Who plays quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings in 2024 is a giant question and so is the question of what the Vikings will do in the first round of the NFL Draft.
With Kirk Cousins a free agent, the starting quarterback job for the Vikings is up in the air but Brett Kollman of The Film Room and The Bootleg Football Podcast believes the Vikings will try to trade up for his replacement in the 2024 NFL Draft.
“I don’t think people realize how hard the Vikings tried to trade up for Anthony Richardson last year,” Kollman said on The Mina Kimes Show Featuring Lenny. “The haul they put on the table was massive.”
Kollman continued to insinuate that the Vikings were ready to make a move for Richardson, who was selected fourth overall by the Indianapolis Colts.
Since the Carolina Panthers selected Bryce Young with the first overall pick and the Houston Texans selected C.J. Stroud with the second pick, Kollman’s hunch possibly involved the Arizona Cardinals, who traded the No. 3 pick to the Texans before the Colts took Richardson.
“They were going to give away the entire farm, the cat…like all of it,” Kollman said. “They were going to give everything, but it takes two to tango. Their trade partner thought they were going to be too good and so they went elsewhere because they didn’t want low picks.”
“I still feel like Minnesota’s going to make a move,” Kollman continued.
Because the Vikings were supposedly so aggressive in trying to land Richardson a year ago, Kollman believes the Vikings will do the same in this year’s draft. While the Chicago Bears could select USC quarterback Caleb Williams with the first overall pick and UNC’s Drake Maye is projected to be gone soon after, Kollman speculates that LSU’s Jayden Daniels could make a perfect target for the Vikings in April.
“I just feel like he’s a Kevin O’Connell type of quarterback to me,” Kollman said before also mentioning Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. as a target. “I really do think the added mobility and all the stuff that you can do with him in the run game is kind of a factor there and if they tried and failed to get [Richardson] last year for that exact reason, I have to imagine Daniels is on that list too. If they can go up and get him I think they will.”
Daniels spent the first three years of his college career at Arizona State, throwing for 22 touchdowns and three interceptions in his first two seasons before throwing 10 touchdowns and 10 interceptions in 2021.
After transferring to LSU, Daniels threw for 2,913 yards, 17 touchdowns and three interceptions while completing 68.6 percent of his passes for the Tigers in 2022 and took off this past season, throwing for 3,812 yards, 40 touchdowns and four interceptions en route to winning the Heisman Trophy.
But the added element of Daniels’s game is his running ability, which has accounted for 2,019 yards and 21 rushing touchdowns over the past two seasons.
Even if the Vikings are interested in Daniels, it could involve a hefty trade to bring him to Minnesota as NFL Mock Draft Database currently has Daniels as the fifth overall pick on its consensus mock draft board.
Kollman speculates that the Los Angeles Chargers, who already have Justin Herbert at quarterback and the sixth overall pick entering Sunday’s games, could make for a potential trade partner if the Vikings are interested in a deal. Kollman, by the way, works with the Chargers.
With Cousins’s future in limbo, the Vikings could be in the market for a quarterback in the draft. But if Kollman’s intel is true, they could be on the verge of a blockbuster deal that could shape the future of the franchise.
