The NFL Draft remains the second-biggest event in the NFL calendar behind the Super Bowl. Like it or not, it also remains one of the biggest things that fans and media enjoy going back and analyzing to see “what could have been.”
Pro Football Focus has done a good job this offseason by starting a re-draft series that we have been tracking here on Vikings Wire. In their latest draft, they looked back on it, and it just so happens to be one of the more impactful ones in recent memory for the Minnesota Vikings franchise: The 2019 NFL Draft.
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While we usually focus on the Vikings’ picks, it is a class that involved a player who has found their way to the team and made an impact in Andrew Van Ginkel.
The new fan favorite is among the best defenders in the NFL and now finds himself being selected in the first round of PFF’s re-draft. Trevor Sikkema has the Vikings’ defender landing with the New England Patriots. He writes, “New England was desperate for edge help after losing Trey Flowers and Adrian Clayborn in free agency following their Super Bowl-winning campaign. One solution could have been Van Ginkel, who has turned into a fine player during his time in Miami and Minnesota. He has earned at least a 70.0 PFF overall grade in four of his six seasons while topping out at a 91.1 mark in 2023, which ranked seventh in the NFL that year.”
Quite the rise for the former fifth-round pick. I am sure he would’ve welcomed the pay raise for the rise much sooner than it took for him to earn his big contract with the Vikings.
This article originally appeared on Vikings Wire: Vikings fan favorite ends up in AFC in PFF’s 2019 NFL re-draft