Third Round (No. 91 overall)
Talanoa Hufanga – S (USC)
The Vikings have yet to address the safety position and that is a good move, as they can find a starter in later on the draft.
Safety is one position where rookies tend to make an immediate impact as evidenced just a year ago with players like Antoine Winfield Jr. and Jeremy Chinn. This year’s class is loaded with talented safeties who could be found in rounds two and three and one of those players is this beast from Southern California.
Talanoa Hufanga is a fun player to watch who plays with reckless abandon. He will come up and lay a hit on anyone and is a playmaker who had 16.5 tackles for a loss, six sacks, and four interceptions in his Trojan career.
For as aggressive and wild as he is in the way he plays, he actually does a great job of reading the field and anticipating where a play is going to go.
Hufanga does need some work in coverage and he doesn’t have the overall speed to cover a wide range of space. That’s okay because he’ll be paired with Harrison Smith, who can make up for some of those shortcomings, and hr also can learn some coverage techniques from one of the all-time best in Patrick Peterson.
The Vikings can take this guy in round three, let him do his thing, and land a productive first-year starter in the process.