Minnesota Vikings Needs & Mock Draft for 2024

As a lead-up to the 2024 NFL draft, we’ve broken down the current depth chart of every NFL team and identified the biggest draft and team needs for the Minnesota Vikings.

You can find additional team-by-team draft needs articles and other draft content on our 2024 NFL Draft Hub.

Who Did the Minnesota Vikings Select in the 2024 NFL Draft?

The Minnesota Vikings selected J.J. McCarthy (QB, Michigan) with the No. 10 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.

The Vikings also drafted:

Dallas Turner (EDGE, Alabama)
Khyree Jackson (CB, Oregon)
Walter Rouse (OT, Oklahoma)
Will Reichard (K, Alabama)
Michael Jurgens (C, Wake Forest)
Levi Drake Rodriguez (DT, Texas A&M Commerce)

Minnesota Vikings Needs: Top Positions of Need in 2024

Quarterback
Defensive Line
Defensive Back

What Picks Do the Minnesota Vikings Have in 2024?

The Minnesota Vikings have 9 picks in the 2024 NFL Draft, including:

Round 1 (11)
Round 1 (23)
Round 4 (108)
Round 4 (129)
Round 5 (157)
Round 5 (167)
Round 6 (177)
Round 7 (230)
Round 7 (232)

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Minnesota Vikings Draft Capital Stats

Our Sharp Draft Value Rank is a valuation of draft capital based on a combination of average performance delivered and average dollars earned on second contracts.

This is based on two public models: performance delivered based on draft slot (the AV model created by Chase Stuart) and contractual earnings in non-rookie deals based upon draft slot (the OTC model created by Brad Spielberger and Jason Fitzgerald).

Vikings Sharp Draft Value Rank: 8 of 32 teams
Vikings AV Model Draft Value Rank: 9 of 32 teams
Vikings OTC Model Draft Value Rank: 10 of 32 teams

Minnesota Vikings Draft Value vs. Other Teams:

The Vikings’ draft value is 9% higher than the league average of all 32 teams. Seven other teams have more draft value entering the 2024 NFL Draft.

Minnesota Vikings Draft Prediction:

Brendan Donahue has the Vikings trading up to No. 5 overall to select J.J. McCarthy (QB, Michigan) in his most recent 2024 NFL Mock Draft.

Mock draft expert Ryan McCrystal believes the Vikings could target a quarterback like J.J. McCarthy (QB, Michigan) with their top pick at No. 11 overall in the first round.

Minnesota Vikings Strength of Schedule, 2024

The Minnesota Vikings have the fifth-hardest NFL strength of schedule for the 2024 NFL season.

Minnesota Vikings Offense: Depth Chart, Analysis & Draft Needs

Rich Hribar breaks down the offensive depth chart by position for the Minnesota Vikings, identifying areas where the team could improve in the upcoming 2024 NFL Draft.

Quarterback Depth Chart, Vikings:

Sam Darnold
Nick Mullens
Jaren Hall

After losing Kirk Cousins to free agency, Minnesota is a nebulous spot at quarterback.

They have acquired an extra first-round pick in this year’s draft with the potential to trade up for the QB3 or QB4 in this class.

They also could pray that a quarterback they are targeting slides down to pick No. 11. That seems very thin right now, but we have seen secondary quarterbacks be overvalued the past two seasons by mock drafters.

The Vikings also could end up being forced to kick the can and roll into 2024 with Sam Darnold and a backup group of Nick Mullens and Jaren Hall.

After losing Cousins for the year last year, Minnesota quarterbacks combined for an 81.4 passer rating (26th in the NFL), a 3.8% touchdown rate (20th), and a league-worst 4.4% interception rate.

The team went from ninth in EPA per dropback with Cousins under center down to 20th in the league without him on the field.

In the last resort event that they do have to start Darnold this season, we did see him end the 2022 season on a positive note in his last sample as a starting quarterback.

Reclaiming the starting job in Weeks 12-18 in 2022, Darnold was second in yards per pass attempt (8.2) over that stretch.

Darnold has a larger sample of subpar quarterback play than good over six five years in the NFL, but he will still be just 27 years old at the start of the season.

Running Back Depth Chart, Vikings:

Aaron Jones
Ty Chandler
Kene Nwangwu
Myles Gaskin
DeWayne McBride
C.J. Ham (FB)

The Vikings fielded a subpar running game in 2023.

Their running backs combined to rank:

21st in yards per carry (4.0 YPC)
20th in EPA per rush (-0.10)
23rd in the rate of runs that failed to gain yardage (19.0%)
20th in the rate of explosive runs (8.9%)
28th in the rate of runs that resulted in a first down or touchdown (17.2%)

The team handed the backfield over to Alexander Mattison last offseason, despite a mountain of evidence showing Mattison was below the base rate at the position.

