With the 2024 NFL Draft roughly weeks away, the Minnesota Vikings and Houston Texans pulled off a low-key sneaky trade that could have ripple effects going into the Motor City. The trade, in which Minnesota receives 23, 232 and Houston receives 42, 188, and 2025 2nd. The Instant thought process is that this will lead to a second trade on draft day.
There’s 3 potential trading spots:
Patriots at 3
Cardinals at 4
Chargers at 5
What it requires we’ll see. At minimum, it will require both 11 and 23.
The Patriots have always been known to move back but which QB do they take? They don’t trade Mac Jones for a bag of peanuts without drafting a potential QB themselves right? So, I’d say trading here isn’t impossible, but if the Pats covet let’s say Penix or Nix more then they make the trade and take one of those two at 11.
However, with Jerod Mayo being an SEC guy, my instinct is that they go Daniels out of LSU here.
The wildcard for the Patriots is JJ McCarthy. With McCarthy attending the University of Michigan, we all know how that last Wolverine QB played out in New England. He turned out to be “better than most”.
If you’re a golf fan, you’ll understand what that quote actually means.
Cardinals and Chargers both need WR’s Badly.
If Marvin Harrison Jr, and Malik Nabers are the top WRs on their board they better stay where they’re at especially with the Giants at 6. However, if the Cardinals or the Chargers are ok with Rome Odunze or Brian Thomas Jr. then one of these trades would make sense depending on what WR either of those two teams are coveting at 4 and 5.
The unknown here is the pick number of the 2025 2nd.
If Minnesota’s second round pick is before 50, I’d give the slight edge to Houston here. If the 2025 pick is 57 or later then Minnesota I’d say would win the trade considering 57 means they won at least one playoff game. 50-56 I’d call it neutral.
We shall see what happens next. The main question for the Vikes here is who is their next trade partner going to be, and then I’ll give you an initial Draft Grade. Houston.
We know Texans general manager Nick Caserio came from the New England tree, and they may feel like this draft class is deep enough to move back to 42 without major impact to their future plans.
Maybe moving up 45 spots with swap of late round picks means there’s plenty of talent on Day 3 that they feel will be solid contributors. This Houston team is young and absolutely loaded with talent so adding the 2nd in 2025, potentially makes sense depending on where that 2nd falls.
I’d give this a B for Minnesota and a B- for Houston