How the Vikings Can “Win” the 2025 NFL Draft
The Vikings did a pretty good job filling their needs during the 2025 NFL Free Agency Frenzy, and it seems good enough to the point where an eventual trade-down out of the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft seems likely and widely accepted by those loyal to the purple and gold.
Many fans don’t seem to care to think about the draft much deeper than just wanting to see their favorite team’s name appear as “on the clock,” followed by “pick is in,” and the anticipation of whose name will be read aloud by Commissioner Roger Goodell at the podium on stage.
However, if you’re reading this, you may care a bit more than that and are understanding that the short-term payoff of seeing your team make a draft selection in the first round is dwarfed by the importance of your favorite team making maneuvers to benefit the operation in a long-term sense.
By the way, if you’re asking what my qualifications are to determine the way that the Vikings win the draft, I went undefeated multiple times in an online Madden league a couple years ago, including a 19-0 run that ended with a Super Bowl victory with Kirk Cousins at the helm of the Minnesota Vikings. Any questions?
It’s fair and easy to say that the Vikings can “win” the draft simply by sticking and selecting the best player available to them at their time of selection, and that would be a good maneuver.
With the moves they made earlier in the off-season, Minnesota has set itself up well to do whatever it pleases with the selection. They can take a player at a position of need, and it would be justified, or they can take a player like Derrick Harmon out of Oregon for a long-term solution at the defensive interior position, even though they just signed Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave in March.
A true “win” for the Vikings in the 2025 NFL Draft could be the front office leaning on the talent currently in-house for the 2025 season and turning their first-round selection this year into multiple later-round selections for future draft capital in the coming years via a trade with a team that is hungrier for young talent as it stands.
This could mean trading down from 24th overall and getting back multiple second and third-round selections, or even turning it into future draft capital and getting more bang for the buck long-term. Draft picks are never more valuable than they are when the event is happening, and Minnesota could use that known fact to their advantage and set up a nice bundle of selections in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Either way they decide to go, the Vikings can’t go wrong with trading down. This draft class is very similar from pick #10 to pick #60. This gives Minnesota the perfect excuse to trade out of 24, and they don’t even have to do it just once; they could do it multiple times and just stock up on selections.
The Vikings filling their needs in the manner they did will allow them to lean on existing talent for the short term while Kwesi and the front office can work their magic and build up an arsenal of draft capital that they currently lack as things stand at the present moment. Trading down from 24 to the mid-30s seems like a large jump, but it really isn’t this year. Even trading away 24 for exclusively future draft capital isn’t a bad idea, either.
Vikings’ 2025 NFL Draft Late-Round Sleepers