Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Data scientist Tej Seth thinks the Vikings can go 2-2 in the first quarter of the season

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

Matthew Coller is joined by co-host of the Stats and Scheme podcast Tej Seth to talk about the first quarter of the Vikings' season and how they match up in each game with outcomes if they win or lose. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here returning to the show. Tej Seth. He is a data scientist, one of the best you'll find out there on the internet, and the co-host of the Stats and Scheme podcast. You'll never believe what they do on that show. They combine stats and scheme to break down football. Tej, it's great to have you back on the show. How you doing, man?

Yeah, I appreciate you having me back on. Was sad that I missed you last weekend in Vegas, but I'm really glad to come on today and talk ball. Well, that's what I was thinking about as I was out there. Like, oh, if only Tej was here, then I would have had a good time. So it was a dark cloud over my trip to Vegas, but we made it through. No, I'm just kidding. But we did get to hang out a bit in Ann Arbor when I went out there for a story

that's actually coming out this week. And also I did the thing with writing in Ubers and asking people about JJ McCarthy, but we're not going to see JJ McCarthy this year. So let's talk about other stuff. What I wanted you to do for me is to preview the first four games of the Viking season. I know that this as a math person must drive you crazy that we can't call it the first quarter of the season anymore. Off the top of your head, what percentage is the first four games out of 17? I think it's like 21%, but not 100% sure there. Okay. The first 21, people are going to leave in the comments. What kind of data scientist doesn't know four divided by 17, but for all intents and purposes, the first quarter of the season, the Vikings start out

their year against the New York giants opening game, East Rutherford, New Jersey, where they're going to face New York. I mean, let me just put it this way to you, Tej. Is there any case you can make that the New York giants are not terrible because on paper, it doesn't look great where they were last year was really bad. Uh, Daniel Jones, I think people don't need the preseason interceptions to react to Daniel Jones, but is there a counterpoint to feeling like this should be a game that the Vikings absolutely win in New York? So I'm with you on the Giants. There's not a ton of hope on the roster. There are some exciting parts of their roster. You have Malik Neighbors coming in, who is one of the better wide receiver prospects of the last couple of years. So you're

just hoping that the offensive line, which was historically bad last year, can hold up so that Neighbors can get the ball in his hand. And then on the defensive side, the defensive line should be really good with Dexter Lawrence, Kayvon Thibodeau and Brian Burns coming in with the trade that they made with the Panthers. But again, like their linebacker and secondary group is not good at all. So that might balance out there as well. So yeah, holistically, the Giants roster is not in a great spot, but I do think that there's certain pieces that if you're a Giants fan, you're just hoping can take over certain games like with neighbors in the defensive line. Is there any way to project other than just, hey, that training camp clip looks pretty cool on the internet. Is there any way to project Malik neighbors? Because I remember

in 2021, the Vikings went and played this wide receiver, Jamar chase, who had been a high draft pick. And they're like, Oh, I don't know. He's a rookie. And then, Oh, K. And he throttled them and the Vikings, this is their, this is their weakness in the secondary with Stefan Gilmore coming in, but he hasn't had any sort of training camp. It feels like there would be an advantage for the New York Giants here with neighbors. It just seems like no matter what we see, Jamar Chase is a good example. He dropped every pass in preseason that year and then destroyed the Vikings in the first week. Is there any way to figure out, or is there any way for you to try to project what neighbors is going to be? Yeah. When, when I look at projecting neighbors out, I think that

you look at the combination of his advanced receiving stats in college, leading the country in yards per route run last season, as well as only being 21 years old, um, you know, at the start of the season here. So he's, he's a very young player that has already broken out, um, in terms of like where he was at in college. So you have a very high projection on him because of that. I had multiple people at teams tell me that they had neighbors ahead of Marvin Harrison Jr. on their draft models. So I think that you can feel pretty good about what neighbors is as a prospect. And then you look at the rest of the Giants pass catching group. And obviously you have Darren Waller retire this season and you

