Vikings trade down but still nab Kalil

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn.—The Minnesota Vikings inched down one spot, then they jumped up and joined in again before the first round was finished.
When the night was done, they could not have felt better about their haul.

The Vikings took massive left tackle Matt Kalil from USC last night to solidify their offensive line and provide their young quarterback some protection.
And after their second trade on the opening day of the NFL draft, they selected Notre Dame safety Harrison Smith to continue the resuscitation of their depleted secondary.
“Wow. This is pretty good,” a smiling head coach Leslie Frazier said.
The Vikings dealt their third overall pick to the Browns for the fourth overall selection, plus Cleveland’s picks in the fourth (118th overall), fifth (139th), and seventh (211th) rounds.
The Browns wanted Alabama running back Trent Richardson, so the Vikings knew they still could get Kalil.
Concerned about the lack of quality safeties in this year’s crop, the Vikings found another trade partner in Baltimore—acquiring the 29th-overall selection while sending their second-round (35th overall) and fourth-round (98th) picks to the Ravens.
“This is what makes the draft so fun,” said Vikings’ general manager Rick Spielman.
With quarterbacks Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III already spoken for, the Vikings held the early key to the draft.
The calls came, Spielman said, a couple of hours before the draft began.
The Vikings refused to move below the fifth spot to ensure they’d still have either Kalil, LSU cornerback Morris Claiborne, or Oklahoma State wide receiver Justin Blackmon.
So after all the months of speculation and rumours, the Vikings wound up with the player they were widely projected to take first all along—the player they’ve clearly coveted for a while and one who will give Christian Ponder beef on his blind side.
Spielman insisted the team had Kalil, Claiborne, and Blackmon graded equally, but the Vikings couldn’t pass on Kalil.
Long arms. Big hands. Tall frame. Mobile body. Strong bloodline. Hard worker. Nasty streak. Those are the prevailing descriptions of Kalil, a bearded, imposing-looking guy whose older brother, Ryan, is a Pro Bowl centre for the Carolina Panthers.
His father, Frank, once played in the USFL.
“He has all the ingredients,” Frazier said.
Kalil needs to muscle up, improve his run blocking, and hold his ground more consistently against bull-rushing defensive ends. The one knock against him in the obsessively detailed world of NFL pre-draft scouting is lower-body strength.
But Lane Kiffin, his head coach at USC, called that criticism unfair because of how tall and athletic he is.
“You don’t want to sacrifice weight for speed,” Kalil said, repeating advice from his father.
Kiffin, who was raised in Minnesota himself, said Kalil already has purchased a Ford truck.
“That’s what you’re getting. He’s not going to get a sports car. Just a good ‘O’ lineman,” Kiffin said.
The Vikings haven’t selected in the top three since 1968, when they drafted offensive tackle Ron Yary first overall.
Yary, another USC product, is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.