Minnesota Vikings landed the best undrafted steal of 2023

Players fall through the cracks of the NFL Draft every single year, and the 2023 NFL Draft is no different. There was a frenzy after the 2023 Draft of teams calling players, making offers, and making recruiting pitches to get some of the top-priority undrafted guys into their camp and onto their 90-man rosters. The Minnesota Vikings may have signed the cream of the crop.

After a really solid draft class headlined by first-round wide receiver Jordan Addison, the Vikings went out after the 2023 NFL Draft and gave a massive guarantee of $300,000 to former Army EDGE rusher Andre Carter II, a player some felt could be in the first-round conversation at one point in time.

Minnesota Vikings may have found biggest UDFA steal in Andre Carter II

Not that they did this for Andre Carter II, but the Minnesota Vikings did just make a trade to send away former free agent acquisition Za’Darius Smith to the Cleveland Browns. They signed former Saints first-round pick Marcus Davenport in free agency and obviously still have Danielle Hunter, but this is a team that needed to make some changes and upgrades off the edge and they may have done that at a significantly reduced cost with the signing of UDFA Andre Carter.

Here’s what NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein had to say about Carter in the pre-draft process:

"Long and rangy, Carter is currently best suited as a 3-4 rush linebacker on passing downs, but is likely to develop into an every-down player with additional growth both physically and technically. Carter needs to play with more skilled hands and inject a little more glass into his on-field diet in order to meet force with force when the run game comes downhill at him. His explosive get-off and natural bend/agility at the top of the rush are enough to create early opportunities for himself as a quarterback hunter. Carter might need a longer runway to meet his potential, but if does his pass-rush homework, he could take a substantial leap forward as an odd or even front edge rusher by Year 3.Lance Zierlein, NFL.com"

Now, Zierlein actually had Carter projected as a 5th-6th-round pick, and that’s where the Vikings really slotted him in terms of the guaranteed contract he received from the team. Giving Carter $300,000 in guarantees to sign essentially valued him as a 5th-round pick. Rookie contracts are pre-slotted and so you can look back at prior NFL Draft classes and find that As a matter of fact, every pick in the 2022 NFL Draft taken after pick 167 overall received less in guarantees than what the Vikings gave to Andre Carter.

It’s no wonder Kevin O’Connell says it’s like they got an extra draft pick — they’re certainly paying him like one…

Carter is a long, rangy pass rusher whose production in 2021 was obviously a lot better than what we saw in 2022. He had 14.5 sacks, 17 tackles for loss, and four forced fumbles in 2021. In 2022, he had just 3.5 sacks, 7.5 tackles for loss, and no forced fumbles.

It’s a pretty stark difference in production even with playing two fewer games in the 2022 season as compared to 2021, but the upside is still there for Carter and the Vikings are clearly banking on him returning to form, at least somewhat.

What I like the most about Carter’s projection to the NFL is that you can already see a well-developed pass rush plan from him. He is 6-foot-7 and looks a bit on the lanky side, but part of that has to do with how much weight he lost being part of the Army program and having to do specific training each year which caused him to lose 20-25 pounds. Now at the NFL level, he will be able to shape his body in an NFL program and perhaps become an every-down edge player.

And that’s where the vision for this player really is. He might be at least a year away from playing an every-down role in the NFL, but I think there is a chance he could get there as an undrafted free agent quicker than a lot of other guys in his situation. Given the upside and hype surrounding this player leading up to last season, if he can get back to 2021 form and fill out his 6-foot-7 frame, he’s going to have a great shot at being the biggest UDFA steal of the 2023 class for the Minnesota Vikings.