have some, some shifting with Isaiah Hodgins. And so I think that neighbors will probably lead the Giants in targets week one and throughout the season, just because of the type of player that he is and the opportunity that's available to him. And when it comes to Daniel Jones, this is the one part of me that doesn't want to say hey this is the easiest quarterback on your entire schedule because he has malik neighbors and that could bring a new element that he's never had before his list of career receivers is pretty brutal uh it's outside of now neighbors joining as a rookie with daniel jones Sometimes I have this tendency when the entire universe is saying one thing I want to think, is that really true? Because there's a little group think on the

internet. You never believe it, but it's true. And with Daniel Jones, it seems like no matter what he does, if he trips over an offensive lineman's foot, it's like, ah, Daniel Jones, 40 million bucks, you dweeb. But I watched him at U.S. Bank Stadium win a playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings. Is there any side of that where you could see something different from Daniel Jones? Feel free to say no, but I just always have to ask this question. Is there a breakout here? Is there a different something about Daniel Jones that could make him better than we've seen before? Yes.

I don't want to say Daniel Jones is like a good quarterback or anything, but I am with you in a sense where like, I think the hate has gone too far with him. We only are one season removed from him ranking very highly and expected points added and winning a playoff game, like you mentioned, against the Vikings, where he was really able to show how good of a rushing threat he is, you know, as part of an offense. So I think that, yeah, the public consensus on him has probably shifted too far in the other direction. And with an okay offensive line and the receivers that we just talked about neighbors,

Darius Slayton, and, and the, some of the others that they're hoping for development from, like there is a path to him having average production as, as a quarterback, but you need a lot of things to go that way for it to happen. And because of the state of their offensive line, it probably won't happen this year, but, but there's definitely the, the tail outcome that is in play for Daniel Jones. Now for each one of these games, as we do this preview, I just want to go, what if they win? What if they lose? Like, what if the Vikings win? What if they lose? If they win this game, then I think we'll all say, okay, well, that's pretty big because the upcoming games are really difficult for the Vikings. And trust me, there are more interesting teams to discuss as we go forward than the Giants.

But I feel like if they lose this one, Tasia, it could get pretty dark pretty fast for the Vikings, because this is a team in the Giants that I think we all expect to miss the playoffs. And I do also want to give Daniel Jones, like you said, a little bit more credit. He is an NFL starting quarterback. It's just when someone gets paid that we can't ignore it. We always just have to go back to it because it is relevant in relation to the player. If, if the Vikings don't win this one, then I think we're already starting to talk about like what now, which is crazy because it's week one, but that's just how this schedule is

laid out. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely overreactions to week one every year, but there would be some signal in the Vikings losing this game just because of not only the state that the Giants roster is in, as we've discussed, but also just, you should match up pretty well against what the Giants have to offer with your offense versus the Giants defense where their secondary is in a bad spot right now. And your strength of your team is your pass catching options and how well your tackles block and pass protection. And Sam Darnold getting these last couple of weeks to prepare for full-time starter. You should be able to put up past numbers in this game. And if that's not there, I think it is worrisome for the Vikings. I think the only way

they lose this game is if Dexter Lawrence completely wrecks it, which is very possible with the interior of the Vikings offensive line. And he also did that on fourth and eight in a playoff game that caused an infamous check down for the Vikings against the Giants. But I mean, while Kirk Cousins checks down, Sam Darnold just throws it to the other team. So I think there is an opportunity here for Darnold to have a huge start to the season, get some confidence going, headed back home for the home opener. But on the other side of that, you're going to go, if you can't beat that team, then San Francisco, who's up next

is going to be a problem. And the next three teams, the Vikings face to tell you the truth, I'm very intrigued by all of them. So I apologize to everyone for the first nine minutes where we both went, eh, giants. Yeah. Week one. Okay. Because I'm very excited to talk about the 49ers. I think there's a world here where the 49ers are just not what they've been in previous years. One, when teams go to the Super Bowl, it is hellacious on everyone's body. You're going through all these playoff games all the way deep into the playoffs. You don't have anywhere near as much time to recover. And also, when you win a lot of games, people start asking for money and

they've had controversies with contracts with Brandon Iuke. If anyone's heard anything about that this off season with Trent Williams now potentially not even starting the season playing, which would be huge for the Vikings facing them in week two. And also my favorite little stat nugget that I've dug up through the off season is that quarterbacks that average over nine yards per pass attempt have never repeated it again the following season. It's only happened a handful of times ever what Brock Purdy did in the next year. No one has ever been able to do it again.

