It seems that the Minnesota Vikings were very high on Brock Purdy in 2022 and had plans to sign the young quarterback before he ended up being the final pick in last year’s NFL Draft.
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy has been one of the best stories in the league over the last year. After getting the designation of “Mr. Irrelevant” since he was the final selection in the 2022 NFL draft, he took the football world by storm with his stunning performance late in the season.
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After the team’s top two QBs went down with injuries, the star from Iowa State was thrust into a starting role for a title contender and excelled in spite of the odds. If not for a serious shoulder injury during the NFC Championship game there was a real possibility he might have led the team to the Super Bowl.
Hindsight is 20/20, and many QB-needy teams look back on last year’s event and regret not scouting him more closely. However, the Minnesota Vikings actually became fans of Purdy during the scouting process and a new report suggests they very much wanted to add him to the roster in April of 2022.
Minnesota Vikings planned to ‘heavily pursue’ Brock Purdy after the 2022 NFL Draft
On Monday, ESPN Vikings insider Kevin Seifert revealed that “according to multiple sources, [Minnesota] heavily pursued a rookie quarterback from Iowa State named Brock Purdy in the final hours of the draft, hoping to sign him to a UDFA deal.” However, as we now know the 49ers made him the last player taken in the event.
The Vikings had just extended quarterback Kirk Cousins‘ contract and it seems that they viewed Purdy as a potential low-risk project that could be molded into a possible Cousins replacement with his contract set to expire after 2023.
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It’s hard to know if Purdy would have been as successful in Minnesota, but he has certainly proven that he would have given them a far better long-term option than what the team has after Cousins currently.