General Manager Rick Spielman just wrapped up his annual pre-draft press conference, and no, he didn't tell us whom the Vikings plan to select with the 11th overall pick Thursday night.
Spielman did say their options are "wide open" when it comes to their first-round selection.
"We're sitting at the 11th spot right now," Spielman said. "But I just went through five different scenarios this morning. What if a potential pass rusher falls down? What if a potential offensive lineman [does]? And there's multiple offensive linemen that we're looking at it. What if a [defensive back] falls down? What if the receivers fall down? … We are wide open on any direction that we're going to go. There's no way set [position], honed-in, we're taking this position."
Spielman said that the way the team's draft board has been assembled, with a smaller first tier of prospects and a large cluster of similarly-rated prospects in a second tier, the Vikings might have an opportunity to address a need with their first pick without sacrificing much, if any, prospect value.
"After we developed our draft board, and you look at maybe those top five or six players and how we drafted this draft, I think when you go from the seventh or eighth player down to the 20th player, I don't know if there's that much difference," Spielman said. "We think they're all very talented but we think they're all close in talent. So the benefit to that now is that you have an opportunity to fill a need. … If those [prospects] are that close, then what are we going to do to fill a need?"
Spielman said that a trade-up is unlikely this year, but the Vikings are receptive to trading down.
