The Draft Is Where Championships Begin
The NFL draft is fast approaching, and while the Vikings’ approach is still anyone’s guess, this much is clear: the team’s long-term success hangs in the balance.
In recent years, the Vikings have struggled in the draft yet managed to find a moderate degree of success. In the long run, however, free agency is not a reliable way to build a roster.
As Aakash Adhia discovered in this article for the Sports Analytics Group at Berkeley, spending in free agency actually correlates negatively with team success. Teams that are able to find young talent and extend them tend to do better than teams that constantly look to free agency to fill their holes. A handful of other amateur studies seem to affirm this conclusion.
In contrast, team success correlates positively with the number of top players drafted, as measured by PFR’s weighted Approximate Value (wAV). Teams that nail a draft–like the 2017 New Orleans Saints–tend to reap the benefits for years to come as they build around a talented core of young players who hit their primes together.
In the last 20 years, the Vikings have generally been average at drafting and slightly above average in terms of winning percentage. In 2025, their defense looked elite in the second half of the season, buoyed by strong performances and exceptional coaching.
The offense suffered greatly from QB play and, at times, questionable coaching, but there is still plenty of star power. Despite all the negative publicity this season, the Vikings could easily turn into a 2026 Super Bowl contender if they can fill a few roster holes with rookie draftees and see improvement at the QB position.
Conversely, after years of mediocre drafts, the Vikings have a dearth of young talent, and it’s unclear how much longer key players like T.J. Hockenson, Brian O’Neill, and Andrew Van Ginkel can maintain their current form.
As much as we Vikings fans like to complain, we have been spoiled by decades of contention, rarely going more than a season or two without making the playoffs. Yet, if we continue to miss on draft picks and cycle through disappointing QBs, there is little keeping us from descending into the realm of the Jets and the Browns. The Vikings’ short-term plans would be significantly buoyed by a strong draft class: their long-term success demands it.