Vikings looking at just one Compensatory Pick for 2023 NFL Draft

Jan 27, 2023 - 4:00 PM

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With the trades they made during the 2022 NFL season, the Minnesota Vikings are a bit short on picks in the 2023 NFL Draft. It appears that they will be getting a bit more ammunition, but it isn’t as much as was originally expected.

Nick Korte of Over the Cap has put together his projection of the Compensatory Draft Picks that he believes will be given out for the 2023 Draft, and he has the Vikings receiving one extra pick. Earlier projections had them receiving two selections, but that has been reduced.

According to Korte’s projections, the Vikings will receive an extra fifth-round pick in the upcoming draft for the loss of tight end Tyler Conklin, who had a pretty good season for the New York Jets.

Korte’s earlier projections from April of this year had the Vikings receiving two Compensatory Picks, both in the sixth round of the draft, to offset the losses of safety Xavier Woods and offensive lineman Mason Cole. However, things appear to have shifted since then.

If you look at the cancellation charts that OTC provides in their efforts to explain their Compensatory Pick projections, the Woods loss is now canceled out by the Harrison Phillips signing, as the most expensive signing a team makes usually cancels out at least one loss. The loss of Cole is canceled by the addition of Chandon Sullivan in Korte’s final projections, leaving the Vikings with just one Compensatory pick.

If this is accurate, the Vikings will have just five picks heading into draft weekend: a first-round pick, a third-round pick, a fourth-round pick, and two fifth-round picks. Personally, I have a strange feeling that Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and company are going to do something to turn that into a significantly higher number of selections by the time things are over and done with in Kansas City in a few months.