay Buccaneers |
Odell Beckham |
8. Minnesota Vikings |
Teddy Bridgewater |
9. Houston Texans (Buffalo Bills) |
Blake Bortles |
10. Detroit Lions |
Aaron Donald |
11. Miami Dolphins (from Tennessee Titans) |
Greg Robinson |
12. Baltimore Ravens (from New York Giants) |
Jake Mathews |
13. St. Louis Rams |
Zach Martin |
14. Chicago Bears |
Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix |
15. Oakland Raiders (from Pittsburgh Steelers) |
C.J. Mosley |
16. Dallas Cowboys |
Darqueze Dennard |
17. Cleveland Browns (from New York Giants (from Baltimore Ravens)) |
Derek Carr |
18. New York Jets |
Taylor Lewan |
19. Tennessee Titans (from Miami Dolphins) |
Ryan Shazier |
20. Arizona Cardinals |
Eric Ebron |
21. Green Bay Packers |
Calvin Pryor |
22. Philadelphia Eagles |
Marqise Lee |
23. Kansas City Chiefs |
Justin Gilbert |
24. Denver Broncos (from Cincinnati Bengals) |
Kyle Fuller |
25. San Diego Chargers |
Louis Nix |
26. New York Giants (from Cleveland Browns (from Indianapolis Colts)) |
Xavier Sua'Filo |
27. New Orleans Saints |
Brandin Cooks |
28. Carolina Panthers |
Jason Verrett |
29. New England Patriots |
Dee Ford |
30. San Francisco 49ers |
Allen Robinson |
31. Cincinnati Bengals (from Denver Broncos) |
Ra'Shede Hageman |
32. Seattle Seahawks |
Kony Ealy |
1 (33). Houston Texans |
Bradley Roby |
2 (34). Washington Redskins |
Cyrus Kouandijo |
3 (35). Cleveland Browns |
Morgan Moses |
4 (36). Oakland Raiders |
Kelvin Benjamin |
5 (37). Atlanta Falcons |
Antonio Richardson |
6 (38). Tampa Bay Buccaneers |
Timmy Jernigan |
7 (39). Jacksonville Jaguars |
Jimmie Ward |
8 (40). Minnesota Vikings |
Kyle Van Noy |
9 (41). Buffalo Bills |
JuWuan James |
10 (42). Tennessee Titans |
Bishop Sankey |
11 (43). Green Bay Packers (from New York Giants) |
Austin Seferian-Jenkins |
12 (44). St. Louis Rams |
Deone Bucannon |
13 (45). Detroit Lions |
Lamarcus Joyner |
14 (46). Oakland Raiders (from Pittsburgh Steelers) |
Dominique Easley |
15 (47). Dallas Cowboys |
Trent Murphy |
16 (48). Baltimore Ravens |
Stephen Tuitt |
17 (49). New York Jets |
Cody Latimer |
18 (50). New England Patriots (from Tennessee Titans (from Miami Dolphins)) |
Jace Amaro |
19 (51). Chicago Bears |
Stanley Jean-Baptiste |
20 (52). Arizona Cardinals |
Tom Savage |
21 (53). New York Giants (from Green Bay Packers) |
Davante Adams |
22 (54). Philadelphia Eagles |
Scott Crichton |
23 (55). Cincinnati Bengals |
Pierre Desir |
24 (56). San Francisco 49ers (from Kansas City Chiefs) |
Demarcus Lawerence |
25 (57). San Diego Chargers |
Marcus Roberson |
26 (58). New Orleans Saints |
Jeremiah Attaochu |
27 (59). Indianapolis Colts |
Chris Borland |
28 (60). Carolina Panthers |
Jordan Matthews |
29 (61). San Francisco 49ers |
Carlos Hyde |
30 (62). Tennessee Titans (from New England Patriots) |
Keith McGill |
31 (63). Denver Broncos |
Tre Mason |
32 (64). Seattle Seahawks |
Gabe Jackson |
1 (65). Houston Texans |
Troy Niklas |
2 (66). Washington Redskins |
Jarvis Landry |
3 (67). Oakland Raiders |
David Yankey |
4 (68). Atlanta Falcons |
Telvin Smith |
5 (69). Tampa Bay Buccaneers |
Joel Bitonio |
6 (70). Jacksonville Jaguars |
Marcus Martin |
7 (71). Cleveland Browns |
Will Sutton |
8 (72). Minnesota Vikings |
Cyril Richardson |
9 (73). Houston Texans (from Buffalo Bills) |
Christian Jones |
10 (74). New York Giants |
Daquan Jones |
11 (75). St. Louis Rams |
Donte Moncrief |
12 (76). Detroit Lions |
Martavis Bryant |
13 (77). San Francisco 49ers (from Tennessee Titans) |
Jimmy Garoppolo |
14 (78). Dallas Cowboys |
AJ McCarron |
15 (79). New York Giants (from Baltimore Ravens) |
Weston Richburg |
16 (80). New York Jets |
Carl Bradford |
17 (81). Miami Dolphins |
Jack Mewhort |
18 (82). Chicago Bears |
George Uko |
19 (83). New York Giants (from Cleveland Browns (from Pittsburgh Steelers)) |
C.J. Fiedorowicz |
20 (84). Arizona Cardinals |
Terrance Brooks |
21 (85). New York Giants (from Green Bay Packers) |
Brett Smithum |
22 (86). Philadelphia Eagles |
Shane Skov |
23 (87). Kansas City Chiefs |
Marcus Smith |
24 (88). Cincinnati Bengals |
Billy Turner |
25 (89). San Diego Chargers |
Brandon Coleman |
26 (90). Indianapolis Colts |
Jeremy Hill |
27 (91). New Orleans Saints |
Bashaud Breeland |
28 (92). Carolina Panthers |
Zach Mettenberger |
29 (93). Tennessee Titans (from New England Patriots) |
Kareem Martin |
30 (94). San Francisco 49ers |
Philip Gaines |
31 (95). Cincinnati Bengals (from Denver Broncos) |
Travis Swanson |
32 (96). Minnesota Vikings (from Seattle Seahawks) |
Jaylen Watkins |
33 (97). Pittsburgh Steelers (compensatory selection) |
Charles Sims |
34 (98). Green Bay Packers (compensatory selection) |
Taylor Hart |
35 (99). Baltimore Ravens (compensatory selection) |
Terrance West |
36 (100). San Francisco 49ers (compensatory selection) |
Kelcy Quarles |
Several people wanted to know who might have been left after we finished the 3rd round. So, using Arif's Consensus Big Board here were the best remaining players heading into what would have been the 4th round:
79th overall: RB Ka'Deem Carey, Arizona
80th overall: DT Ego Ferguson, LSU
83rd overall: DE Chris Smith, Arkansas
84th overall: C Travis Swanson, Arkansas
86th overall: RB Lache Seastrunk, Baylor
87th overall: WR Paul Richardson, Colorado
88th overall: WR Jared Abbrederis, Wisconsin
89th overall: DE Jackson Jeffcoat, Texas
91st overall: SS Dion Bailey, USC
94th overall: WR Bruce Ellington, South Carolina
100 overall: LB Yawin Smallwood, Connecticut
Again, thank you to everyone who participated last night as it was a lot of fun. It was a time-consuming exercise, but well worth the effort. And it's worth repeating: for us to come together as a community and pull something like this off continues to prove that the Daily Norseman has the best damn community of any Vikings blog on the internet.