Regrading the Vikings 2016 draft: A major first-round bust hurts the grade

With the NFL Draft looming, we’re undertaking a seven-part series grading each Minnesota Vikings draft class in the Rick Spielman/Mike Zimmer era. This is the third story in that series. (Here are Part 1 and Part 2.)

The Vikings were riding high as the calendar flipped to 2016. They’d just won the NFC North title with Teddy Bridgewater under center and their draft class of 2015 was offering glimpses of the brilliance that was to come.

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A solid haul in the 2016 class could really set up long-term success, it seemed. But would it? Let’s look at how it went.

And as before, a disclaimer: With an important draft looming as the Vikings look to return to the playoffs, we thought it would be a fun exercise to grade each of their drafts together. The point isn’t to simply highlight the best picks or the worst picks, but to examine their seven draft classes as a whole. At the end, since we’ve already graded the 2020 draft, we’ll hand out superlatives in the seventh part of this series.

We’ll split the grades into one for each day of the draft and also highlight a player the Vikings could’ve selected that day. No team hits on every pick, so that isn’t done to poke fun at the picks the Vikings did make. It’s just a fun way to look at who else was available and dream about what could’ve been.

Day 1

First round: Laquon Treadwell, WR (No. 23 overall)

Could’ve had: Kenny Clark, DT (No. 27 overall)

Grade: F

The biggest first-round bust of the Spielman era, Treadwell never recorded more than 302 yards in a season and never made much of an impact. He struggled to gain consistent playing time and struggled with the on-field time he did get. He totaled only 65 catches in his four years with the Vikings and didn’t have a touchdown until his third season. In hindsight, the back half of the first round in 2016 was pretty weak with only one Pro Bowler taken after No. 18. That Pro Bowler, of course, was Clark, who has wreaked havoc on the Vikings’ interior offensive line since arriving in Green Bay.

Day 2

Second round: Mackensie Alexander, CB

Could’ve had: Cody Whitehair, C (second round)

Grade: B-plus

For all of the jokes that picks like this have spurned about Zimmer’s insistence on selecting cornerbacks, it turned out to be a decent selection. This draft class wasn’t loaded with talent and the Vikings got one of the game’s better slot corners with the No. 54 pick. Granted, it took Alexander some time to mature and understand the scheme, but he was quite productive in his last two years with the Vikings. His time with the team ended after he was hurt in a meaningless Week 17 game against the Chicago Bears in 2019 while other starters rested. Two picks after Alexander was selected, the Bears took Whitehair, who has been a productive member of their interior offensive line and was named to the 2018 Pro Bowl.

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Day 3

Fourth round: Willie Beavers, OT

Fifth round: Kentrell Brothers, LB

Sixth round: Moritz Boehringer, WR

Sixth round: David Morgan, TE

Seventh round: Stephen Weatherly, DE

Seventh round: Jayron Kearse, S

Could’ve had: Tyreek Hill, WR (fifth round)

Grade: B-minus

There were more hits than misses with this group of Day 3 picks which is always impressive for players taken outside the top 100. Brothers was a contributor on special teams for multiple seasons, Morgan was a productive blocking tight end, Kearse earned playing time and Weatherly’s production in Minnesota was enough to earn him a lucrative contract in Carolina (albeit, a stint that didn’t go well and led Weatherly back to Minnesota). Of course, the Beavers pick was disastrous. He only played in two games. And while Boehringer had a nice story, he’s the only member of this draft class who didn’t play in a single NFL game. There wasn’t a ton of talent late in this draft class, but Dak Prescott was taken at the end of the fourth round and Hill went five picks after the Vikings selected Brothers.

Superlatives

Best pick: Mackensie Alexander, second round

It’s tempting to pick Weatherly since you don’t typically expect the kind of production Weatherly has provided from a seventh-round pick. Still, we’re going with Alexander because his best moments were much more impressive than anyone else in this group.

Worst pick: Laquon Treadwell, first round

This might be the easiest selection of the whole project. You could make the argument that Treadwell has been the worst pick of Spielman’s tenure.

Biggest miss: Kenny Clark, DT

The Vikings had Linval Joseph and Shamar Stephen on the roster as their starting defensive tackles, which perhaps dissuaded them from someone like Clark. But Clark has become one of the highest-paid defensive tackles in the league for good reason, and you can bet that Vikings offensive linemen would rather face him on the practice field than at Lambeau.

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Overall: C-minus

The second and third days of this draft weren’t terrible. But in the NFL, it’s so hard to overcome whiffs in the first round, and that’s what happened this year. The Vikings were fortunate (and frankly a bit lucky) that wide receiver didn’t become a bigger problem, thanks to the emergence of Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs. Alexander was a fine pick and they netted some decent players on Day 3. But Treadwell was a bust from the start and weighs down the grade here, one year after the front office scored high marks for the 2015 class.

(Photo of Laquon Treadwell: Jon Durr / Getty Images)

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