Not even Aaron Rodgers, not even Matt Ryan, who is another one. I think Randall Cunningham may have been another one in 1998. So there's only a handful that have ever done this. They usually don't do it again. I'm looking at San Francisco as potentially vulnerable headed to us bank stadium and a team that may not achieve as much as everybody thinks. How, uh, how hot is that? Is that a hot take? Yeah, that is a strong take, but I could see it. I mean, you look at San Francisco's offense last year and they were historically good in every category that you

could be. And I think that going into the off season, especially early off season, like before draft time, you felt like not would they repeat that because of just natural regression to the mean, but you still felt like they were the best offense in the league. But now you have the Brandon Ayuk and Trent Williams contract situations, as you've mentioned, where even if those do get resolved before the season, which we are getting pretty close to kick off here, I don't know what type of shape those players will be in when they end up playing. And so if one of them isn't playing, I think that they go from a team that we project as the best offense to maybe borderline top three, top five. So you definitely take a step back there. And I think that what was the only thing

that could cost San Francisco's offense last year was turnovers, as we saw in the Vikings game with McCaffrey fumbling on the opening drive. Like there will be more things. There'll be a smaller margin of error for them this year because of some of the things that we just talked about. Yeah, I think so too. And with Purdy, I'm in a weird space with Purdy because when a quarterback produces within an offense, what people like to do is discredit that guy if he's not the most physically impressive and some of us are old enough to remember when there were debates over whether the Patriots should trade Tom Brady because Matt Castle could also win with Bill Belichick in that offense and

those did not hold up very well as time went by but it, but it was a Brady thing. It's any quarterback. It was a Kurt Warner thing. Is it just the system? Is it just the receivers is whatever. And I, I was like, like, who cares? Right. Jared Goff runs into this with the Detroit lions. Wow. It's just Ben Johnson. It's just the line. It's just whatever. And I'm like, you know what? If he wins a super bowl, he doesn't have to give the ring back because someone blocked for him. And at the same time, I look at the PFF grade. I look at the turnover worthy plays for Brock Purdy. And if there's one thing that I think is going to regress with him, it's that people will catch the interceptions a little bit more than they did last year.

And I think this is the Vikings opportunity. So that's one. And I also think the other side of it is, I don't know how good San Francisco's defense is now. I wasn't totally sold on them as a great defense last year. I thought they had some pretty significant weaknesses and I don't know where they've gotten better. So they're good with a couple of defensive linemen and Fred Warner is fantastic, but the secondary, a little bit, a little bit wonky.ky there. I just feel like there's a little more rocky ground for this team than maybe there was last year.

I think I agree with that. I think that the Hupanga injury was really bad for San Francisco last year, and it really opened up the middle of the field for them, and they were getting picked on a lot in those games after him. So I think getting him back from injury, as long as he can kind of get back to 80, 90% of where he was pre-injury, which should be beneficial to their defense. But they did have some holes at the end of the year, especially just getting gashed on outside runs that teams like the Packers and Lions took advantage of in their playoff games.

And they were still able to win both of those because of how good the offense was in the past defense stepping up. But there definitely are some areas to attack the 49ers defense, but I still think that they'll be pretty sound this year just because of the high level talent that they have. It might just not be what they were the first half of the season when they were like a top three defense in the league folks us cellular noticed that the way we use our phones has gotten ironic we try to put our phones down for dinner but the menu is on a qr code that's ironic we hit like on social media posts that we don't actually like ironic which is why us cellular created us mode to help us reconnect with each other and use our phones less ironically a phone company wanting people to use their phones

less ironic let's find us again with us mode from us cellular visit us cellular.com slash built for us to get started i think uh yeah'm sort of insulting them, but I still think there'll be a playoff team. I still think they'll be very good. It's just a little bit, maybe more winnable for the Vikings in week two than it looks on paper going into the season. That's what I'm trying to project here. What if they win? What if they lose? If they win, it will be a celebration if sam darnold is able to beat his former team and then i think we're going to start talking about already even after two weeks we're going to start talking about okay can this team actually match up with very good

teams if they lose it will just be like oh yeah well of course they should have lost at san francisco uh you you agree with that yeah oh yeah for sure definitely agree with that how about houston i really like talking about houston they are the most uh disconnected franchise normally from the vikings about as far away from the vikings as ever but now there's a lot of crossover a lot of revenge game action going on. Daniel Hunter, Blake Cashman, Jonathan Grenard, and of course, Stefan Diggs coming to US Bank Stadium. How interested are you in Houston as a Super Bowl contender? Are you there yet with them?

