The Minnesota Vikings entered the 2012 NFL Draft with the third overall pick. A trade with the Cleveland Browns gave the Vikings additional draft capital, and Minnesota took USC tackle Matt Kalil, the player they wanted all along.
But that wasn’t the most notable trade of the night for the Vikings. The Baltimore Ravens were on the clock at pick 29. Rick Spielman, in his first season as Minnesota’s general manager, traded away the Vikings’ fourth-round pick (98th overall) to the Ravens to move up. He didn’t believe Notre Dame safety Harrison Smith would fall to Minnesota at pick 35 in the second round.
ESPN’s Kevin Seifert said the move was the Vikings’ most impactful draft-day trade in the franchise’s history.
GM Rick Spielman loved Smith as a player and person, but after using the No. 4 pick to draft left tackle Matt Kalil, he wasn’t certain Smith would still be available when Minnesota’s second-round pick (No. 35) arrived. So Spielman sent the Ravens a fourth-round pick to move up to No. 29, and Smith went on to a Hall of Fame caliber career. After 14 seasons, he is one of six defensive backs in NFL history to record at least 35 interceptions and 20 sacks in his career. The other five — Charles Woodson, Larry Wilson, Ronde Barber, LeRoy Butler and Brian Dawkins — are all in Canton.
Smith made six Pro Bowls from 2015 through 2021 and is the longest-tenured player on the Vikings. Kalil, who made the Pro Bowl as a rookie, began to decline over the next few seasons and became a free agent after an injury-filled 2016 season.
The move to acquire Smith was aggressive but paid off. For those of us in attendance at the Vikings’ official draft party at the Metrodome, we weren’t able to see the pick actually unfold. After the “trade” graphic appeared and the Vikings were on the clock, Metrodome workers told everyone in attendance that we had to leave the stadium.
Pleas to sit through at least that pick were ignored, no matter the reasoning (specifically, the Vikings’ logo being on the bottom of the screen). In the early days of social media on cell phones, it was harder to stay up to date as we walked out of the stadium.
It wasn’t until my dad and I got to our truck that we turned the radio on to hear the Vikings did indeed draft Smith. The moment was bittersweet in the moment but humorous to revisit, and thankfully worth revisiting for this story, even if only a few were there to witness it.
This article originally appeared on Vikings Wire: Vikings trade back into Rd. 1 in 2012 for Harrison Smith is memorable