Out of 49 running backs with 100 or more rushes during the regular season, Mattison was 39th in EPA per rush (-0.17) and 47th in the rate of runs to result in a first down or touchdown (15.6%).

Mattison was released this offseason after another performance below the league baseline.

After Aaron Jones became available when Green Bay signed Josh Jacobs, Minnesota quickly swooped in and added Jones to the roster.

Jones will turn 30 during the upcoming season and is coming off a season in which he missed six games due to injury.

Jones suffered a hamstring in Week 1 after posting 127 total yards and two touchdowns.

He never got right until late in the season, returning to the lineup on two different occasions only to reaggravate that injury and miss more time.

There is certainly fragility here, but when Jones was healthy last season, he was still a solid running back.

He closed the season on an absolute tear.

Over the final five games of the season, Jones went over 100 yards rushing in all five of those games. That was the longest streak of 100-yard rushing games in franchise history.

Over that span of games, Jones had an explosive run on 20.6% of his rushes and averaged 4.14 yards after contact per rush.

The Vikings have Ty Chandler as support for Jones.

Chandler also closed the 2023 season on a positive note, ending his second season in the NFL with 123 touches for 620 total yards (5.0 yards per touch) after having just six touches as a rookie.

Chandler ranked 14th out of 49 running backs with 100 or more rushes in EPA per rush (-0.03) and 19th in success rate (38.0%).

Chandler is the only running back on the roster signed beyond the 2024 season.

A body could be added here as contractual depth, but the combination of Jones and Chandler allows Minnesota to look for a long-term starter down the road.

Wide Receiver Depth Chart, Vikings:

Justin Jefferson
Jordan Addison
Brandon Powell
Trent Sherfield
Jalen Nailor
N’Keal Harry
Trishton Jackson
Dontavian Jackson
Malik Knowles
Daylen Baldwin
Thayer Thomas

Justin Jefferson remains a premier talent at this position.

Even with missing seven games last season due to a hamstring issue, Jefferson managed to go over 1,000 yards receiving for the fourth consecutive season.

No player in league history has more receiving yards through four years of their career than Jefferson.

In 2023, he averaged 107.4 receiving yards per game, which was second in the NFL behind Tyreek Hill.

The only thing hanging in the air is when Minnesota and Jefferson can agree on the pending contract extension that makes him the highest-paid player at his position.

Jordan Addison had a successful rookie campaign, catching 70 passes for 911 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Minnesota also had a look at Addison being the lead wideout for a stretch when Jefferson missed the crux of the middle of the season.

On 323 routes run with Jefferson off the field as a rookie, Addison averaged 1.50 yards per route run, carrying 22.3% of the team targets with a target on 19.5% of his routes.

On 283 routes run with Jefferson on the field, Addison still averaged 1.50 yards per route run despite only seeing 13.9% of the team targets with a target on 15.9% of his routes.

He had more touchdowns (six) with Jefferson on the field at the same time as him.

Addison should be tasked to take on a larger role in year two paired with the potential that T.J. Hockenson will miss time or be limited to start the season due to his late-season ACL injury.

While the combination of Jefferson and Addison is a solid duo, the rest of this wide receiver room is made up of non-playable characters.

We saw Minnesota go from fifth in the NFL in rate of 11 personnel in 2022 (73.5%) down to 13th in 2023 (64.7%) in large part due to Jefferson’s injury and their lack of viable depth.

That was with K.J. Osborn running 558 pass routes (78.8% of the team dropbacks), and he left the team during free agency.

If looking for some silver lining, Brandon Powell did outperform Osborn on a per-route basis on his smaller sample size in 2023.

Powell ran 287 pass routes (40.5% of the dropbacks), averaging 1.13 yards per route run compared to Osborn’s 0.97 yards per route run.

But I would wager that either the Vikings are going to add another viable option at the position via the draft or afterward with a veteran signing. If not, that rate of 11 personnel could dip again in 2024 due to their current roster.

This could be a landing spot for someone like Michael Thomas, Tyler Boyd, or Hunter Renfrow to come in and eat up slot snaps in 3WR sets.

The need for a stable third option in the passing game is also compounded by the potential that the team will be without a fully operational version of Hockenson for the early part of the 2024 season.

Addison, Jalen Nailor, and Malik Knowles are the only wide receivers on the team under contract for multiple seasons.

There is also the non-zero percent outcome where the team and Jefferson end up in a stalemate.

While there is not a dire immediate need to use their front-end draft picks on a wide receiver, this team still has room to add a wide receiver to the roster.