Vikings 2015 Draft: Consensus Rankings v1.0

Did you know that the NFL Combine has officially started?  Well, the players have reported for orientation, measurements and interviews at least.  The real meat market action gets underway tomorrow when the special teams players run the first drills of the combine, and then the majority of the players run their drills Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  With the combine pretty much upon us that means I've finished version #1 of the Consensus Ranking just in the nick of time!  This latest iteration is the last chance to cobble together a consensus ranking that is still primarily based on what NFL prospects have done on the field and what they have put on film.  Once the draftniks get their dirty mitts all over the combine data and begin massaging their rankings, things get pretty out of hand pretty fast.  And then the myriad of Pro Days will be forthcoming, and we all know what that can do to a player, cough, Teddy Bridgewater, cough.

In any case, I'm happy to be able to present the first full Consensus Ranking that features average positional and overall rankings from eight big board sources on the web: NFL.com, ESPN, CBS Sports, Walter Football (part of Yardbarker.com), Drafttek, Draft Countdown, Optimum Scouting and Scout.com.  Unfortunately, SB Nation and the National Football Post do not have a recent Big Board released; two sources I've used for the past two years to bring the total number of sources to 10.  Hopefully they will put something out after the combine and I'll be able to add them in at a later date.

This time around, I've added two new data points, the first of which is standard deviation!  This will let you see just how much of a consensus each average ranking has, in that a larger standard deviation number indicates less consensus, while a smaller number indicates greater consensus.  Secondly, I decided to include all offensive linemen, instead of just guards.  This lets us see those linemen who have position flexibility, and also gives us a look at some tackles and centers just in case.  Lastly, I also opened up the threshold to include many more players this time around.  It took a lot more time to calculate with such a large pool of players, and the consensus becomes less and less the farther down the ranking you go, but it's still interesting stuff none-the-less.  I'm still keeping it focused on the following positions of need for the Vikings: cornerback, wide receiver, offensive line and linebacker.  Like I mentioned before, I think there is a strong case to be made for the Vikings to also consider defensive end, safety and running back, but we'll see what happens with Adrian Peterson and free agency over the next couple of months.  So, up first, here are the Consensus Rankings for wide receiver.

In this version, I expanded the threshold from a top ten ranking, to a top fifteen ranking and that added six more names to the list.  In other words, a player had to appear in the top fifteen at his position on at least one Big Board in order to make the list above.  As you can see by the standard deviation numbers, the further down the list you go, there is less consensus about the ranking both in terms of their average positional rank, and average overall rank.  In the case of Tre McBride, there is pretty wild variation.  On the flipside, the top three wide receivers: Cooper, Parker and White have a very small deviation from the mean, which means they truly are the consensus top three wide receivers in the draft.  It is pretty much those three guys, and everybody else, with Amari Cooper as a bona-fide Top 5 pick.  There is almost no way that Amari Cooper will fall to the Vikings at pick #11, but if he should I would be running to the podium to turn in my card to draft him if I were running the Vikings.  But DeVante Parker and Kevin White are both legitimate options in their own right for the Vikings at #11 and neither one would be much of a reach there in terms of average overall ranking value.  If the Vikings want to add another playmaker at wide-out for Teddy Bridgewater, they should have several great options with their 1^st round selection.

I expanded the consensus threshold from ten to fifteen for the cornerbacks as well, but it only yielded one extra player.  In looking at the average overall rankings, there is much less elite talent available in the draft at cornerback, with only Trae Waynes getting a first round ranking.  But there is also much less consensus on the cornerbacks as there was on the wide receivers.  Again, only Trae Waynes has a single digit standard deviation, meaning there is pretty high consensus that not only is he a first round talent, but he's Top 20 talent as well.  He's the only "blue chip" prospect cornerback in the draft, if these consensus rankings are to be believed.  But his overall average rank puts him right in the sweet spot for the Vikings at pick #11.  So if they wanted to grab another potential shut-down corner to pair opposite Xavier Rhodes, Trae Waynes would be an excellent choice, assuming he lasts until pick #11.

This time around I included all offensive linemen, not just those listed as pure guards.   And since that encompassed three different positions, I expanded the threshold from ten to twenty.  In other words, as long as an offensive lineman was ranked at least as high as the 20^th best lineman on a big board, they made the cut.  This expansion lead to a very long list of players (29 in all!), with many having position flexibility.   I found it interesting that five out of the top six players on the list have a low standard deviation, meaning there is a pretty high consensus about who the top offensive lineman are in this draft.  Unfortunately, almost none of them end up with an overall average rank that makes them viable options for the Vikings at pick #11, with the possible exception of Andrus Peat, if the Vikings wanted a pure tackle (more on that below).  While Brandon Scherff would be a great option for the Vikings because of his ability to play guard, he is probably too highly ranked for him to be a viable choice.  When you also consider that several teams ahead of the Vikings also need offensive line help, it seems very unlikely that the Vikings will draft an offensive lineman in the first round if they don't trade out of the 11^th pick.  That said there are many offensive linemen that could be available at the end of the 2^nd or top of the 3^rd round.  If I were the Vikings, I would probably look to free agency to plug some holes on the offensive line, and then pick up some mid-late round options as developmental, depth players in the draft.  The value at the top of the draft doesn't seem to matchup very well with the Vikings draft pick.

