If you were busy watching the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments or tuned into Cody Rhodes’ quest to complete his story over the weekend, you may have missed an NFL note of significance. The Carolina Panthers signed defensive tackle Derrick Brown to a four-year, $96 million contract extension.
What’s the big deal? Well, Brown was the seventh overall pick in the 2020 draft and has developed over the past four seasons into an absolute force against the run and a pocket-pusher extraordinaire versus the pass. He is now the 10th defensive tackle to clear $20 million per season. This offseason has also seen Christian Wilkins, Chris Jones and Justin Madubuike break the bank as well.
The middle men are catching up with the edge rushers. Last year Nick Bosa set the bar at $34 million per year and new New York Giant Brian Burns came within shouting distance of that when he signed for $141 million over five years. Montez Sweat, Rashan Gary and Danielle Hunter all landed their own deals of $24 million-plus recently as well.
Now let’s compare that to what the 11th and 23rd overall pick will make according to the rookie wage scale. For No. 11, that mystery player will be signed for four years, $20 million and $14 million for Pick 23 X. Some rough math puts the surplus value between a rookie contract defensive tackle and a top-notch second-contract veteran at about $15-$17 million per year for a defensive tackle and $19-$21 million for a pass rusher.
In straight forward terms: If the Vikings were to land a first-round stud defensive linemen, it would have enormous positive ramifications on their performance up front and salary cap during that player’s rookie deal.
Before we dive into the next part, it’s worth making crystal clear that nothing is more important than grabbing the top quarterback choice of head coach Kevin O’Connell. If the Vikings’ QB whisperer believes that moving up to the top three and selling everything they have in terms of draft capital to get there, then that is the right move and we don’t have to talk any more about defensive linemen. But if it’s close…
Most mock drafts are projecting somewhere between 8-10 offensive players to be taken before the Vikings pick at 11, which means that the Vikings taking a defensive player with the 11th pick would be a top-of-the-line prospect at that position. And even if the Vikings used No. 11 to select a quarterback, the 23rd pick would still likely feature one of the 10 best players in the draft on the defensive side.
This draft might not have Myles Garrett but the players on the defensive line are particularly enticing should the Vikings select anything other than a QB at No. 11 or pick a QB at 11 and draft defense with the 23rd selection.
The class is headed up by Alabama’s Dallas Turner, who racked up 22.5 sacks over the last three years and put together an elite 19.6% pass rush win rate (per PFF) and graded 89.3 (out of 100) as a pass rusher. NFL.com compares him to Brian Burns.
UCLA edge rusher Laiatu Latu is considered a technical wizard. He has 23.5 sacks over the last two seasons and had 47 non-sack pressures last season.
Florida State’s Jared Verse has 18.0 sacks between 2022 and 2023. He managed a remarkable 21.8% pass-rush win rate and registered a 96th percentile athletic score.
On the defensive tackle side, Byron Murphy II took a huge step forward in 2023 with 5.0 sacks and a 91.5 PFF pass rush grade.
At Illinois, Johnny Newton has steadily gotten better, going from 5.5 to 7.5 sacks over the last year and posting strong numbers as a pass rusher and run stopper (77.1 grade vs. run).
Even if all of them are taken between 11 and 23, the D-linemen projected for the back end of the first round are intriguing. Penn State’s Chop Robinson didn’t have huge sack numbers but graded above 90 by PFF in 2022 and 2023. Alabama’s Chris Baswell had nearly the same pass rush win rate as Turner (18.2%). Missouri’s Darius Robinson had 8.5 sacks and stood out as an all-around talent at the Senior Bowl.
We don’t have to look very far for living proof of deep defensive lines making a significant impact. Last year the 49ers ranked by PFF as the third best pass rushing team in the NFL. In 2022, the NFC’s Super Bowl representative Eagles were No. 1. In 2021, the Super Bowl winning Rams ranked No. 1. In 2020, Tampa Bay was eighth and 2019 the 49ers third. You get the picture.
The Vikings do not presently have the juice to rank in the top five as a pass rushing unit, even with Brian Flores’ ability to manufacture sacks. If Jonathan Greenard repeats his 12.5 sack showing, the interior of the D-line still has no proven rusher and Andrew Van Ginkel is a more-around player rather than a pure rusher.
In the future the Vikings will be able to spend money to get more talent on defense thanks to Kirk Cousins’ enormous cap hit belonging to the Atlanta Falcons but top-notch pass rushers are not always available and the biggest free agent names are sought after by every team with some cap space in its pocket.
It’s also not a spot where draft-and-develop always works. Out of the top 10 edge rushers in average annual salary, only two weren’t first-round picks. On the DT side it’s nine of the top 12.
We know the Vikings have tried and tried and tried to draft and develop D-line. And as we saw from DJ Wonnum, by the time a team develops a fourth-rounder to a starter, he hits free agency.
Again, if the Vikings are looking at Drake Maye and Drake Maye only and they are all set to trade up to No. 3 and hope to never have regrets, then they’ll have to take another route. Maybe a trade i.e. Khalil Mack or Bradley Chubb or DeForest Buckner. But if they are close between two QB prospects and one requires a move up, the fact that they can potentially land a difference-making D-lineman should be factored into the equation, not treated as a total afterthought.
