ESPN gives Vikings a 50/50 chance of trading up for a quarterback

Do you think the odds are better or worse?

We’re now less than two weeks away from the start of the 2024 NFL Draft, and the biggest question surrounding the Minnesota Vikings continues to be what they’ll do at the quarterback position. Given the actions that they’ve taken this offseason so far, it would seem that a trade-up for a player at the position is in order, but what are the odds of it happening?

Behind the great E$PN paywall, beat writers have shared some of the latest “intel” on each team leading up to the draft, and Kevin Seifert believes, at this point, that it’s basically a coin flip concerning a potential trade for the purple.

Two weeks out, give us a percentage chance the Vikings ultimately trade up from No. 11 for a quarterback.

Fifty percent. The Vikings’ preference is to trade up. But to use two words that general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and coach Kevin O’Connell have both repeated, Minnesota needs a “complicit” team to make that trade, and they’ll need the “flexibility” to pivot if none of their offers are accepted. There is a 100% chance the Vikings will draft a quarterback at some point in the draft, but the question is how highly regarded that player will be as a future pro. Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell know they can’t simply will a trade into existence.

As we’ve been saying all along, a team can want to trade up all they want. . .they have to find someone that’s willing to trade down, and if a team is looking for a quarterback they’re not necessarily going to move out of their spot so that the Vikings can take one in their place.

ESPN draft analyst Matt Miller has a tidbit about the quarterback position in Minnesota as well, praising the Vikings for taking a different approach to scouting the position as the draft nears.

It’s no secret the Vikings need a quarterback and are expected to be aggressive in adding one at the draft, but the front office and O’Connell — a former quarterback himself — did not attend pro day workouts of the top quarterbacks. Instead, the Vikings are trying something different. “We want to see them work out in a more intimate setting,” is how a source with the team put it. “Get them a little uncomfortable running our workout vs. theirs.”

The Vikings have scheduled private workouts with five of the top six QBs (everyone except Caleb Williams) and will use those in-person, one-on-one evaluations with more weight than the traditional pro day circuit. This is the first time I can recall a team intentionally avoiding the pro day noise in lieu of in-person scouting, but I like it.

I’ve often heard some of the Really Smart Football People™ question the value of Pro Days, given that they can be highly scripted, particularly at the quarterback position. It seems prudent for the Vikings to have the different prospects come in and go through their workout rather than one that they can practice repeatedly and run almost instinctively. The Vikings will want to know what a quarterback can do for them, not what they can do in a situation scripted by a player’s current coaching staff.

The quarterback position is going to dominate discussion of the Vikings’ draft all the way until draft night, and it will be nice to finally have some sort of an answer to that question. Thursday, 25 April can’t get here quickly enough.