RandBall: End of Vikings’ season reinforced need for more help from draft

Upon reading colleague Andrew Krammer’s story about how the Vikings were the oldest team in the NFL and fielded the oldest defense in the playoffs last season, I started to make a mental list of all their recent draft picks who ended the season as starters on offense or defense.

Going back three years in my head, the entirety of the drafts since Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was hired as general manager and Kevin O’Connell was hired as head coach, I quickly counted 2023 first-round pick Jordan Addison.

And then the ol’ memory was fuzzy, so I consulted Pro Football Reference. Turns out my memory wasn’t that fuzzy.

Addison was the only Vikings draft pick from the past three years out of the 22 players who started the most critical games of the Vikings’ season: the regular-season finale against Detroit and the playoff loss to the Rams.

We’ll get to the caveats and hedges in a moment, but first, it might interest you to know how many draft picks from the past three years the Lions had in their defensive or offensive starting lineup in that resounding 31-9 win over the Vikings that clinched home-field advantage.

Eight.

Gulp, as I talked about near the end of Friday’s Daily Delivery podcast.

The Vikings cannot expect to make up all that ground in one year, especially with a paucity of picks in 2025. But simply put, they must get more out of their past and future drafts next year and beyond.

That is where the caveats are at least useful in explaining how Addison was alone with his status last year.

J.J. McCarthy and Dallas Turner, last year’s first-round picks, were not starters in 2024. If healthy, both figure to be huge factors in 2025 and beyond. The same could be said for 2023 third-round pick Mekhi Blackmon, who was injured last season.

The death of 2024 fourth-round pick Khyree Jackson is a tragedy that looks crude placed next to other names but still needs to be noted.

Linebacker Ivan Pace Jr., an undrafted free agent in 2023, should have a long and productive career here.

If we re-examine this list at the end of 2025, we might find anywhere from four to six Vikings players chosen in the last three drafts who started the regular-season finale.