The Morning After

by poohty_t | 9 years ago | 0 Comments

The morning after the 2015 draft, we look over the Vikings draft picks, grade them and talk alittle with head coach Pdizel Forizeal. 

 

With their first pick of two in the first round , at pick # 21,they go with HB Lenard Griffin. The second best overall HB in this class, Griffin  stood out to head coach P.D. by his pure strength ,bench pressing 30 reps,with a good mix of decent speed for a power back . "Many people thought we were crazy to trade AP last year, but this was our plan the entire time, and luckily enough for us , he was there when our pick came up.We could not pass him up as he fits our playstyle perfectly.Out of all the HBs we scouted, we felt he was out best choice for our team." says coach Pidezel. 

With their second pick inthe first round the Vikings picked at #24 LT CJ Mullins. The 2nd best LT in the class . "His skill set was what we really felt our oline lacked last year, run blocking.For our offense to produce, we need good run blockers and he fit the bill great for that along with some good acceleration. He will help us build up a good running game over time" says Coach.

Then the second round comes up and with WR Ace Hayes. "We struggled last year with our wr core for most of the season dropping alot of wide open passes. We wanted to focus in on a guy who could catch first and foremost.Which Ace already can do fairly well, and his speeds are just alittle bouns. Alot of people overlooked him in the wrs picked earlier because of his size, but we dont feel like that will be a problem we have to worry about.We just wanted someone who will catch the ball when getting hit!"

Their second pick in the 2nd round at #24 went with LG CJ William. Who's specialty is run blocking , but also has decent pass blocking and impact blocking to start as wel. Williams was the best LG in the class . "Again , we spent most of our time scouting the offensive line players this year as it was our main concern after getting a replacement for AP. We feel like we came away with some good olinemen to help us out down the road."

 

The third round they had an early round pick from the chargers at #4 in the round. They picked up the best Center in the draft in William Wheeler. Super strong with 43 bench press reps , wuick acceleration and ready to run block all day long if needed. 

Thier second pick in the third round came later at #21 in that round with a pick of SS Connor Stover ." He is going to need quite a bit of work, but he is a star learner and we think he will develope into a starter by the time Andrew starts to fall off. We didnt need him that bad, but thought why not get someone in that we can build up to fill that spot later on as most the online we wanted was gone by this point."

The 4th round they found TE Antuan Olsen . Nothing spectacular to talk about here. Was near the bottom of the te class. He has good catch in traffic anc catching for a rookie, a problem the Vikings felt they had last year with dropped passes.

The 5th round pick gave them ROLB Deandre Harper. Just to be used now as a back up, maybe to become a starter one day if he progresses well. Good speeds and power move and decent pursuit of the ball. He seems to be a solid back up picked up here.

The 6th round they reached out to one last olinemen , they were not dying to have but their just wasnt much of anything left they had even scouted. LT John Humphrey comes in with good run blocking and impactful blocking.He actually was the middle of the pack for LTs.Just a filler pick really for them.

The 7th round they picked up a kind of a surprise pick in a HB that was not projected to be drafted at all. HB Cedric McElroy comes in right in line with the speed of HB Griffin they got in the first round. His trucking of players is almost the same as well , with slightly better carry and elusiveness.Not quite as strong but still a powerful back. "We had our eye on him all night, we figured no one would pick him, being he was not projected to be picked. We knew he had alot of potential and again , is just our type of back, a bruiser.We dont need to run to the sidelines all game, anyone can do that with a fast enough HB.We like to punish our opponents more by being physical. Alot of times , our HBs instead of running from defenders , seek the ones out in front of them and lower their heads instead.This is how we train them. This HB right now is our back up , but may very well find himself getting numerous touches. Overall we are pleased with our draft. You can't get every pick to be a great players, but we did fill in some holes we knew we had to fill. We knew most of the guys we wanted we just couldnt get our hands on as evrey team has some great scouts out there and knows about the same thing we know about all these players.We are glad to have gotten what we did though considering this fact.Hopefully in two seasons time, this draft will really pay off for us. We shall see"

 

Overall the Vikings got the best Center and LG in this class, 2nd best HB and LT ,3rd best SS .So overall a good draft for them to fill in some much needed holes .We will give them a B grade for this season as Coach Pdizel made all the picks himself and knew what he wanted to get out of this class.Now to see how this plays out over the next couple of seasons.