Will Vikings Draft Trent Richardson to Replace Adrian Peterson?

With the first two picks of the 2012 NFL Draft being a foregone conclusion, all the attention now turns to the Minnesota Vikings and their third pick. We know two things for sure: Andrew Luck is going to the Colts and the Robert Griffin III is headed to the nation’s capital.

So, where does that leave Minnesota and their pick? Believe it or not, whatever they decide to do will be a very strong indicator as to what will happen with Adrian Peterson going forward. Of course, there’s huge speculation as to how well AP will recover from torn left knee ligaments he suffered in December of last year.

According to most mock drafts, the Vikings will end up taking one of the following four players: tackle Matt Kalil (USC), running back Trent Richardson (Alabama), cornerback Morris Claiborne (LSU) and/or wide receiver Justin Blackmon (OSU). Others indicate that the Vikings may in fact trade their pick and actually move down on Thursday’s draft.

According to Minnesota general manager, Rick Spielman and coach Leslie Frazier, the team might just choose to go with quantity rather than quality this year. Trading down would allow them to have way more draft picks to try and attempt to fill the many voids in this offense. This week, the Vikes GM addressed this very same issue.

“Looking at our draft board and the depth of the board, we still think there is a lot of good value in that first round.” Spielman said. “If you go back X amount of spots, you can still get an impact player. Mo Claiborne is maybe one of the most talented corners I’ve seen come out in a long time.

In a way, it soft of makes sense for them to opt down considering the third pick is such a hot one. Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen a spiking interest in Richardson, the Alabama running back. With his explosiveness and his big-play ability, there isn’t a team in the league that wouldn’t want to have a guy like that in their backfield. That demand makes it very easy to negotiate with teams that have a lot more needs than the Vikings do are at this point.

Another player that’s also in high demand is Texas A&M quarterback, Ryan Tannehill. With teams like the Dolphins, and so many others in desperate need of a franchise signal-caller, quality QBs are always in high demand.

“They’re such a rare commodity that we have to do everything we can to entertain the thought that if any one of those guys comes to us, what would we do?” said Seahawks coach Pete Carroll considering the team signed Matt Flynn this offseason.