As I say every year around this time, because I don’t follow college football, it’s difficult for me to get particularly excited about this or that draft prospect for my favourite team. I see some names pop up in mock drafts by the various fan sites, and I certainly read the enthusiastic paeans to the skills of this running back or that offensive tackle. This year, there’s been a hugely popular online draft simulator at http://fanspeak.com/ontheclock/, which offers a basic (free) version that anyone can use and a premium simulation that also allows trades.

It’s actually so easy to use that I figured it was worth displaying my draft ignorance to the world in my very first mock draft:

This was put together before the draft began on Thursday, so there’s a slight chance that the Vikings traded up into the first round (in which case, they’ll have given up several of the picks listed below), but otherwise, we traded our original first round pick to Philadelphia last season to acquire quarterback Sam Bradford after Teddy Bridgewater’s season-ending leg injury just before the first game. It gets more complicated after that (it’d be worse if I was willing to pay for the premium version with all those trade opportunities…)

In the second round, here’s what the draft board was offering as I came on the clock to make my first pick (I was using Arif Hasan’s Zone Coverage board):

In my opinion, the single biggest need for the team this year is offensive line depth, particularly the interior, so Dan Feeney of Indiana was my pick. With luck, he can slide into the currently vacant right guard spot from day one, which would make the lives of our quarterbacks and running backs much easier.

We have two picks in the third round, so here’s what Arif’s board was suggesting for our first selection:

Another interior lineman? Sure, come on down Pat Elflein, centre, THE [dramatic pause] Ohio State University. After last year’s injury apocalypse, you can’t have too many capable linemen. Elflein can back up Joe Berger this year, and (hopefully) be ready to step in if Berger decides to retire after the season. Our next pick is just a bit further down the road:

We just parted ways with a great former Oklahoma running back … let’s reload with Samaje Perrine. Perrine is the other really good college running back from Oklahoma in this year’s draft. Given the character red flags that popped up on Mixon, I’m much more comfortable with Perrine as our pick. That takes us to the end of the third. In the fourth, we also have two picks:

There’s a logjam of wide receivers on the board, and I know nothing about any of them, so we’ll throw a dart at the top-ranked player, Chad Hansen from California. Both Cordarrelle Patterson and Charles Johnson moved on to other teams in free agency, so Hansen will have a legitimate chance to show he’s able to take a roster spot. Our second pick in this round comes up soon:

Receivers are still a drug on the market, but there’s no sense in taking two with other needs to address. We’ve been concentrating on the offence all draft so far, and I can’t imagine coach Zimmer would be happy with yet another offensive pick, so let’s switch to his favourite unit and add a cornerback to replace Captain Munnerlyn (who returned to Carolina in free agency): Rasul Douglas from West Virginia.

By this point, I’d run out of names I recognized from draft discussions on other fan sites, so I’ll just list the selections from the remaining rounds:

• Round 5, pick 160 – Tight End Jonnu Smith, Florida International. He can compete to replace Rhett Ellison, who was our best blocking tight end.
• Round 6, pick 199 – Defensive Tackle D.J. Jones, Mississippi. With Sharif Floyd’s career in doubt due to nerve damage suffered in a minor operation early last season, we need more depth on the defensive line. It’s totally unreasonable to expect a sixth-round pick to replace Floyd, but he may be able to provide some snaps in the DL rotation to keep the other players relatively fresh.
• Round 7, pick 232 – Linebacker Ben Boulware, Clemson. Weak-side linebacker Chad Greenway called it a career at the end of the 2016 season, so someone will need to step up to fill his spot. I doubt that Boulware will be that guy, but as we also lost Audie Cole in free agency, there are vacancies among the backups and on special teams too.

So the full set of selections (barring trades, which have been a very common thing during the “Trader” Rick Spielman era):

The positions I didn’t draft were mainly lack of opportunities at the point I was on the clock: no viable offensive tackles were on offer (but that’s not unusual … they are at a premium in the NFL right now), and I don’t think we need to draft a safety this year with our current roster strength at that position. Quarterback? I’m still a Bridgewater Underground stalwart, and I am clinging to the hope that he’ll be back, better than ever, in 2018.

And there you have it, a mock draft that will probably bear little resemblance to the real draft, but it was an interesting experience putting it together.