In just nine days, all the speculation will finally be put to rest when Kwesi Adofo-Mensah makes his first selection in the NFL Draft as general manager of the Minnesota Vikings. And with a viable case to be made that the 12th-overall pick should go to any and every position group on the defensive side of the ball, the interior offensive line, and/or wide receiver, today we’re going to settle once and for all why former Georgia Bulldogs defensive tackle Jordan Davis is the right pick at the right time for Minnesota.
First, let’s start by following the bread crumbs of success. The past two Super Bowl champions — Los Angeles Rams and Tampa Bay Buccaneers — flexed their defensive chops on football’s biggest stage when they won their respective championships. Both the Rams and Buccaneers had defenses that were defined by their dominant front four.
With game-wreckers lined up all across their fronts in Aaron Donald, Von Miller, Leonard Floyd, Vita Vea, Ndamukong Suh, and Jason Pierre-Paul, all six of these players are former top-15 picks. And they most certainly made their presence felt on both Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes en route to securing Lombardi Trophies.
While Pro Football Focus claims that defensive back is the highest defensive positional value according to their Wins Above Replacement (WAR) model, the most successful NFL teams aren’t allocating their top resources as such. In fact, the three best defenses in the NFC this past season — Rams, San Francisco 49ers, and Buccaneers — all combined to have one former first-round pick at cornerback throughout their rosters (Jalen Ramsey). Conversely, those three defenses had nine total former first-round picks scattered across their fronts (Nick Bosa, Arik Armstead, and Javon Kinlaw).
It’s no secret that these defenses have a distinct vision as to how they’re going to achieve success by forcing opposing offenses off the field. By stopping the run on early downs and creating obvious passing situations on third-and-long, these teams have decided that they’ll have a much higher success rate by having these aforementioned game-wreckers up front create havoc in more advantageous matchups against opposing offensive lines.
Next, let’s talk about Minnesota’s existing cornerbacks. With Patrick Peterson entering his age-32 season, it most definitely makes sense to invest in the cornerback room in the upcoming draft. However, Peterson turned back the clock and improved his numbers across the board from 2018, which just so happened to be his most recent Pro Bowl selection.
2018 (Pro Bowl season)
- 58.3 completion percentage allowed
- 7.0 yards per target
- 88.0 passer rating when targeted
2021
- 56.6 completion percentage allowed
- 6.3 yards per target
- 78.7 passer rating when targeted
But are we sure that the Vikings don’t already have a player on the roster who can effectively fill Peterson’s shoes as the top corner down the road?
In just his second year in the league, Cameron Dantzler led all NFL cornerbacks at 4.7 yards allowed per target this past season. Which begs the question: How on Earth did the self-proclaimed cornerback whisperer Mike Zimmer think that Bashaud Breeland was a better option at corner last year?
Not only did Dantzler lead all corners in yards per target, but he also forced a very respectable 74.7 passer rating when targeted last season.
On Monday, Cleveland Browns cornerback Denzel Ward signed a five-year, $100.5 million extension — the richest contract in NFL history for a corner. For context, here’s how Dantzler stacked up against Ward in these two critical metrics.
Although Minnesota ranked 28th in defending the pass last season, that blood won’t be found on Dantzler or Peterson’s hands. Unfortunately, Zimmer’s beloved Mackensie Alexander‘s 119.2 passer rating when targeted and Breeland’s 109.0 passer rating when targeted has much more to do with the Vikings’ porous secondary from last year.
With the addition of nickelback Chandon Sullivan and his combined 82.1 passer rating when targeted over the past 49 games since 2019, the Vikings don’t currently have an Alexander or Breeland-esque weak spot for opposing quarterbacks to pick on.
Do Vikings fans actually expect a rookie corner such as Derek Stingley Jr. or Trent McDuffie to start over Dantzler in 2022 after the year he just had? Or are fans simply asking for said rookie to have a redshirt year behind Peterson and Dantzler and provide depth should one of them miss time this coming season, and to fill Peterson’s spot in the starting lineup in 2023?
For a team that appears to have every intention of competing in 2022, I’m not sold on the Vikings’ brass electing to go in a direction for a player who wouldn’t provide an immediate impact on their roster — especially with the number of quality cornerbacks that can be had on Day 2 of the draft, such as Auburn’s Roger McCreary or Nebraska’s Cam Taylor-Britt.
Which brings me back to Davis. Unlike cornerback, where the starters are playing damn near 100% of the snaps (Peterson played 98% of snaps last season), interior defensive linemen are rotated far more frequently than their pals in the secondary.
Much of the criticism of Davis throughout the draft process has been that he wasn’t an every-down player for Georgia’s defense. Although the former Bulldog walked away from the 2021 season with the Chuck Bednarik Award (given to the nation’s best defensive player), the Outland Trophy (given to the nation’s best offensive or defensive lineman), was a unanimous All-American, and a National Champion, the draft pundits have their doubts about his ability to dominate at the next level.
Circling back on Tampa Bay’s Vita Vea — the player that Davis is often compared to due to their shared combination of size, power, and speed — this past season, Vea made the Pro Bowl while playing just 56% of the snaps for the Buccaneers’ defense, which included 42% and 47% of snaps in Tampa Bay’s playoff games.
Theoretically, Minnesota would be able to rotate Dalvin Tomlinson, Harrison Phillips, and Davis in 2022, should they decide to select the menacing Bulldog defensive tackle with the 12th pick. And with Tomlinson in the final year of his contract, Davis would enter 2023 as an undeniable starter for the Vikings defense.
Interestingly enough, Adofo-Mensah spent seven seasons working in the San Francisco 49ers front office from 2013 to 2019. During that time, the 49ers spent first-round picks on defensive linemen in four of Adofo-Mensah’s final five years with the front office. Two of them turned out to be All-Pros.
- Arik Armstead, 2015
- DeForest Buckner, 2016
- Solomon Thomas, 2017
- Nick Bosa, 2019
With Harrison Phillips being the first player that Adofo-Mensah signed in free agency, could that mean that the Vikings’ new general manager will bring the same blueprint to Minnesota by prioritizing the defensive front?
If the Vikings want a player who can provide an immediate impact for a defense that ranked 26th in defending the run last season, while making life considerably easier for his fellow defensive linemen, Davis is the most logical pick for a team that wants to live in both the present and the future in 2022.
Should the Vikings’ offense make the jump that folks are expecting them to with the arrival of Kevin O’Connell, opposing teams will do everything in their power to keep Minnesota’s offense off the field in 2022. And the easiest way to do that is by effectively running the ball and playing ball-control by sustaining long drives.
Good luck with that when Jordan Davis is up front.
