There are many reasons to believe in the future of the Minnesota Vikings’ offense. Even with questions about who will be under center, the Vikings have assembled a top-tier infrastructure to bring the best out of any quarterback.
But just as much as an elite set of tackles and a generational wide receiver are part of that foundation, they also have one of the league’s best tight ends in T.J. Hockenson.
After catching 60 passes for 519 yards and three touchdowns in 10 games with Minnesota, Hockenson is viewed as a foundational piece of the offense. But with the draft approaching, it’s fair to wonder if this was a deal that needed to be made – especially with the strength of this year’s tight end class.
Pro Football Network’s Arif Hasan currently has six tight ends listed in the top 65 prospects in this year’s consensus big board. The board, which compiles 40 different draft boards from around the industry, had just one tight end – Colorado State’s Trey McBride – in the top 65 prospects in last year’s version at The Athletic.
Those numbers might not even tell the whole story as several prospects could find their way into the first two days of the draft.
“The tight end group is the best I’ve seen in the last 10 years,” NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah told Arnie Stapleton of the Associated Press. “I have 11 tight ends that I have top-3 round grades on, which is a ridiculous number. It’s just a really, really good group.”
Michael Mayer and Dalton Kincaid lead this year’s class. They are expected to go in the first round, according to NFL Mock Draft Database’s consensus mock draft. The class gets deeper with Georgia’s Darnell Washington, Oregon State’s Luke Musgrave, South Dakota State’s Tucker Kraft, and Iowa’s Sam LaPorta as potential Day 2 prospects.
Kraft is an especially interesting study coming out of SDSU. A dominant player in the Football Championship Subdivision, Kraft’s 6’5” frame and an unofficial 40-yard dash between 4.49 and 4.54 seconds at his pro day would make him a top prospect similar to fellow Jackrabbit Dallas Goedert in 2018. However, he’s TE6 in this class, hoping to get the call in either the second or third round.
That’s pertinent to the Vikings after giving up a 2023 second-round pick and a 2024 third-round pick to acquire Hockenson last October. Minnesota got a conditional 2024 fourth-round pick back in the trade. But the loss of this year’s second-rounder stings considering what the Vikings need to accomplish in this year’s draft.
The Vikings are still looking for warm bodies to fill their cornerback room and have a defense that needs to get younger and faster. They have questions in the middle of the offensive line and in the backfield. They are looking for their quarterback of the future.
If the Vikings still had their second-round pick, it would be easier to execute a trade to get an elite quarterback prospect or a top-tier defensive prospect. With just five selections in the draft, Minnesota may be limited to trading down to acquire more picks or reaching for Hendon Hooker at pick No. 23.
But when looking at the trade solely at the tight end position, the deal makes sense. Since the common draft era began in 1970, Kyle Pitts is the only tight end to record 1,000 yards in his rookie season – and he needed 17 games to do it.
The task for an impact rookie becomes more daunting when we project Hockenson’s usage to a full 17-game season, which adds up to 102 catches, 882 yards, and five touchdowns.
In the common draft era, only Keith Jackson’s 81 catches in 1988 came close to Hockenson’s projected reception total. Only Pitts and Jeremy Shockey (894 receiving yards in 2002) had more receiving yards than Hockenson’s projected yardage total from last season.
Even modest production is hard to find from a rookie tight end. Only 31 tight ends have recorded over 500 receiving yards in their rookie season. And only 10 rookie tight ends have recorded 50 or more receptions. That doesn’t take into account the overall learning curve that tight ends have coming into the league, which includes learning the playbook and becoming an adequate blocker.
In Goedert’s case, it took four years before he became a starter after the Philadelphia Eagles drafted him in 2018 because he played behind Zach Ertz. Like Hockenson, Goedert has also taken off, becoming one of the top tight ends in the league.
If the Vikings had taken one of the top tight ends in this year’s class or even waited until the later rounds, it is highly unlikely that player would have the same impact that Hockenson currently has on the offense. It’s also likely that the Vikings would be stuck in the same position they were with Irv Smith Jr., who only had 22 catches for 168 yards and two touchdowns before suffering a knee injury in Week 8.
The cost to get Hockenson was expensive, and he will be even more expensive when he signs a contract extension this summer. But the Vikings essentially jumped the line to add another impact player to their offense. With Minnesota looking to continue their competitive rebuild, having Hockenson, who will turn 26 in July, is a solid step toward building the type of infrastructure that can keep them competitive even if they transition to a new quarterback.
