EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (AP) -For a team that considers itself on the cusp of challenging the NFC’s elite, the Minnesota Vikings were awfully quiet during free agency.
The marquee move was a trade with Houston that brought in career backup Sage Rosenfels to compete with Tarvaris Jackson for the starting quarterback job. Add a role player here and a special teamer there, and that’s been about it during what has widely been dubbed a thin free agent class.
The Vikings whiffed on two of their biggest targets, losing wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh to Seattle and starting center and team leader Matt Birk to Baltimore.
So their last best chance to improve the team, shore up deficiencies and bolster depth comes this weekend in the draft.
Most Vikings officials say this draft is no different than any other. But there is no arguing that a productive draft would help a veteran-laden team that won the NFC North but was bounced in the first round of the playoffs fill some holes they weren’t able to address in free agency.
ings will choose 22nd overall. They also have one choice each in the second, third and fifth rounds and two picks in the seventh.
“We would like to have more picks, but we don’t right now. I would give up what we gave up last year for a player like Jared (Allen) every year, if it boils down to that,” Vikings director of college scouting Scott Studwell said. “You get greedy right now because you see a lot of players on the board that you like for your football team, that you’d like to get your hands on. But with only six picks we’re going to be behind a few clubs that have a lot of picks and have a lot of options, so we’ll just have to make the most of the ones that we do have.”
Last year the Vikings traded their first-round pick and both of their third-round selections to the Chiefs for Allen, who proved to be worth every penny. But Vikings vice president of player personnel Rick Spielman said another trade of that magnitude is unlikely because of the need to add young, relatively affordable talent to a team in need of depth.
“If you continually do that each year, then you have no young depth, no young draft backups, and you’re going to hurt your team in the long run because you have nothing behind those guys to replace them,” Spielman said. “Because the bloodline, the young guys that are coming up through, eventually they get old and move on.”
with the Ravens after spending his first 11 seasons with his hometown Vikings. Now John Sullivan, a sixth-round pick out of Notre Dame a year ago, is penciled in as the starter.
But the Vikings could draft a center, such as Cal’s Alex Mack, or address several other needs that include right tackle, receiver and defensive back.
In what is expected to be a tackle-heavy first round, the Vikings could take Mississippi’s Michael Oher or Arizona’s Eben Britton.
“There’s a premium on that position,” Studwell said. “At least based on the way we see this tackle group in this draft, it’s a strong group at the top.”
Other possibilities at pick No. 22 include Florida receiver Percy Harvin, North Carolina receiver Hakeem Nicks or trading down to accumulate more picks.
As always, however, the Vikings say they will take the best player available. Regardless of need. Regardless of the quiet offseason. Regardless of the fact many of the team’s marquee players – Adrian Peterson, Antoine Winfield, Steve Hutchinson, Pat Williams, Kevin Williams – are in the prime of their careers and poised to win now.
“I think you make a big mistake if your need doesn’t work with where you’ve got a guy rated,” coach Brad Childress said. “And there’s a discipline to it.”
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