I think that they should be in that second tier behind the bona fide Super Bowl contenders. I think that obviously their pass offense is probably going to be really, really good. I'm a little bit worried about their secondary situation if they have to have Jeff Okuda as their third corner out there because of the lack of depth they have at corner. But that's really just being nitpicky about the rest of a Texans roster that is in a pretty good spot right now. Yeah. I think with a CJ Stroud, you're always trying to figure out, okay, like we were talking about with Brock Purdy, is it a one-year thing? Is it a multi-year thing? But with CJ Stroud, his draft status, his size, and you know what I really like about him is just his joy for the game. This guy seems to want to always be talking football, doing football, being around football. And I think he can only get better with the fact that they've added another weapon to him. And wherever Stefan Diggs goes, people could say whatever they want about his personality.

Wherever he goes, his quarterbacks get better. And I think with CJ Stroud, it's not crazy to start talking about MVP to put him up in that level. Maybe is that too much? I think that that's not too much with what they've been able to surround him with. Plus the system that he plays in. I don't think so at all. I mean, obviously you're always worried about a sophomore slump happening, some, some regression to the mean there. But yeah, I mean, you brought up a lot of key points there. He has the draft prior, you know, being very high on him as a prospect. And then what we saw from him last year, despite their offensive line just being a rotating

door of different people that were stepping in there and losing Tank Dell for half the season. So now you get him back, you bring in Stefan Diggs, like you mentioned, like there's so much opportunity for CJ Shoud to lead the league in passing efficiency this year because of what they've surrounded him with and how good of a player he is. Like, I think the most impressive thing about him is just his calmness in the pocket and how he's able to go through his progressions while also avoiding sacks is like a great combination of what usually works for quarterbacks in the NFL. Yeah. I've been trying to think of some sort of comparison for him because he does it in a little bit of a different way. I've got a comparison,

but it might be on the too high end, but he kind of reminds me of Drew Brees a little bit of a different way. I've got a comparison, but it might be on the too high end. But he kind of reminds me of Drew Brees a little bit, only bigger. The way he throws the football, his anticipation, his sort of freakish type of matrix-y ability to see the field, even though he's not the hugest guy,

there's something there with him because he doesn't do it in the same way as someone like Josh Allen allen or patrick mahomes where they see the field they know their offenses but also there's that huge scrambling element there's a little bit of that with cj stroud but not really just completely winning with his brain from the pocket it's incredibly impressive and and fun to watch yeah no i was actually when you said that you were going to come up with a comp, that was a pretty high end. Like I was thinking young Drew Brees.

I'm, I'm glad that you mentioned that one there because yeah, I mean, you, yeah, again, like you mentioned his, his pocket mobility is not what it is to,

to my homes and Alan, but it's still very impressive how he's able to maneuver inside that area of the pocket, but also just the accuracy at all levels of the field. You rarely see him miss throws that he should make, and then he'll make a lot of throws down the field to Nico Collins and Tank Dell that are very, very impressive throws and usually on the money. So you do the stats and scheme podcast. What do you think of stats and scheme of brian floris's defense last year the stats were super interesting because he blitzed more than anybody else and also dropped eight more than anyone else and that's the scheme part of it too is that they

don't really have a defined scheme in the same way like when we talk about a fangio system or something it's not like that it's kind of this morphing thing that they're changing all the time. How does this match up with offenses like San Francisco and Houston who run more Shanahan type stuff and love their play action and build everything off of the run game? I feel like this is a very fascinating matchup to see a really unique defense versus these offenses that have proven over long periods of time that they can do the same thing with shape-shifting, but also they have that base of running and play action that seems to really work. I think what the big thing is when a Flores defense faces one of these offenses is how much control the quarterback has with

