Report: Vikings trying to hold on to 23rd pick in potential trade up

That could make things more difficult

I understand that we’ve reached the point of the pre-Draft process where we don’t know what to believe about anything and should probably believe nothing, but. . .well, there just isn’t a whole lot else to talk about. Today, a bit of info has come out that might be mixing the signals a bit about what the Minnesota Vikings might be doing when the 2024 NFL Draft gets underway here in less than two weeks.

ESPN NFL insider Jeremy Fowler is reporting that the Vikings are trying to “preserve” the 23rd overall pick that they received from the Houston Texans a couple of weeks ago in a pre-draft deal.

Here’s the transcript of what Fowler said in this SportsCenter piece:

And you’ve got Minnesota, armed with two first-round picks. This is the team that could be active. I’ve talked to several teams who believe that Minnesota, at least right now, doesn’t want to part with that second first-rounder, which is in the 20s. They want to try to preserve that, which could be tough to move up into the top five for a quarterback. So, the feeling is they’re looking around at potentially McCarthy there, one of the quarterbacks, but they might not want to give up enough to get there.

To be honest, I’m not sure how far Minnesota can move up with just pick #11 and some of their other picks. They are already without their second-round pick in this year’s draft as well as next year’s and they don’t have their third-round pick this year, either.

Then again, if the reports of a potential pick swap between the Vikings and the Atlanta Falcons for tampering with Kirk Cousins are accurate, it could aid significantly in that effort. Trading up from #8 (where the Falcons currently are) to #4 would be a bit less costly than it would be to trade up from #11 to #4. Plus, a team like the Arizona Cardinals or the Los Angeles Chargers would likely be much more receptive to moving down to #8 because it would still allow them to target one of the elite prospects at another position. . .likely wide receiver for Arizona and offensive line for Los Angeles.

The Vikings’ front office obviously has a lot more than we do in the way of information on what some of the other teams might be looking to do in this year’s draft. Perhaps the team thinks that J.J. McCarthy is going to end up falling to #11. Maybe they have someone else they’d be happy with at #11, such as Michael Penix Jr., and want to use #23 to bolster another position.

This is shaping up to be one of the most interesting and exciting drafts in recent memory for this team, and we’ll be bringing you all the rumors, innuendo, conjecture, hearsay, and whatever else we can find about it until things kick off in Detroit on 25 April.