Minnesota Vikings lead the 3 worst trades from Day 1 of 2022 NFL Draft
The Minnesota Vikings, Tennessee Titans, and New Orleans Saints all made head-scratching trades in round one of the 2022 NFL Draft.
The trades in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft just didn’t stop coming. The Minnesota Vikings closed out the first round at pick no. 32 overall with the selection of Lewis Cine, the MVP of the National Championship game, and a member of the vaunted Georgia Bulldogs defense.
Unfortunately, they were one of the teams that made one of the worst trades of the night to get to that spot.
Fortunately, they were not alone in making highly questionable trades.
Minnesota Vikings top the worst first-round trades of the 2022 NFL Draft
1. Rookie GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah gets fleeced
Did rookie GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah simply want to make a deal? Was he desperate to add one additional pick to his arsenal?
What in the world would compel him to make this trade?
The Vikings trade: Pick 12, pick 46
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) April 29, 2022
The Lions trade: Pick 32, 34, 66
The only worse trade I can recall is Josh McDaniels trading a 2010 first-round pick back in the 2009 NFL Draft for a second-round pick so he could select cornerback Alphonso Smith.
That 2010 first-round pick for the Seattle Seahawks ended up being Earl Thomas.
Adofo-Mensah, operating his first NFL Draft as a GM, moved down 20 spots in round one. Teams don’t go by the value chart all the time, but the 12th overall pick carries a value of 1200 points on the chart.
As a matter of fact, let’s just look at each selection based on point value for a reference point.
Vikings get:
- 32nd pick – 590 points
- 34th pick – 560 points
- 66th pick – 260 points
- Total point value: 1,410 points
Detroit Lions get:
- 12th pick – 1,200 points
- 46th pick – 440 points
- Total point value: 1,640
The overall missing value here of 230 points is the value of the 72nd overall pick in the draft.
The Vikings got fleeced in this trade at the very least to the tune of a 3rd-round pick, but that would have only been if they had accepted an even trade.
The Lions, a division rival, came calling and the Vikings let them walk all over them.
The Vikings should have obviously made them pay more than fair value to move up those 20 spots for a player they coveted.
Not only that, the Vikings had the chance to select Kyle Hamilton at that 12th overall slot and picked someone at the same position at pick 32 who is not as highly rated of a prospect, all due respect to Lewis Cine.
So the Vikings lost value in the trade, they got a worse player than they otherwise could have, and they let a division rival get a coveted player at a discounted price.
You hate to see it.