Vikings should select a corner in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft

When the 2020 NFL Draft kicks off next week, the Minnesota Vikings should be making sure they take one of the top cornerback prospects available.

Next week, the 2020 NFL Draft will begin and we will all finally find out what the Minnesota Vikings and every other team around the league are going to do.

Currently, the Vikings are slated to be on the clock at pick No. 22 and pick No. 25 in the first round. What will Minnesota do with these selections? Will they trade up? Trade down? Stay put? If so, what positions will they target?

The Vikings’ biggest needs this year are offensive line, wide receiver and cornerback.

Minnesota needs to find a replacement for Stefon Diggs and they could very well look for one in the first round of this year’s draft. But given how deep this draft is expected to be at receiver, the Vikings can probably still find a good one in the later rounds.

Every draft is different, but the Vikings selected Troy Williamson and Laquon Treadwell in the first round and neither panned out. Minnesota was able to get lucky with Diggs in the fifth round and Adam Thielen wasn’t even drafted at all.

Yes, Randy Moss was a great first-round selection by the Vikings in 1998. But the chances of another Randy Moss coming into this NFL this year are not very likely.

Percy Harvin and Cordarrelle Patterson were great kick returners for Minnesota and they could both be used in multiple ways on offense. But neither former Vikings first-round picks were true No. 1 receivers. Patterson especially struggled as a receiver while Harvin was better, but still not a true No. 1 guy.

Minnesota can still take a receiver early if they feel he is the best player available when it comes time to make their pick. But if they don’t, it is absolutely fine.

One thing is for certain and that is the Vikings should grab a cornerback with one of their two first-round selections this year.

It is certainly not Minnesota’s only position of need heading into the draft, but they have to make up for the loss of their top three corners from 2019.

Yes, moving on from Xavier Rhodes was certainly necessary after the season he just had, but the Vikings still need to find someone to replace him. Trae Waynes did not have a very good performance in 2019 either. Still, he and Mackensie Alexander need to be replaced as well.

Currently, Minnesota’s projected starting corners for 2020 are Mike Hughes and Holton Hill. Hughes has shown some flashes of being a very good corner, but he has also had injury problems in his first two seasons with the Vikings.

Hill is talented too, but is he a long-term answer as a starter for Minnesota? It’s probably still too early to tell, plus he has already had his share of off-the-field problems as well.

Among the corners the Vikings could end up with from this year’s NFL Draft are LSU’s Kristian Fulton, Ohio State’s Damon Arnette, TCU’s Jeff Gladney, and Utah’s Jaylon Johnson.

Given that Mike Zimmer is also a former defensive backs coach, it makes Minnesota selecting a corner in the first round next week an even bigger possibility. The Vikings using a first-round draft pick on a new corner would be the right decision for them to make.

Although Rhodes and Waynes are no longer with the team, they still ended up being good first-round selections by Minnesota. This year, a cornerback could also be a good pick for the Vikings, perhaps even great.

Many questions will be answered next week and it will be very interesting to see what will happen to say the least.