Vikings To Begin Day 3 With Whopping 13 Picks After Trade

[Viktor]

Spielman, however, said there's a strong chance the Vikings could package the 13 picks to move up, or even look to the future for draft picks in 2021.


"Well, you don't know what's going to happen [Saturday] if we'll keep all those picks," Spielman said. "We could move up. We could turn some of those picks to picks next year, as well, and flip over to 2021 picks. I really have a lot of faith … that we are going to get some good players out of that third day, but also gives us some opportunity to potentially add some picks to next year's draft.


"We can even — I don't want to say over pay — but be even more aggressive if we hone in on some guys, especially in that fourth-round area," Spielman added. "With three [fourth-round] picks, if you can potentially move in there and get more picks in that fourth round, you're getting the best of the third day, and hopefully that will be what we try to do, but we'll just have to see how it all goes."


Spielman noted that the Vikings tried to trade up in the third round before pick No. 89, but just couldn't find a suitable trade partner.


"It was all just trying to find a partner that wanted to trade with you," Spielman said. "We tried to be aggressive, we just couldn't get a trade partner to deal with us."


Spielman tabbed Saturday as "college scout day," meaning players will likely be found through the hard work and efforts of college scouts who traverse the country each spring, summer and autumn looking for prospects.


Minnesota had 60 players on its roster entering the draft, meaning the Vikings can add more than two dozen more players before the limit of 90. And with the undrafted free-agency process being different this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Spielman noted that the team could prefer to draft players instead of competing with other organizations to sign a guy multiple teams prefer.


"I know I feel very strong about our plan in college free agency and how we're going to do that," Spielman said. "But having this amount of picks, it alleviates some of that stress in college free agency just because of the situation that we're dealing with right now.


"So, having a lot of those picks in the third day — we have four in the seventh round and three in the sixth round — a lot of those guys that we like that if they did get the free agency, you'd have to be battling with [other teams]," Spielman added. "We have an opportunity to probably select those guys."