checks at the offensive line. And I think that Purdy is someone who doesn't have a ton of control. It's, you know, on the show, like Sean will usually mention that it's a set it and forget it type pass block type of pass blocking system. And we saw that creep up on them in the Super Bowl where, you know, Steve Spagnuolo was sending a lot of different rushers from different areas. I even think in the 49ers-Vikings Monday night game earlier in the season last year, that also hurt Purdy there as well, just with all the different types of rushers that can come from different areas. I think that Stroud is someone who seems to have more control with that, so he might be better off when facing a Flores defense, but it'll be

really interesting to watch both how these quarterbacks respond to all the pressure and drop eight that they're having to see on a, on a snap by snap basis, but also what the offensive coordinators or the play callers do to allow them to have freedom in that sense. I think the, uh, what if they win? What if they lose against Houston is very similar to San Francisco that if you're able to beat Houston, I think that if they are able to split those two games, then they can survive the rest of the schedule. Because when you get past the first half of the schedule, that's where you're getting, uh, the,

the Colts, Jaguars, Titans, uh, bears, Cardinals, Falcons, like those aren't the level of team that we're talking about with San Francisco and Houston. But if you take several haymakers at the beginning of the season, then it's just going to be hard to recover and the margin for error becomes so low. So I think that they have to win one of these two in order to make their case eventually for the playoffs. I agree. I think being two and one after three would be a good spot for the Vikings and probably have you feeling pretty good about Sam Darnold for at least the next couple of games. One and two wouldn't be any major panic buttons just because of how good San Francisco and Houston are going to be. But as long as they're

competitive in those games, I think that you should be fine with, with the rest of the schedule. But obviously you'd like to at least get one of the, these two wins here in weeks two and three. All right. Green Bay at Lambeau, you know, Tasia, you ever been to Lambeau? It's pretty cool. I'm not, I need to do that. It's on my bucket list for sure. It's pretty cool. I know Vikings fans that they got to admit it. They like to take that trip. When I'm driving down there, all I see is a bunch of people with Viking stickers and stuff on their cars. They like to go down there. They like to eat brats in the parking lot and then go sit on those metal stands. It's a pretty, uh, it's pretty iconic place to go. And normally over the last few

years, we've been going there in like December or January and it's been miserable, but this time it's September 29th, which I think is a good break for the Vikings. You would prefer to play them when it's nice out rather than in some sort of ice bowl situation. Green Bay is the team I think that swings the North. I have a tough time believing that Detroit could be bad. As long as Jared Goff is healthy, Detroit is just, as one of our mutual friends says, a wagon. There's so much to them that even if they lose a couple of players here or there, they're going to be one of the best teams in the NFL.

But Green Bay feels more fragile to me. Is that wrong? I think so just because of kind of like where the defense is and you don't know exactly what you're going to get from love this year. So like starting with the defense, like you're shifting schemes pretty, pretty massively in terms of the style that you're playing with. So that might take time to adjust for. And there are decent players on the defense, but there's going to be a learning curve for a lot of the players, I think, especially the linebackers and defensive backs. But on the other side of things, Love

finished the season really strong last year. And I think that he's probably going to be a good quarterback, but there is still that small percent chance that he kind of goes back to what he was at the beginning of last season. And I think that a lot of people are assuming he stays the same as what he was at the end of the season, which that's the most likely outcome. But there's still that Carson Wentz type situation where you end up coming back to earth a little bit from what you were when you were just hot or you were on as a quarterback. I think a lot about this 17 game distributions of quarterback play. And I mean, I think about it with sports in general, that LeBron James, one of the things

that makes LeBron James so great is that it's not the highest games are better than other players. It's that he always has that game. It's every night it's 30 points, eight boards, eight assists over and over and over and over again. And with Patrick Mahomes, I remember looking at his PFF grades in QBR on a chart and it just never dipped. It was like one bad game, two bad games a year. And when he has it, everyone's like, Oh, is there something, something going on here with the homes? Well, the rest of the league's quarterbacks are going up and down. And with someone like Jordan love, I think the 17 game distribution might be the same only it's just not in the same order. It was so distinct last year, Bad Jordan Love, good Jordan Love,

