2025 NFL Draft: When Will the Vikings Make Their Third-Round Pick?

Well, it’s gonna be a while

The first round of the 2025 NFL Draft is in the books, and the Minnesota Vikings made their headlines by selecting Ohio State offensive lineman Donovan Jackson with the 24th overall pick. The fact that the Vikings didn’t trade back or even out of the first round came as a surprise to many, but apparently the front office saw a guy they liked and wanted to make sure he didn’t get away.

Unfortunately, that means the Vikings won’t have a pick for a while on Day 2. They’re not scheduled to select again until the 97th pick, the third-round Compensatory pick they received for the loss of Kirk Cousins. So, when will the Vikings be on the clock again?

The action kicks off in Green Bay tonight at 6:00 PM Central time, an hour earlier than last night. In the second round, teams are allotted seven minutes to make their selections, which means that Round 2 can take a maximum of a little over three and a half hours (three hours and 44 minutes, to be exact, if each team uses their full seven minutes). In the third round, and every round thereafter, each team is allotted five minutes to make their picks.

An important factor to keep in mind for tonight is that it’s “Legends Night” at the Draft, which means this is the night that former players announce the picks for each team. As we informed you last week, former Vikings tight end (and University of Wisconsin graduate) Stu Voigt will be announcing Minnesota’s pick on Day 2. Some of these players can, to be polite, get a little long-winded when they’re making their speeches. So, there’s a much greater chance of things getting a bit bogged up when it comes to these selections.

If we assume that, in the worst-case scenario, each team takes their full seven minutes in Round 2 to make their picks, that would put the end of Round 2 at right around 9:45 PM Central. There are also 32 picks in Round 3 ahead of Minnesota’s selection at #97, and if those picks all take their fully allotted time, that would put the Vikings on the clock sometime after midnight Central time. I don’t think it’s going to take that long, though.

My prediction is that if you want to be tuned into tonight’s broadcast when the Vikings make their next selection, you should probably start watching sometime right around 9:30 PM Central, and definitely no later than 10:00 PM Central. I mean, it’s not a school night or anything, and you’re probably going to be up watching the Timberwolves anyway, so you should be able to flip back and forth or check out the action on your phone or something.

I will warn you that there’s a chance that tonight is the night that the Vikings might decide to trade back and acquire more draft capital. While that might not make things super exciting tonight, it will make things a bit more interesting on Day 3 on Saturday. So we’ll have that going for us. . .which is nice.

And, of course, if the Vikings should decide to trade up tonight for whatever reason, everything we said above doesn’t matter so you can just forget that we said anything.

But, if you want to be sure you’re watching the 2025 NFL Draft the next time the Vikings are on the clock, that’s our best guess.

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