Minnesota Vikings 7-round 2021 NFL mock draft: Building the trenches

The Minnesota Vikings don’t draft quarterbacks. They just don’t have a history of doing so. Rick Spielman has drafted a total of two quarterbacks in his tenure as the Minnesota Vikings General Manager. Teddy Bridgewater in the first round of the 2014 draft, and Nate Stanley in round seven of this past year’s class.

If this year has taught teams one thing, it is that anything can happen to your team at any given time. Dak Prescott and Joe Burrow’s season was ended due to serious knee injuries, the Broncos had to play with a practice squad receiver as their quarterback due to COVID, and the Chicago Bears nearly had to start Tyler Bray at Quarterback because both Nick Foles and Mitchell Trubisky were out and injured at the same time. Having too many quarterbacks on the roster is not a bad thing.

Minnesota does not even have a reliable backup on the roster right now. Sean Mannion is not somebody you can count on to win you games if something were to happen to Cousins down the road, and both Browning and Stanley are practice squad guys as of right now.

Drafting Brock Purdy would allow Minnesota to have a young backup to learn behind Cousins if he were to get hurt. If Minnesota were to choose to not bring Cousins back for another year after 2021, they would have a young option at the quarterback position to potentially take over. Investing in a quarterback in this range would be a smart move here for the Minnesota Vikings given the circumstances the 2020 season has shown.

Given the inability to address and produce consistent offensive line play, Minnesota should be looking to spend multiple picks at those position groups to secure depth along the offensive front.

David Moore is one of the better small-school prospects in this draft coming out of Grambling State. He is a very powerful player, which is something the Vikings lack when it comes to their interior offensive line depth, a player that can attack with force and create space. He is an outstanding run blocker, which is why he is a really good fit for Minnesota here.

Moore offers the Vikings depth behind Cleveland, Dozier and potentially Slater along the offensive front at the guard spot. Something that they really haven’t had over the last few seasons. With the offensive line being a top need here, Minnesota needs to address it with multiple selections. Moore being the second lineman the Vikings take, fulfills that model.

Remember the comment above about lacking depth at the offensive line? Minnesota is in a similar spot with the cornerback group. They have a solid foundation of young talent in Jeff Gladney, Cameron Dantzler and potentially Kris Boyd, but after that, it is a significant drop-off.

Mike Zimmer expected both Mike Hughes and Holton Hill to take massive strides this season to potentially complete this cornerback group, but Hughes once again failed to stay healthy and Hill’s production fell off a cliff putting both of their futures in Minneapolis in question.

Rochell is a terrific boundary man to man corner with really solid length at 6-foot-1. He tends to struggle with zone concepts at times. The major knock on him, like most small school players, is the level of competition he faced while at Central Arkansas. Normally this would cause concern for evaluators, but Rochell just looks so much more dominant against the opposing receivers he matched up against.

With Zimmer being a fairly good developmental defensive coach, he should be able to get the most out of Rochell and make him a vital rotational piece to a secondary that needs some re-tooling.