that it was very easy to latch onto. Well, he'll just be that. But what if we scrambled that up a little bit and said instead of the last four games, five games being amazing, it was three and three. And so I think he's more of a guy that will probably have 12 good games and five bad games. And the Vikings have to hope it's one of

them. But the way that he solved Flores' defense last year at US Bank Stadium, that honestly has me pretty concerned that Flores is going to mess with his head like he did the first time they played last year. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's true. That was brutal for the Packers offense in that game but yeah it'll be really interesting to kind of see what Flores does in the game against the Packers this year because they do have all those weapons that you have to account for and I think that swapping out Aaron Jones for Josh Jacobs is a downgrade in the run game. So maybe you don't have to worry about the run game as much. And you can focus more of your players on the pass game itself. Because when you have five or six capable pass catchers, but no true number one, as

we've talked about before, there is stuff to worry about in a sense of just who is the player that the Matt LaFleur and Jordan Love pass offense will focus in on for the game. But there might not be anyone there right now that necessarily can take over the game against you. So if you're doing a good job of covering your bases across the board, you do have a chance to slow down this Packers offense. How would you weigh if you were starting a franchise, you had no players at all, no roster, and you had to make your first hire the head coach, would you hire Kevin O'Connell or Matt LaFleur? That's a good question. And I know this is a Vikings podcast, but I would go with Matt

LaFleur. I think that the sustained success over multiple quarterbacks and multiple different types of teams has been really impressive to me. I agree. And what Jordan Love did last year, I think was driven a lot in the second half by Matt LaFleur just saying, okay, I think I figured out the few things that he's good at. Let's really drive those home. And I I'm curious from a statistical perspective, your opinion on this. I saw a baseball article talking about how pitches haven't really changed that much. But what Major League Baseball figured out was if something works, you should really just keep throwing it all the time. If you have a good slider and people aren't hitting it, just keep throwing it. And I think Matt LaFleur figured that out with Jordan Love.

If people can't get these quick screens and short passes and play action bootlegs, if they can't stop them and him just launching it down the field when he feels like it, let's just lean heavily into those couple of things. And I feel like LaFleur is one of the coaches who has really understood that concept. That is a great point. I think that even going back to the Devante Adams, Aaron Rodgers years, like that was something that they also seem to zero in on was when we throw these bubble screens or five yard slants to Devante Adams, they are almost uncomfortable. Like we're going to get the amount of yards that we need almost every time. And they

really leaned into that. And I think the only downside of that is in playoff games when teams are really doing everything they can to take away your number one and even sometimes number two options. And I think that's why LaFleur's history in the playoffs has gone up and down a little bit, but it's a great strategy in the regular season, especially when you're going against teams that maybe weren't able to prepare as much as they wanted to, or kind of are, uh, dealing with injuries on that side of the ball and not able to put out their best 11 to stop your offense. Uh, this one, as far as what, if they win, what if they lose could be kind of season save type of mode. Uh, if they do start one and two and that's going to there's always that chart that

gets put out there like owen tombstone if you start oh and two then your odds of making the playoffs or whatever i think if you start one and three there's no cute phrase for that but that's really bad like you're gonna have a really tough time escaping one and three two and two the sun is shining. You're all right. You got plenty of opportunity. They're going to play the Jets in London, come back, have a couple of tough games and then have the lighter part of the schedule. And you're not going to feel out of it. This just seems to me like it's a big swing game potentially for the Vikings season. I agree with that, especially with it being a division game. Like you would want to see a win here.

And I know that the bike, like it, a lot of it just depends on how they look, especially Sam Darnold. Like even last year when the Viking started one in three throughout through the first four weeks of the season, like they still look like a decent team. You had the one score loss to the chargers and the Eagles. And I even think the Buccaneers game was, was a one score loss as well. So it's like, if you're losing these close games and you'regers and the Eagles. And I even think the Buccaneers game was a one score loss as well. So it's like, if you're losing these close games and you're competitive and the pass offense looks like it's in a decent spot with Darnold as starting quarterback, like I still think that

you can salvage a season where you end up around eight or nine wins, but if it looks awful on Darnold's own, a pick six a game, and it's just the snowball effect towards these, these first four weeks. I think that's again, when, when you'd really press the panic button. So what do you think there'll be after four games? I think that there'll be two and two after four games. Are you just saying that? Cause you're on a Vikings podcast. No, I, I I'm, I'm buying into the, the right tail outcome a little bit. I, I think I, I think Darnold will be better at the beginning of the season than at the end.

