By Luke Inman
Heading into Round 1, the theme at Winter Park was heavily set around Rick Spielman doing his best to trade down from the no. 11 pick while trying to quiet the rumors of trading away the face of the franchise Adrian Peterson. With cornerback, offensive line and linebacker all set as the three biggest positions of need it was clear Spielman was set to address those positions, but in what order and exactly who was ranked highest on their board still remained to be seen.
As I put on my own “GM hat” throughout the pre-draft process, specifically days leading up to the draft, it was the cornerback position that shined brightest as the most glaring need from the outside looking in. With free agent acquisition Captain Munnerlyn failing to meet expectations during his first year as a Minnesota Viking it was clear moving him inside during nickel formations was where he was most comfortable. Cornerback was going to be a high priority for the front office.
Enter Michigan State cornerback Trae Waynes. Waynes was a popular pick for the Vikings in the weeks leading up to the draft and was considered the consensus number one cornerback in the entire draft. While those facts rung through loud and clear in the Vikings fan base, it was considered a smoke screen from Spielman, who was thought to covet a more athletically gifted player which fits the history and trends of Vikings draft picks in years past. Knowing this, along with Spielman and Zimmer’s heavy emphasis on smart, instinctive players in their secondary, Connecticut’s Byron Jones was an easy connection from my scouting lens. From a pure schematic standpoint, many had concerns about Waynes’ ability to thrive with Zimmer’s heavy emphasis on getting physical at the line of scrimmage and running with his opponent across the field in a man coverage based scheme. Remember, at Michigan State, Waynes played in a zone scheme the majority of his time on the field, which allowed him to stay on his island and protect his side of the field without the need to stick with his man from sideline-to-sideline.
All this gave way to much concern over the player who was glued to the Vikings in nearly every mock draft known to the internet. The fit wasn’t as natural as one would expect for an early first-round pick, especially with other cornerbacks available that thrived in a very similar scheme to Zimmer’s defense such as Washington’s Marcus Peters, who was considered the best press cover cornerback in the draft.
When Spielman stepped onto the stage at Winter Park for his press conference, he explained his desire to move down but noted the given compensation to do so simply wasn’t there and did not meet the risk versus reward. More specifically when he was asked about how he and his team had Waynes ranked compared to other cornerbacks mentioned, Spielman noted that from top-to-bottom Waynes passed all the tests, and they felt he could, in fact, be very effective as a press-man cornerback under Coach Zimmer. Spielman did crack his first smile and even started to glow when the notion of former first-round pick Xavier Rhodes lining up opposite of Waynes, allowing Munnerlyn to slide inside and killing two birds with one pick. In a division with wide receivers like Calvin Johnson and Alshon Jeffery, adding a long armed cornerback who brought a sense of physicality on the opposite end of Rhodes was clearly something on the minds of both Spielman and Zimmer. The Chicago Bears drafting West Virginia’s Kevin White with the seventh overall pick only solidified that thought process and assured the scouting team that drafting Trae Waynes was indeed the right move. The team now has a talented young nucleus at cornerback with Harrison Smith behind them for the first time in the last decade.
When I asked Zimmer how the addition allows him to become more diverse in his defensive game plan from last year, he spoke confidently that putting Rhodes and Waynes on islands by themselves will open up the playbook and allow him to be more aggressive inside the front-seven. Those words should give even more optimism to a Vikings fan base that watched him take the worst ranked defense into the middle tier of most statistical categories in 2014. Fans should see the exotic playbook of Zimmer open up before their eyes during the 2015 season.