With just a few hours to go before the 2015 NFL Draft OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD JUST GET HERE ALREADY!
Sorry, let me try that again. . .
With just a few hours to go before the 2015 NFL Draft, a few of the biggest names in the industry have put out their final mock drafts of the season. What do they have the Vikings doing? Well, let's find out.
Over at ESPN, both Todd McShay and Mel Kiper. . .dramatic pause. . .draft expert are in agreement that the Minnesota Vikings will select Michigan State cornerback Trae Waynes with the 11th overall pick.
We'll start with Kiper, who looks at why the Vikings would take Waynes and why they wouldn't.
Why they take him: The top three wide receivers are off the board, and they get immediate help at CB while pushing Captain Munnerlyn to a better position in the slot.
Why they pass: Because they see holes in Waynes' game as a tackler and decide to go with a wide receiver or even a different cornerback.
And now to McShay, who does a more traditional analysis.
This is another pick I've made a few different times during the draft process, but it continues to make sense. The Vikings need a press-man corner opposite Xavier Rhodes, and Waynes is the best cornerback prospect in this class who figures to fit best in press-man or Cover 2 alignments.
Full disclosure. . .in Kiper's mock, all of the big three receivers (Amari Cooper, Kevin White, and DeVante Parker) are off the board. In McShay's, Parker is still available and ends up with the Miami Dolphins at #14.
Over at NFL.com, Mike Mayock. . .a favorite around here. . .has put up his only mock draft of the season, and he has the Vikings going with Parker at #11.
Parker was Bridgewater's teammate from Louisville. Parker can high-point the football, and was highly productive when on the field.
Of the four mocks at NFL.com that have been updated this week, two of them (Mayock and former Houston Texans' GM Charley Casserly) have the Vikings taking Parker, Daniel Jeremiah has the Vikings taking Waynes, and Charles Davis has Minnesota selecting West Virginia wide receiver Kevin White.
Waynes or Parker appear to be part of a pretty sizeable consensus. . .combined, they made up 65% of the selections in our final Mock Draft Database for this year, and either of them would be very good picks for this team, in my opinion.
Who will the pick finally be? We've got a little more than six hours worth of waiting left to do before the draft starts and we can finally figure that out.