So I think that they'll pick up some wins early in the season. Well, I just think if you beat the Giants, then all you have to do is win one game you're kind of not supposed to. And you've got a division game at a place you're used to playing. You've got two teams.

The Texans, I think, are going to be really tough. But the familiarity aspect isn't that high there. With U.S. Bank Stadium, C.J. Stroud's first time, and San Francisco is a little more flawed. But that's why that first game of the year ends up being so important, even if it's not the most exciting Vikings-Giants matchup that you've ever heard of. I think you talked about Las Vegas. I think it was, I don't know if we, was that on or off the air? Anyway, we were talking about Las Vegas, either on or off the air before the show.

And these are two teams that are supposed to be like six win type of teams. And if you can, it's like whoever wins that one has a much better case for getting the over eventually in Vegas. So here's what I want to do for just a couple minutes before I let you go. You're a stat person. You're supposed to be able to project things, right? That's what you do. I want you to make some bets with me. I'm going to tell you something that I

would bet on. You tell me something that you'd bet on. Let's break down each other's bets. So here's, I'll start. you can break down my bet I bet you that Justin Jefferson goes over 1500 yards receiving this year you know why because Sam Darnold is going to pump him the football because it's his only chance at any type of success and I also think the Vikings are going to be trailing in some games where they don't have any other choice other than to just keep throwing the ball to Justin Jefferson. Is that a bet you would take or not? I am on board with that one. There's usually three to five, maybe six receivers every year that kind of go over that 1500 mark in the regular season.

And with you mentioning Sam Darnold, just throwing deep to Jefferson a lot. And I also think like the target opportunities will be very often because of Hawkinson not starting the season. And I mean, some of the secondary receiving options, maybe not being ready for the Vikings, like Jefferson's going to get a lot of targets and there's no one better to target in the NFL. So he'll, he'll rack up some yards and get, get to that 1500 number. I think. And maybe that's not that controversial. Maybe I should have gone higher.

Maybe I should have said 1800 yards, but I don't know if I'm that confident. If Sam Darnold were to go down and Nick Mullins comes in, then I might go 2000 yards with the way that Nick Mullins did nothing but throw to Justin Jefferson every play when he was the starting quarterback. What do you want to, what do you want to bet on? What are you, what are you going to bet? All right.

So I know the Vikings runoff rush offense hasn't been great these past couple of years, but I I'm betting on Aaron Jones hitting a thousand yards rushing this season. Oh, that's a good one. And I think that you're right on this because I don't feel like the confidence is super high on Ty Chandler that he came into training camp with the, so maybe it'll be a duo and every fantasy podcast or radio show I go on, they're all like it, Ty Chandler. And I don't know. I think they want to lean really heavily on Aaron Jones. It is. It's been my

observation in training camp that he looks really quick, looks spry, looks like he should still be good. The only thing that's going to hold you back is the thing that we just can't predict. And with an older running back, it's always going to be, when do they fall off? And also, do they get injured? And Aaron Jones has been a lot of banged up over the years. He's not often out of games. He was last year a little bit, but through his career, he's mostly a on the injury report is questionable type of guy. And I think they do want to use the heck out of him. A thousand yards though.

Could he get there in, what does he need? 200 something carries to get there. Maybe like 220 carries. He rarely goes over 200 carries. So this is a one, if we were putting real money on it, I would say I'm going to have to take the under, I think just because of the possibility that he could get hurt or just that they do want to distribute the handoffs a little bit more rather than just riding him into the ground. Yeah, no, I, I, I think that a thousand is a lot for any running back to get to, but especially Aaron Jones with, with his kind of carries that we've seen in the past from him, but also his age.

