2018 Minnesota Vikings Mock Draft Database: Pre-Combine Version

Happy Saturday morning to all of you out there in Viking Land! Since we’re getting into that particular portion of the season, and the annual Underwear Olympics are coming up starting next week in Indianapolis, it’s time to start gathering the consensus around these vast interwebs about what the Minnesota Vikings are going to do in the 2018 NFL Draft.

Obviously, we took a year off from this feature last year because. . .well, because this team didn’t have a first-round draft choice. But they have one this year, and so we’re going to take this opportunity to bring back the most extensive database of its kind on the internet for covering the Vikings’ draft prospects.

With this Pre-Combine version of the 2018 Minnesota Vikings Mock Draft Database, we are going to start with 30 mock drafts from around the internet. Some of them are bigger names that you’ll probably recognize right away, while others are smaller sites that we hope to drive a little traffic to. By the time we reach draft week, we’ll have the number of drafts in this database up to 100, as we’ve done every season. We’ll also have graphs and charts to depict exactly who is being mocked to the Vikings in a particular week, as well as trends for the Vikings over the course of the entire pre-draft process.

So, without any further ado, let’s take a look at the Pre-Combine version of the 2018 Minnesota Vikings Mock Draft Database!

As you can see, there’s one particular position in this year’s Pre-Combine Database that outpaces all of the rest, and that’s the offensive line. Even though the team took steps to upgrade the line last offseason, the rebuild must continue, and a lot of pundits have this team doing so through the draft. Of the thirty picks that we have in this version, 17 of them (57%) have the Vikings grabbing someone to join the Minnesota Moving Company (™ Paul Allen).

Two players were mocked to the Vikings four times in this week’s version of the Database. They were University of Texas offensive tackle Connor Williams and guard Will Hernandez from Texas El-Paso. I’ve heard some people with more draft savvy than I possess say that Hernandez isn’t a great scheme fit for the Vikings, but I’m sure they could find room for someone of his talent. Selecting Williams would likely mean the Vikings wanted to move Mike Remmers to guard on a full-time basis, as he would likely step in at right tackle immediately.

Ohio State guard/center Billy Price is mocked to the Vikings three times this week, while a pair of tackles each receive a pair of selection in Oklahoma tackle Orlando Brown and Notre Dame tackle Mike McGlinchey. Kolton Miller out of UCLA and Jamarco Jones of Ohio State each garner one selection in this week’s Database.

Only two other players received multiple selections in this initial Database, and they are both defensive tackles. The defensive line received six overall selections (20%), and five of those six selections were players on the defensive interior. Michigan defensive tackle Maurice Hurst and Florida defensive tackle Taven Bryan were each named twice, and Stanford defensive tackle Harrison Phillips was selected once. The one edge player projected to go to Minnesota was Louisiana State defensive end Arden Key, who I believe was widely projected as a Top 5 selection in the early portion of the college football season.

With offensive and defensive linemen picking up nearly 80% of the selections, it didn’t leave a whole lot of room for anyone else. Defensive backs did manage to pick up five picks this week (17%), and there were five different names. The lone safety was Florida State standout Derwin James, who was also a projected high pick going into last college football season. He is joined by four different cornerbacks in Isaiah Oliver out of Colorado, Central Florida cornerback Mike Hughes, Carlton Davis from Auburn, and Donte Jackson of Louisiana State.

There were only two “skill position” players projected to the Vikings in this week’s version of our Database. One was Clemson wide receiver Deon Cain, whose name appeared once. And, as though the Vikings don’t have enough issues at quarterback to deal with this offseason, the folks from DraftTek were kind enough to draft former Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson from Louisville. Because, hey, why not?

That’s a rundown of all 30 of the selections in this week’s version of the Database. Now, for those of you that haven’t seen the Database before, we generally have two visual representations of things each week. The first is a rundown of the players that were mocked to the Vikings for that particular week only. We call it the “Donut Graph” because. . .well, it’s shaped like a donut and donuts are pretty awesome. I might work on the formatting for this in an effort to try to make it more visually appealing, but I’ll get it “right” eventually. With that, here’s the first installment of the Donut Graph for this year. You should be able to click to embiggen things, should you desire.

I try to keep different position groups with similar colors. The color breakdown should be pretty obvious in this one, and that’s something else I can work on for future installments.

The other is what most folks refer to as the “Jell-o Salad” graph because it looks like one of those dishes with all the different flavors of Jell-o (and usually some sort of fruit) that you see at church picnics and the like. This is the graph that is used to track how different players rise and fall throughout the pre-draft process. This week’s database, and likely next week’s, won’t have one of those graphs, as one or two weeks does not a “trend” make. However, if you’d like to see an example, you can check out our final version of our 2016 Mock Draft Database to get an understanding of what I mean.

There are going to be a lot of changes to who different experts and pundits project to the Vikings over the course of the next couple of months, and things will change with what the Vikings do in free agency as well. I will effort to bring this to you every Saturday morning, since we need stuff to look at on the weekends, and keep everyone updated on the projections from people that obsess over this sort of thing.

But, that’s the initial, Pre-Combine version of the 2018 Minnesota Vikings Mock Draft Database, ladies and gentlemen. Enjoy the read, check out some of the links, and talk about what you think about what’s being projected!