Vikings’ Third Round Selection is in Good Company
After a trade-down with the Houston Texans from the 97th pick to the 102nd pick of the 2025 NFL Draft, the Minnesota Vikings selected Maryland Terrapins standout WR Tai Felton.
Felton will join a Vikings WR core that boasts one of the best one-two punches in the entire NFL in superstar Justin Jefferson and his third-year Robin in Jordan Addison, as well as what is now shaping up to be a very entertaining and skill-sharpening battle for the team’s WR3 role between Felton, new free-agency acquisition Rondale Moore, and the reigning, defending WR3 Jalen Nailor, who is going into his fourth year after being drafted in 2022 out of Michigan State by these Vikings with the 191st pick in the sixth round.
Nailor isn’t going to give up the role easily, and Rondale Moore will bring some decent experience to the showdown, but they both need to stay healthy, a detriment that has plagued both receivers since their entry into the NFL in 2022 and 2021, respectively.
Moore brings a higher draft pedigree to the competition than Nailor and Felton, however, Felton brings a pretty good lineage of Maryland WRs in the last 10 years, one of which is an iconic former Vikings that made a semi-important play in a divisional round matchup against the New Orleans Saints in January of 2018 to put his team in the NFC Championship.
No, we’re still not going to talk about what actually happened in said NFC Championship. It holds no bearing toward the topic at hand, and I simply just don’t feel like being sad anymore.
The Maryland Terrapins have had three WRs drafted since the year of 2015. Not many, but the three names were all big-time hits for the teams that drafted them. Tai Felton is the most recent, but who were the other two?
2015: Stefon Diggs – 146th overall (5th round) to the Vikings
That guy was pretty good for the Vikings, of course, flashing superstar ability and silky-smooth route-running, as well as giving us the Minneapolis Miracle.
However, his highest level of production came in Buffalo with Josh Allen, where he was the clear main offensive threat that he wasn’t when he was on the Vikings with Adam Thielen and Dalvin Cook. Josh Allen also turned out to be a lot better of a QB than any signal caller Diggs broke the huddle with in Minnesota, so that helps a little.
Diggs was a consensus top-5 WR for most of his years in Buffalo, and was traded to the Texans before the 2024 season, who let him walk in the 2025 offseason to join Drake Maye and the New England Patriots.
2018: D.J. Moore – 24th overall (1st round) to the Panthers
Yes, Moore is currently a Bear after his trade to Chicago in 2023, but his formative years took place in Charlotte with the Carolina Panthers, who selected him with the 24th overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.
D.J. Moore (in my opinion) has all the skills and ability to flirt with being a top-10 WR in the league, but he is unfortunately one of those guys that has been under-utilized and under-served to this point in his career. Chicago is now doing a decent job at putting a team together, and this year’s iteration of the Bears could be the best team Moore has ever been on.
Moore still performs whenever given the ability, and even though he hasn’t really been enabled to reach his ceiling, his talent and play on the field per the eye test are completely undeniable and make him completely deserving of the 24th overall selection that the Panthers used on him seven years ago. Moore turned 28 in mid-April, so he undoubtedly has some good years left, and hopefully (but not actually hopefully) the Bears use him in the correct manner so he can really show the world just how good of a WR he is.
