Are you hoping the Minnesota Vikings will use a first-round pick to shore up their secondary? According to a plugged-in analyst, that might not be the team's plan. The Athletic's Alec Lewis, who has strong insight into the Vikings' front office, suggests cornerback may not be the target when they're on the clock in Round 1.

With the draft just over a week away, the focus appears to be on trusting their overall board and coaching input, especially with a valuable cache of picks in the top 100. The logic? The Vikings' defense has been elite under coordinator Brian Flores without investing high draft capital at cornerback.

Since Flores took over, the Vikings defense has ranked 2nd, 3rd, and 2nd in EPA/play over the last three seasons—the second-best unit in the NFL overall in that span. This success has come without using a first- or second-round pick on a corner, a trend that continued with the recent signing of veteran James Pierre in free agency.

Recent draft history supports this theory. In each of the last three years, cornerback was seen as a glaring need, yet Minnesota opted for players like Jordan Addison, J.J. McCarthy, Dallas Turner, and Donovan Jackson in the first round. They addressed the position later in the draft instead.

So, while fans might be itching for a new lockdown corner, the Vikings' strategy under Flores suggests they believe they can maintain a top-tier defense by finding value elsewhere and developing talent at the position without a premier draft investment. It's a bold approach, but the results so far are hard to argue with.