Armchair Distillery

An introduction to the Distillery

Armchair Distillery is the musings of a fan with 50+ years of experience in the Purple. Acutely shaped by his childhood surroundings, the author makes no representation of any in-depth knowledge of the game other than its value to society as a form of mass entertainment that he has enjoyed for over half a century. Feel free to pick apart and disagree with any thoughts put forth. Everyone has a Distilled View from their Armchair, and all are welcome.

Trades, Trades and MORE Trades

The 2022 NFL Draft began as a wild adventure into the unknown for the Vikings faithful. Almost every face in the hierarchy has changed and most of the few that remained were not names that the average fan would recognize. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s first action as captain of the ship was to cross a hidden line and trade down to the very last pick of the first round with the dreaded Motor City Kitties… And the revolt in the fandom was on! So now from a calmer view after some of the storm has passed let’s think about the Lions in general.

The Lions are rebuilding and restructuring again. They took a promising and talented WR with the Vikings #12 pick and added that to a room that includes the names Benson, Cephus, Chark, Kennedy, McKinley, Pimpleton, Raymond, Reynolds, St. Brown and Sutton… Other than Williams from this draft and St. Brown, how many of those guys do you know anything about? Can you pick out the WR1, 2 and 3 right off the bat? Me neither.

TE is a similar issue. T.J. Hackenson leads this room with several non-household names with the probable exception of former Viking Shane Zylstra.

Well, how about the O-Line then? Ragnow, Vaitai and Sewell are the big names here and then there is everyone else. 

QB1 is manned by Jared Goff who has his moments, but he is STILL Jared Goff. If anyone can figure out a way to disrupt Jared at the line, it is the new Vikings Head Coach. The rest of that room is Blough, Boyle and Montez… Shaking in your fuzzy purple slippers yet? Anyone? 

The point of the matter being that even if Williams is an All Pro, he is for the time being stuck on a team that has some notable holes to fill and that will most likely burn up years of his career before hope of a competitive team arrives after Goff is gone and a new QB1 is found. If that doesn’t happen fast enough, you might expect the Lions references on his social media to disappear as has happened with other high-end talent lately. If your team is a perennial cellar dweller, you will never hold onto that caliber of player for very long.

The Packers trade was a win by most any metric that you want to use to measure it other than screaming “BUT IT WAS A TRADE WITH THE PACKERS!!!!” I am not sure anyone is all that afraid of Watson and some questions have arisen from various places about the wisdom of the pick. Regardless of that, the WR and O-Line rooms in Title Town have been decimated. Mr. Rogers commands a huge portion of their salary cap and this will continue to make life difficult as they surround him with an ever-younger team. They will remain competitive as long as he is on the field regardless of who the receivers are.  If they have to resort to playing Love or going even farther down the QB list, they are in deep trouble and everyone knows this. Can you imagine what all of that guaranteed money on the books would look like in the event that a significant injury should befall one of the oldest QBs in the league? Can you say regime change?

So after some thought about who was selected and where they went, the first two trades of the KAM era are not all that disturbing when you look at the situation as a whole. 

The remaining trades were slight journeys up in the middle and slightly down at the end of the draft. It is typical of the late round semantics that the Minnesota fan is used to seeing on a previously grander scale.

Pick Early, Pick Often

If the NFL Draft is indeed a lottery and nobody truly knows for sure what is going to become of these men in a few years, there are really only a couple keys to attempt to be successful. Pick Early, Pick Often would be a great mantra to live by here. As opposed to the former regime, KAM seemed to try to concentrate on the middle of the draft instead of the end. The Vikings do not have a fortune to spend, and they needed more than the original (8) bodies they were scheduled to select. Through all of the gyrations (as painful as they were to watch) more middle round picks appeared and one of the 7^th rounders was peddled off.

Averaging the results of the various draft charts puts the net trade results at about an even value proposition. This being the case, I would submit that the Vikings reduced their divisional rivals drafts by one pick each while increasing their own by 2 relatively high picks. (Picks #66 overall from the Lions and #59 overall from Green Bay) The more you can reduce your opponents ability to replenish themselves when they are in a potentially tenuous position is a gleeful opportunity to kick them when they are down.

Upon further review

Recently more information has come to light in a video (https://www.vikings.com/video/introducing-inside-the-2022-vikings-draft) that gives us a significant insight into how the Vikings may operate the draft in the KAM era. It is mentioned that they have specifically targeted 34 through 77 as having the best value in the draft and that horned swedes were nervously waiting to pounce on Cine at pick 32. Described as a “dream scenario,” they got their man. They also made moves to garner as many selections as possible within that 44-selection window.

Obtaining 9% of their most coveted picks is an achievement. They knew what they wanted and boldly pursued it and for that there should be an acknowledgement of a successful strategy. Exactly what that strategy is or what potentially vast analytics it is based on? God in heaven may know, but I do not! (And unless your initials are KAM, you probably don’t either…)

It does however give us an idea that going forward, the Minnesota Vikings will be very thoughtful about what they are doing and how it effects every aspect of the team and its function. This revealing piece of information only confirms that for the time being, we will have no clue as to what the draft strategy will be, only that there is indeed going to be one and it will be complex to say the least.

Distilled thoughts

Purely from a fandom standpoint I thought there were some good things that happened in the draft this year. Sure, it was chaotic and maddening at times, but if you are a fan of the Purple this is nothing new. 

In the end, the Vikings garnered the MVP of the College Football National Championship Game. Booth was not supposed to be available that late in the draft and there were those that called for him to be selected much earlier by the Purple. The hullabaloo brought some interesting new drafted and FA pieces that will most certainly break or change the starting lineup. New schemes and (hopefully) more creativity in the game plans should be coming… There is plenty to hope for, ponder, consider and banter about with your friends and relatives and THAT makes it all the more fun!

Skol!