5 prospects who could fall to the Vikings at pick No. 22

C.J. Henderson – CB (Florida)

The Vikings need a cornerback in the worst way in the 2020 NFL Draft. This offseason, Minnesota cut Xavier Rhodes and then they saw both Trae Waynes and Mackensie Alexander sign with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Minnesota’s current cornerback depth chart is topped by Mike Hughes, Holton Hill, and Kris Boyd. There isn’t much behind that trio for depth and they will likely draft multiple corners this year to flesh out their numbers.

The issue for the Vikings is that where they are picking in the first round, most of the prospects expected to be available are graded in that late first or early second-round range. Minnesota could take one of them and fill a need, but the value may not be that great. They’d love to see a slam dunk type of prospect fall to them and the best they can hope for would be Florida’s C.J. Henderson.

Henderson has everything Mike Zimmer loves in a corner. He’s got the height at 6-foot-1, he is extremely quick, and he has nice long gangly arms. He ran an eye-popping 40-yard dash in 4.39 seconds at this year’s NFL Scouting Combine, so he also has the speed.

Henderson falling to pick No. 22 does look to be a bit far fetched. There are about eight teams picking ahead of the Vikings that could use help at cornerback. The only good news is that a few of these teams have filled this need in free agency.

If an early run of offensive tackles and quarterbacks happens this year, it will help Minnesota’s chances of having Henderson fall to them. If this were to happen, the Vikings would have their card turned in before 30 seconds have even ticked off the clock.