Well, I sincerely hope that nobody out there made significant investments in Yannick Ngakoue swag during the two months that he was a member of the Minnesota Vikings.
Numerous sources have reported, and the Vikings have confirmed, that they are trading Ngakoue to the Baltimore Ravens for a pair of draft picks. One of them is the Ravens’ third-round pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, while the other is a 2022 conditional fifth-rounder that becomes a fourth if Ngakoue makes the Pro Bowl this year on the first ballot (not as an alternate).
The Vikings traded for Ngakoue just after Training Camp ended this season, sending their second-round pick in 2021 to the Jacksonville Jaguars in exchange for his services. The logic, at least at the time, seemed to be that the Vikings would then turn around and sign Ngakoue to a long-term deal and, eventually, pair him with Danielle Hunter at the defensive end spot.
With Hunter’s injury, that obviously hasn’t happened, but Ngakoue was one of the lone bright spots on a Vikings’ defense that has largely been a disaster this season. In his six games, he has collected five sacks and seven quarterback hits.
With the trade, the Vikings will now have 12 picks in the 2021 NFL Draft, which is a positive. The negative is that, in exchange for six games of Yannick Ngakoue, the team has essentially traded back about 60 spots. Their current second-round pick is projected to be in the mid-30s, while the third-rounder they will receive from Baltimore will likely be somewhere in the high-to-mid-90s.
(Correction: I had originally stated that the Vikings would have 13 picks, as I had included the conditional fifth-rounder that the team won’t get until 2022. My apologies for the error.)
But, the Vikings have made a move today, sending Yannick Ngakoue to the Baltimore Ravens in exchange for a pair of draft picks. We’ll have more on this as we get more developments on it.