Bill Barnwell Finds A Potential Vikings Trade Partner

There hasn’t been a whole lot of talk surrounding the Minnesota Vikings in a lot of draft circles leading up to this year’s selection meeting. The lack of a first-round selection tends to do that. However, in his annual “all trades” mock draft, ESPN football writer Bill Barnwell finds a potential trade partner for the purple and gold.

We refer to the team in question as “Vikings West,” but most people know them as the Seattle Seahawks.

In his mock, Barnwell proposes the Vikings jumping up to Seattle’s first-round spot at #26 overall. In order to get there, they give up their second round pick, #48 overall, and both of their third round selections, their own at #79 and the one they get from the Miami Dolphins at #86. The Vikings also receive a third round compensatory pick from the Seahawks, #106 overall.

Here’s what Barnwell has to say about the potential trade:

The Vikings don't have a first-round pick after sending it to Philadelphia in the Sam Bradford trade, but let's sneak them into Day 1 here in a swap that could make sense for both sides. The bottom of the Seahawks' roster is increasingly threadbare after being ravaged by years of free agency and traded picks, while the Vikings are relatively deep -- especially on defense -- and would love to find someone else who can immediately contribute along the offensive line. (Don't ask me why the Seahawks aren't interested in the same thing.) This swap leaves the Seahawks out of the draft until the 48th pick, but they would then have five picks between 49 and 90.

Now, the trade makes sense from the perspective of the age-old “Jimmy Johnson chart” that teams have been using for years. Minnesota would be giving up 775 “points” worth of picks and receiving 782 “points” worth of pick in return, so it’s just about even from that perspective. Here’s my only issue with it.

I don’t know who they’d be trading up for.

Barnwell mentions that the Vikings still need help on the offensive line, but unless Western Kentucky offensive lineman Forrest Lamp finds himself in a free-fall for whatever reason on draft night, I just don’t know if it makes sense for Minnesota to make that jump. The value for offensive linemen in this draft is in the middle rounds, in my opinion, and for the Vikings to give up both of their third round picks would be shooting themselves in the foot. I know they’d be getting a third rounder back in this scenario, but it’s toward the end of the third round. The third round might be the sweet spot for some of the running backs in this draft, too, and that’s another position of need for Minnesota.

Trading up for a difference-maker always sounds good in theory. In this case, however, I’m not entirely sure who that person would be for our favorite football team. What do you think of this potential deal?