Everyone, and I do mean everyone, on the various Viking fan forums, chats, blogs and even \r\MinnesotaVikings seems to have been completely blindsided by the way this year’s NFL draft fell out for their favourite team. When the team didn’t select UTEP’s Will Hernandez with their first round pick, there was a stunned silence (well, relatively speaking), and then the nay-sayers quickly got up to speed with variations on “this means Trae Waynes/Mackenzie Alexander are hot garbage” and many of the rest were just in denial. The next day, with the fans baying for a quick trade-up to snag (take your pick of the remaining top-ranked offensive guards), the selection of a tackle from the same program that produced legendary bust T.J. Clemmings had the pitchforks and burning brands being passed out and a quick noose-tying seminar running at the back of the room.

Day three of the draft did little to re-assure the angry draftniks, but the Daily Norseman‘s Ted Glover is going to try to soothe the savage breast with a little tap dance and top hat routine also known as his Stock Market Report:

In recent seasons, Minnesota Vikings GM Rick Spielman has received kudos around here (for the most part) on draft weekend. His aggressive trades up in the early rounds, and savvy (if sometimes maddening) maneuvering in later rounds have netted players that the consensus of folks tend to really like.

This year, though, the reception to this year’s draft class has been more…um…muted. The general theme is ‘the Vikings didn’t take an interior offensive lineman right away. Ergo, everything sucks and just let the meteor hit and give me the sweet release of death.’

Mind you, this was a team that went 13-3 and made it to the NFC Championship game…but I digress. When the takes are hot, the takes are hot.

Buy/Sell

Buy: This was a ‘sleep on it’ draft for me. After the first two picks surprised me, I had to sleep on it to kind of get a feeling on how these guys really are. After thinking about things, and doing some research, I don’t think these picks are as bad as the message board and social media GM’s want me to believe. Both Hughes and Brian O’Neill fill needs for the Vikings, I strongly feel they’ll contribute early, and with good coaching (hint: the Vikings have it) they will both be good players.

Sell: Brian O’Neill sucks just because he’s a tackle from Pitt. Seriously, has there been a pick that’s had more ‘guilt by association’ than O’Neill? If you watch just a couple minutes of O’Neill on film and then compare him to T.J. Clemmings, there is no comparison. We can argue whether or not the Vikes screwed the pooch by not drafting a guard, and that’s going to be a discussion moving forward. But keep in mind that when you draft you not only draft for the present, but also the future. And neither Riley Reiff or Mike Remmers will be around forever. When they move on, I like the chances of O’Neill being able to step in and play well, it just may not be this year. And that’s not the end of the world. I mean, near as I can tell the reason most folks dislike O’Neill are:

1) He’s a tackle, not a guard.

2) He was taken in the second round, not the first.

3) He’s from Pitt, like T.J. Clemmings, and is going to wear #75, like Matt Kalil (I hope this is a troll job by O’Neill tbh).

Those are…reasons, I suppose.

Buy: Danny Isidora. Man, I love all the hot takes during the draft, and what I love more is how quickly we forget them from previous drafts. Last year, when I did my draft review, I said this about Isidora:

Of all the picks remaining, I think the best one that has a chance to contribute early is Danny Isidora. I’m not saying that because I expect a low grade nuclear weapon to be detonated on the Vikings offensive line again, but Isidora was graded out by a lot of sites to be a third round talent, and getting him as far back in the draft as the Vikings did could be a steal. Yes, I know we say that about every offensive lineman the Vikings draft in the late rounds. Yes, I know it almost never works out. Still, Isidora has talent, and if he can be developed, I can see him becoming a starting RG in a year or two, after Berger retires.

And not to toot my own horn, but that was a near universal opinion. And now here we are, with a distinct possibility that Isidora can slide into the starting RG job in the wake of Joe Berger’s retirement, and everyone is mad that the Vikings didn’t get a potential starting RG in the draft.

Will Isidora win the RG job? It remains to be seen, but when you factor in who was already on the roster coming in to the draft, then look at how the draft played out for the Vikings, the decisions the Vikings made make more sense.

Sell: The Vikings will get a free agent or convince Joe Berger to come back for one more year. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that although the Vikes were looking to get a guard early, the draft board didn’t fall for them like they thought it would. I do believe they were going to pick either Billy Price or Frank Ragnow, but when they were drafted ahead of the Vikes, they let things unfold and went with what they had in terms of best players on their board, and didn’t reach for a guy they thought would be an ill fit in their system and blocking scheme. Um, you can do that when you have a really good roster and go 13-3, by the way. I think they feel comfortable enough with the guys they have on the roster, at least for now, and unless something happens this is the o-line they have moving forward. It may be a backup plan, but it’s not necessarily a bad backup plan.

Buy: The Vikings still have a hole at RG, at least for now. I’m not a social scientist, but I think the biggest reason folks that are disappointed with the class feel the way they do is because there was no definitive answer at RG when the draft ended. With that position being the only real hole in the Vikes offense, it’s a legitimate concern. But to say the cupboard is bare and there are no realistic options, like we saw in 2015-16, is disingenuous. They’ll have an answer by the end of training camp, of course. It’s just not the one a lot of fans were wanting to hear.

Sell: Move Mike Remmers to guard. At the end of last season, the Vikings moved RT Mike Remmers to LG after Nick Easton broke his ankle and made Rashod Hill the RT for the playoffs. The reasoning kind of made sense in that the Vikes said they wanted the five best athletes they had playing. But I said it then and I’ll say it again: I thought it was a bit of a panic move, and it made two spots on the offensive line worse. With the way the draft shook out, I’d really like to see Remmers back at RT, and let Isidora get the first crack at the RG job. If they do move Remmers inside, I imagine it would be at RG, and that would leave O’Neill and Hill to battle it out, I would imagine.