There was a recent report this morning that after the Vikings selected Trae Waynes and Eric Kendricks in the first two rounds of the draft, that the Vikings were attempting to move up in the third round from their pick #76. Well on the twitter machine this morning, Darren Wolfson reported that the player the Vikings were targeting was none other than former Arizona State wide receiver Jaelen Strong:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Small sampling, but hear all good about WR Stefon Diggs. Eases the blow of not being able to move up in 3rd for Strong, the target. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/vikings?src=hash">#vikings</a></p>— Darren Wolfson (@DWolfsonKSTP) <a href="https://twitter.com/DWolfsonKSTP/status/598141984247828482">May 12, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Jaelen Strong was a prospect that some draft analysts had as a low 1st or high 2nd round pick, and many had him ranked as the 4th best receiver in the draft after the big three of Amari Cooper, Kevin White and DeVante Parker. In fact, over at the Vikings Territory Consensus Big Board, Strong was ranked #29 overall. The Houston Texans snagged him at pick #70 overall, six spots higher than the Vikings original 3rd round draft spot. It would seem that if this report is true, then the Vikings must have decided to trade down after missing out on their guy. They traded down to pick #80 with the Kansas City Chiefs, and then traded down again with the Detroit Lions to pick #88. It is there that Spielman selected Danielle Hunter. Because of the trading down in the 3rd round they were able to stockpile later round picks that they used on TE MyCole Pruitt in the 5th round and B.J. Dubose in the 6th round.
And of course, while they may have been targeting a wide receiver in the third round, they snagged a falling wide receiver prospect in Stephon Diggs in the 5th round. Diggs was a prospect that some analysts had concerns about some of his injury issues and he was therefore ranked 135 overall on the consensus big board. The Vikings got him at #145 overall. While the Vikings may have just missed out on Jaelen Strong, if reports out of last weekend's rookie mini-camp are to be believed, then they got a pretty good prospect in Stephon Diggs anyway.