Each year, the folks at Sports Illustrated take one prospect for that year’s draft and give him the label of “Prospect X.” They keep his identity secret in order to protect teams that might be interested in him, and once the dust settles and the smoke clears from that year’s draft, they reveal who that prospect is.
The identity of this year’s Prospect X was revealed earlier this morning, and it turns out that he wound up with the Minnesota Vikings. Not through the Draft, but through the post-draft UDFA signing process.
This year’s Prospect X, per Kalyn Kahler at Sports Illustrated, was Idaho defensive end/linebacker Christian Elliss, the son of former Detroit Lions’ defensive lineman Luther Elliss and the brother of New Orleans Saints’ linebacker Kaden Elliss. He was one of the 11 Undrafted Free Agents that the Vikings announced they came to terms with yesterday.
Kahler’s story talks about how Elliss spent this Draft weekend with some pretty interesting tidbits of information in it. One of those is that Rick Spielman, who was a scout for the Lions early in his career, was actually part of the Lions’ staff when they drafted Luther Elliss with the 20th pick in the 1995 NFL Draft. Spielman spoke with Luther on the phone before the Vikings’ final pick at #199 and made it clear then that the Vikings were interested in signing Christian in the event that he didn’t get drafted.
If you’ve got some time, the “Prospect X” story is worth checking out. It will be interesting to see whether or not Christian Elliss is going to end up making the roster, given that the Vikings should have plenty of competition at linebacker and up front during this year’s workouts and Training Camp.
