Evidently, the Vikings Tried to Trade Up for the Top QB in the 2023 NFL Draft
Josh Frey
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Prior to the 2023 NFL Draft, there was a ton of buzz around the Minnesota Vikings potentially making a trade up the draft board to snatch one of the top QBs in the class. With Kirk Cousins not getting a new contract extension, and instead, restructuring his deal to push more money into void years, the Vikings have uncertainty at the position for the first time since he came to Minnesota in 2018.
During Tuesday’s edition of The Pat McAfee Show, Tom Pelissero of NFL Network went on to talk about some of the draft rumors that were swirling around the league prior to the event. Here is what Pelissero had to say:
“There were all those draft rumors. Half of those are just completely wrong. A lot of the stuff with the Vikings trading up for the quarterbacks was proven wrong. Will Levis was sitting there when the Vikings’ pick came up at No. 23 and they didn’t take him.”
This makes sense. If the Vikings had interest in all of the consensus top four QBs in this class (Will Levis, Anthony Richardson, C.J. Stroud, Bryce Young), they would have happily scooped up Levis when he fell all the way to No. 23. Or, when he fell entirely out of the first round, they would have been one of the teams making a push to move up the board to snag him early in the second.
Instead, they did not do any of that. They stood pat and selected Jordan Addison with that 23rd overall pick, and instead of moving up into the second round to take a QB, they moved further down the board by trading out of the 87th overall pick.
The Vikings ultimately ended up waiting until the fifth round to take a QB when they selected Jaren Hall with the 164th overall pick.
However, there was evidently one QB in this class that the Vikings were looking to trade up for. That quarterback is Bryce Young out of Alabama, who went first overall to the Carolina Panthers. Pelissero also spoke on the Vikings attempts to snatch Young:
“They were making calls about moving up very high in the draft, but my understanding is that was for one player and that was Bryce Young, who ended up going No. 1, and so there went any possibility for Minnesota to go get him.”
For much of the spring after the Panthers traded up to No. 1 overall, the consensus opinion was that they were going to take C.J. Stroud out of Ohio State. He fit the prototype of a Frank Reich QB, and with the NFC South being wide-open, it made sense that the Panthers would go after the quarterback with the highest floor in the class.
Following Young’s visit with the Panthers, though, it became clear that he was going to be Carolina’s selection with the top pick. After that happened, it would have been a truly monstrous amount of draft capital that Minnesota would have had to fork over in order to grab the first overall pick.
However, this interest in Young remains intriguing for the Vikings moving forward. Clearly, if Minnesota was interested in at least one of the top QBs in this class, they are still looking to find a solution for life after Kirk Cousins. Perhaps 2024 can be the year where they finally land that prospect.
Josh Frey is a Class of 2020 graduate of The College of Idaho and managing editor of PurplePTSD.com. When he’s not writing about the NFL, Josh enjoys running, gaming, or rooting for the Milwaukee Brewers and Bucks. Check out his Twitter account: @Freyed_Chicken.