For the linebackers, I included all types: inside, outside and pass rushers.  As you might imagine, this lead to pretty wild inconsistency, and the standard deviations are much larger in this list than any of the previous three.  I expanded the threshold from only ten in the previous version to twenty here and that yielded a whopping sixteen more names to the list (more than doubling the size of the v0.5 ranking).  That should tell you that there is very little consensus when it comes to these linebacker rankings.  Part of that comes from the fact that linebackers have so many different roles on the defense and can potentially fit in one of three spots depending on the scheme.  Therefore there is pretty wild variation in not only the positional assignment (ie, ILB, OLB or DE), but ranking these players by source.

The top three linebackers have a pretty solid consensus ranking in terms of deviation from the mean, but that doesn't really help the Vikings out much as they are all pass rushing linebackers.  If the Vikings are looking for a pure middle linebacker or a weakside linebacker for their 4-3 scheme, then they should be looking at guys like Shaq Thompson, Benardick McKinney, Denzel Perryman or Paul Dawson.  All of those guys have moderate consensus in their deviation from the mean and appear to grade out at the bottom of the 1^st round or top of the 2^nd.  One of them will likely be available when the Vikings pick at #45 overall in the 2^nd round, but ol'Trader Rick could pull off another trade back into the 1^st round to secure one of them as well like he did with Harrison Smith and Cordarelle Patterson.  As much as the Vikings need a linebacker, I am not seeing a good fit or good value for one at pick #11, unless they want to grab a pass rusher.

This offseason has been a tough one for me in terms of identifying the biggest needs of the roster and what direction I think they should take in the draft.  In the most recent off-seasons, the roster holes have been so large and obvious it was easy to peg the needs and come up with a mock draft plan.  But this year it's not nearly as cut and dry, which is a very good thing!  This should allow the Vikings to simply take the best player available and allow the draft to come to them.  So, what follows is an Overall Consensus Ranking that includes all possible positions.  It includes any player who appeared in at least the top twenty of an overall big board.

Since I expanded the overall threshold from ten to twenty, it added fourteen names to the list, nearly doubling the length.  Defensive Tackle/Defensive End Leonard Williams is the consensus #1 overall pick in the draft and with only a 0.9 standard deviation; he holds that spot pretty convincingly.  And yet, he's not receiving nearly the hype that a guy like Jadeveon Clowney got last year.  The hype this year seems to be whether or not Jameis Winston is deserving of going #1 overall to Tampa Bay.  While he ranks #2 overall on average, the consensus is not nearly as high for him at that spot as it is for Williams at #1.  In fact, Amari Cooper at #3 overall has less deviation from the mean than Winston at #2.

Never-the-less, if every team in the NFL used this Overall Consensus Big Board and didn't trade any of their picks, then that would leave the Vikings with OT Andrus Peat out of Stanford with the 11^th overall pick.  Peat is certainly a great tackle prospect at 6'7" and 312 lbs, and it would depend entirely on what the Vikings thought of Matt Kalil over the long-term to even consider drafting him.  Coming from an NFL football family, Peat was a highly touted 5-star recruit out of high school.  He was an All-American at Stanford and was awarded the Pac-12 Morris Trophy for being the top offensive lineman in his conference.  His teammate at Stanford, guard David Yankey (now on the Vikings) also received the Morris Trophy back in 2012, so drafting Peat wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility when you consider that Spielman has mentioned he likes drafting players from the same schools.  He did that in 2012 with Jarius Wright/Greg Childs, Jeff Locke/Jeff Baca and Harrison Smith/Robert Blanton, and then again in 2013 with Rhodes/Dawkins and Hodges/Mauti.  While he hasn't exactly paired up across draft years (unless you consider Anthony Barr along with Baca/Locke, all from UCLA), there is still an interesting connection to David Yankey and Stanford that exists.  If the Vikings were to actually consider Peat, then the writing would be on the wall for Matt Kalil.

In any case, based on the inherent value available along with the current roster needs of the Vikings, here is my take on a mock draft for the Vikings, without trades and without using any sort of "mock draft software."  In the last version I went with a wide receiver in the 1st round, but this time I'm going to try something different. This mock draft is based solely on the consensus big boards, with a little help from CBS Rankings for the later rounds.

Quick Vikings Mock Draft
Round 1: CB Trae Waynes, Michigan State
Round 2: LB Paul Dawson, TCU
Round 3: OG Tre Jackson, Florida State
Round 4: WR Ty Montgomery, Stanford
Round 5: DE Corey Crawford, Clemson
Round 6: OT Corey Robinson, South Carolina
Round 7: RB Malcolm Brown, Texas