Vikings should look east for NFL draft inspiration

The Vikings’ muddled decision-making could be cleared up by observing Lions GM Brad Holmes.

This is a legitimate question, and applies to what the Vikings are doing this year in draft preparation, as well as what they have been doing for the past five years, if not longer.

I was all for giving Kwesi Adofo-Mensah a chance to prove he could run an NFL team. I even tried to give him the benefit of the doubt after his first draft. But he failed.

The Vikings’ brain trust fired him, then made the innovative decision to replace him, before a pivotal draft, with … no one?!

The Wilfs are lucky that we all think so highly of longtime executive Rob Brzezinski, who is acting as general manager and overseer of the draft. If Brzezinski wasn’t so respected and likeable, Vikings fans would be screaming about handing an important draft to someone who is not a personnel expert and may not even be in line to get the general manager’s job. And they would be right.

Adofo-Mensah was lousy at drafting. Brzezinski is trying to run a draft for the first time. What Adofo-Mensah should have done, and Brzezinski still has the chance to do, is adhere to the teachings of the best draft guru in the Upper Midwest.

That’s Lions General Manager Brad Holmes.

The Lions were one of the worst franchises in the history of American sports before Holmes took over in 2021. He has built one of the NFL’s most talented rosters and turned Detroit into an annual contender.

His philosophy seems to be so simple that it subverts almost all modern NFL thinking about premium positions and devising a philosophy that will separate your team from the competition.

His philosophy could be summarized thusly:

Draft a good player. Don’t sweat positional rankings, immediate need or roster fit. Just take a good player.

What if Adofo-Mensah had taken that approach? He might have drafted Kyle Hamilton in 2022, and the Vikings would have an All-Pro safety. Instead, they traded down and wound up with Lewis Cine, who wasn’t even good on special teams.

When you simplify your approach in the draft, you eliminate overthinking and risky maneuvers. Holmes has ignored the modern thinking that you shouldn’t spend high draft picks on non-premium positions.

He liked Jahmyr Gibbs, the running back out of Alabama, so he took him. Gibbs is now one of the best backs in the game and an irreplaceable part of the Lions offense.

Holmes has taken inside linebackers and tight ends with high draft picks. Because he got good players with each pick, he has no reason to regret any of those decisions.

Imagine the current Vikings roster if they had simply taken good players instead of Cine, and cornerbacks Andrew Booth Jr. and Mekhi Blackmon.

We still don’t know if their two first-round picks in 2024 — J.J. McCarthy and Dallas Turner — are going to turn into consistent starters, or stars.

Speaking at his predraft news conference last week, Holmes also addressed the notion of drafting for “need.”

“The reason why we always go with the best player available approach is because there is only one draft and the roster is going to change every single year,” Holmes said. “Every single year there are going to be new needs, and contracts are going to expire. So what may not seem like an immediate need right now or this year, that might not be the case next year.”

Two of the Vikings’ best draft decisions ever ignored immediate need.

In 1998, the Vikings had future Hall of Famer Cris Carter and standout Jake Reed at receiver. They drafted Randy Moss. That was the right decision.

In 2007, the Vikings had the highly-productive Chester Taylor at running back. They drafted Adrian Peterson. That was the right decision.

If the mock drafts are correct and the Vikings select Oregon safety Dillon Thieneman in the first round, fans will have to hope that Brzezinski’s crew identified Thieneman as the best player available, not the best safety they could get.

STRIB