Draft gems: Vikings should be looking at WR/KR Marcus Green

With Marcus Sherels in New Orleans and second-year return man Mike Hughes returning from an ACL tear, drafting Marcus Green from Louisiana Monroe in the later rounds could pay great dividends.

The scouting game is nebulous at best. Talking heads get it wrong as often as they get it right. It’s like the guy who expertly examines the reasons why Team A will defeat Team B. He puts no money down, and once Team A is whipped, he simply moves onto his next prognostication.

With the NFL draft, it’s even easier to sound intelligent. “Tangibles” and “intangibles” and all that. Look at Mike Mayock, now the new general manager for the Oakland Raiders after being a “draft guru” for the last two decades. I’ve always liked Mayock, but let’s be honest, he’s a reporter with no coaching not executive experience at any level.

The point is: if Mayock is qualified to be GM of an NFL team, you and I are qualified to take his former job.

Today, I’m knocking on the table for the Vikings to draft wide receiver and return man Marcus Green from the University of Louisiana Monroe. You won’t find him in the upper draft lists of network or online big shots, but you will see his bio if you dig a little deeper into the college ranks.

The Vikings have a huge hole at their kick returner position that they haven’t filled since Cordarrelle Patterson left. The punt returner spot is also lacking as Mike Hughes may be dealing with his recovery from a 2018 ACL tear.

In addition, the WR3 position remains (for two seasons now), a hole in the battleship that has been filled by a platoon of warm bodies. A platoon of which Aldrick Robinson has shown the only occasional pulse to move the team downfield.

Marcus Green By The Numbers

To start touting Marcus Green’s career is the fact that he played in all 48 of his college games at ULM from 2015 to 2018. He has 70 kickoff returns for 1761, a 25.2-yard average.

Green also has 2698 receiving yards, 23 touchdowns, and in 2018, had a 17.1-yard catch average.

At five-foot-eight, 191 pounds, with a 4.39 40 yard dash and a 39 inch vertical leap, Green may not be Tyreek Hill in the speed department, but watching him on tape contributing on several aspects of offense, he’s close.

If Minnesota had a reliable weapon like Green in the slot, a guy who could turn a quick slant into 20 yards, they could take immense pressure off an inconsistently effective offensive line. If they had him returning kicks (and possibly punts), to the tune of his college numbers, they would have an immensely valuable role player.

Green is projected as a day 3 draft pick. Why? Ask the GM’s who left guys like Stefon Diggs to wait until the fifth round to be selected.

The Young Man In Uniform

Which leads to another aspect of Marcus Green that proves of value: character. Tyreek Hill himself was drafted in the fifth round. Not because of missed talent, but because Hill himself pleaded guilty to punching his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach and choking her in 2014.

As Hill prepares to become possibly the highest paid receiver in the NFL at nearly a $20 million a year price tag, the team he plays for, the Kansas City Chiefs, is now dealing with new allegations against the receiver.

Marcus Green spent his youth in Pontotoc, Louisiana, playing drums for his local church and singing in the gospel choir. The senior receiver is known as a humble and grounded young man who gets high praise from his former coaches, as well as some local press, who have called him “college football’s best-kept secret.”

As for the fact that his college career was spent at a smaller school, let’s all remember that Antonio Brown went to Central Michigan. Adam Thielen. Jerry Rice. You get the picture.

When a professional coaching staff finds a special talent ready to learn the professional game, they’ve got good work ahead of them. In the case of Marcus Green, he’d be able to keep more than one of those coaches busy.

It’s a long shot, but stranger things have happened in this world than the Minnesota Vikings finding a way to draft Marcus Green. If such a thing does happen, I think they will get a front-line player waiting in the back group of the draft.