The Vikings would like to trade down from the 11th pick. Rick Speilman said this at a news conference the other day. Trading down is a little more difficult than one might think. More teams would like to trade down than trade up, and you need to be in a position where talented, desired players are still available. It may be that they will have no trade partners and have to pick at that position. But I do think if one of the top three WR prospects is available at 11, the Vikings have a decent chance of trading down.
Now, for the Vikings, I don't think trading down is just for the sake of trading down; there is a purpose to it. This might seem like a totally obvious statement—of course there is a purpose, the purpose is to collect more picks. Certainly, that is part of it. But I think the Vikings are trading down to a particular position so that they can draft a particular player. I think they are looking to get somewhere around pick 17–21 and, if they successfully trade to one of those picks, they will draft Shaq Thompson from Washington. This is the sense I get from reading many articles about who the Vikings have visited with and the prospects they have had come in.
The reason I think they like Shaq Thompson is that I think they see him as a player a bit like Kam Chancellor—a guy too big for a safety, but too small for a linebacker. But in the right defense, a player who can be dominating. I think if they draft Thompson, they will play him at strong safety. Another "tell" for picking Thompson was the free-agent signing of Taylor Mays. Mays is a similarly sized guy—too big for a safety, but too small for a linebacker—so here is a free agent who can be a perfect backup to the position they have in mind for Thompson. In the future NFL, teams are going to be looking for defenders who can stay with the new breed of faster, taller tight ends. And those players are going to be these tweeners like Chancellor and Thompson.
My other thought is that Chancellor is successful in the Seattle defense because the rest of the defense is so good. If Chancellor played on a poor defense, he would be a lot less successful. I think that Zimmer thinks highly enough of his defense to think that playing Thompson at safety will not be a liability, but an asset.
