Here's how trades defined recent Vikings drafts and could impact George Paton's first Broncos draft

Last year, Broncos general manager George Paton was part of the NFL’s biggest draft haul. As the assistant general manager and vice president of player personnel for the Minnesota Vikings, he helped oversee a 15-pick haul.

A year earlier, the Vikings had three fewer picks. That, too, led the NFL in the 2019 draft. Two years before that, the Vikings were one of three teams with a league-high 11 picks in the 2017 NFL Draft. That came in spite of the fact that the Vikings had surrendered their first-round pick the previous August in exchange for quarterback Sam Bradford, a passer whose acquisition was a last-minute necessity in the wake of Teddy Bridgewater suffering a horrific knee injury during a preseason practice.

Over the last four draftees, Minnesota made 46 picks. Thirteen of them were in the seventh round; another eight were in the sixth, ensuring that nearly half — 21 of 46 — came in the draft’s final two rounds.

In 11 drafts since 2010, the Vikings have made 29 seventh-round picks.

“It was a philosophy,” Paton said last week. “I don’t want to tell their philosophy, but we just wanted to acquire as many picks as we could.

“If a player is there, we were going to take him. But if there were three players we still liked, we were going to try and trade back and accumulate capital.”

Four times since 2017, the Vikings moved down five or fewer slots in a trade. They gained three extra draft picks in these four swaps.

“I guess the philosophy is the more darts, the better chance you have to hit the bullseye,” Paton said. “You know how it is. If you have seven picks and you hit on half, that’s not great. You get three players. We always liked to have 10-plus and just have more darts.”

The Broncos enter the draft with nine picks — one shy of that double-digit number Paton referenced as a Vikings preference.

But this doesn’t mean the Vikings were unwilling to take a net loss of picks in a trade. In 2017, for example, the Vikings made two trades up on Day 2 of the draft, sacrificing two picks to move up one in each of the second and third rounds. But they made it up with a series of picks later in the draft.

A look at how this philosophy played out for recent Vikings drafts:

2017

The Vikings went from nine selections to 11, executing seven trades that involved nothing but that year’s draft choices. Just two of the 11 picks Minnesota made involved picks the team originally held.

Minnesota made two trades up, going from 48 to 41 to select running back Dalvin Cook and from 79 to 70 to pick offensive lineman Pat Elflein. Cook is a two-time Pro Bowler; Elflein started 43 games for the Vikings before he was cut last year.

• Net capital: Plus-2 picks
• Net draft value: Plus-4.6 points (per the Jimmy Johnson scale)

2018

Minnesota made three trades that resulted in a net change of zero picks. The most interesting aspect of the trades was the fact that the Vikings made two deals with the Jets, first acquiring the 157th pick in exchange for selections 167 and 225 … then getting the 167th and 225h slots back in exchange for the 180th and 204th picks.

• Net capital: No change
• Net draft value: Minus-22.0 points

2019

Minnesota didn’t start dealing until Round 3, at which point it moved down one spot from No. 92 and another nine positions to the 102nd and final pick of the third round. Those two trades with the New York Jets and the Baltimore Ravens effectively turned the 92nd pick into the following:

No. 102
No. 191
No. 193
No. 217

That net gain of three picks allowed the Vikings to move up six positions in the fourth round (from No. 120 to No. 114) for the cost of the 204th overall pick. Minnesota picked up another seventh-round choice (No. 239) to drop three picks in the fifth round (No. 159 to No. 162).

• Net capital: Plus-3 picks
• Net draft value: Minus-7.4 points

2020

The signature deal involved wide receiver Stefan Diggs, whose swap to Buffalo — along with a seventh-round choice — brought back the No. 22 overall pick, two Day 2 selections and a fourth-rounder next year. Given that the Vikings selected LSU wide receiver Justin Jefferson — a Pro Bowler who set the NFL’s single-season receiving yardage record for rookies — that trade proved to be a success; the Vikings got a receiver of comparable production at a fraction of the price.

So, even though the Vikings lost a seventh-round pick due to a salary-cap violation and sent a second-round pick to Jacksonville for Yannick Ngakoue — eventually getting a third-round pick back for him when trading him to Baltimore at midseason — Minnesota will start the 2021 NFL Draft with 10 picks.

• Net capital of pick-for-pick trades (not including the Diggs and Ngakoue deals): Plus-5 picks over two drafts
• Net draft value of pick-for-pick trades (not including the Diggs and Ngakoue deals): Minus-9.4 points

So, since 2017, the Vikings absorbed a loss of 34.2 points in pick-for-pick trades per the Johnson scale — roughly equivalent to the No. 144 overall pick — but they gained 10 total draft choices as a result of these trades.

Like Paton said, “more darts.”

This doesn’t mean the Broncos won’t trade up in the top 10. But if they do, expect them to trade back in subsequent rounds.