But I, I believe in his rush share being very high and also his explosive rush ability, just being able to break off, um, 50, 60 yard rushes, maybe once every couple of weeks, I think will help get him close to the, the a thousand rush yard number. How about this one? Turn up the heat here. I bet you that Caleb Williams wins fewer than eight games and that Matt Eberflus is fired at the end of the year for the Chicago Bears. I am on board with Caleb Williams and the Bears winning less than eight games, just because we have to remember what the average rookie quarterback, even that are taken number one overall, looks like. I think CJ Stroud warped people's minds last year

and what a rookie quarterback usually looks like. Like it's usually not smooth sailing for someone even as talented as Caleb Williams. Um, I, the, the Matt Eberflew's part is, is something that I probably feel less confident in. I still feel like if they win seven games and they're in their competitive in a lot of them, the bears will give him a, a make or break year next year, but I could really go either way with that one. That's in a logical world. It just doesn't feel like in Chicago that, I mean, put it this way. It feels like in Chicago, that part of their lack of success is that they just fire coaches a lot and they kind of are reactionary all the time.

They've had a plan with Ryan Poles, and I think he's done a really good job of building up this roster. But with Iberflues, when we get to what will it be year? I don't know. Three, four, three must be for Matt Iberflues. And if he's no higher than seven wins through several seasons that it will probably look pretty bad no matter how good he looks with that beard i don't know if that's going to save him personally i think that they should stick with the continuity stick with the same offensive coordinator stick

with the same head coach and go forward because eventually caleb williams could be really really good i'm just not sure after watching in the preseason, it was spectacular and Vikings fans should be concerned about the future, but there wasn't much throwing on time to the right places. And that's where I think, I don't know how many games you can win right away if you're not throwing on time and to the right places. So give me one more. All right. I'll give you one more Vikings one here. I think that Andrew Van Ginkle will finish top two on the Vikings and sacks. I like that. I like that. We haven't talked about Andrew Van Ginkle a whole lot because he's just good. And sometimes what ends up happening with the good players is we're like,

yeah, I got this guy and this guy, but let's talk about that bust in the draft more often and what happened to him. Uh, because it's just not, it's like, not that interesting, but, uh, Van Ginkle brings flexibility that was built in a lab for Brian Flores where he could do so many different things. I've seen him drop back in coverage and get interceptions. I've seen him rush the passer and win around the edge. This dude is super talented for a fifth round draft pick. Another Brian Flores success story of someone who was put in the right position to be able to do well. And what's also interesting about him is when you look at where his alignments were one year, he's on the left the whole time. Another year, he's on the right the whole time. Another year he's splitting those and he could just do so many things. I think that it's very possible he leads them in sacks. It's also very possible that he leads them in PFF grade, that he could be their highest graded player.

And as far as trying to evaluate, well, how good can this defense really be? He's an overlooked factor of someone who could swing the defense in a really positive way. Him versus DJ Wanham is an enormous, enormous upgrade. So I like that bet that he could be second, maybe behind Jonathan Grenard in sacks. One more for you from my, from me, you're a Detroit guy. You have cheered for the lions in the past. We'll put that out there. I'm going to say that the Detroit Lions are leading in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl and Dan Campbell goes for fourth down and he converts it. And the Detroit Lions are taking home the championship. It is title town, Detroit Lions. I bet you the Detroit lions win the super bowl this year. What do you think? I mean, hearing you say that gave me chills a little bit,

but I think that, I mean, the, the, you know, obviously the, the odds would, would be juiced here heavily for the lions winning the super bowl as they are on, on books right now. I still think that there are small things on the Lions roster that they could get to the Super Bowl, but they might not have the over-the-top talent to end up winning it. The things I'm worried about are secondary receiving options outside of St. Brown and Laporta. They have nothing there right now other than projection from Jameson Williams and some options for wide receiver three that, that are really like wide receiver fours and fives. And then like the

secondary, I think will take some time to settle in. But if you are able to find answers for both of those things, I'm definitely thinking Superbowl. I just think that those, um, being holes heading into the season right now is probably going to put them into that second tier that we were talking about with the Texans, where they'll be right outside of the chiefs and the 49ers and the Ravens. You know, I, I think, uh, when it comes to Detroit, Jared Goff shortcomings, we'll get them at some point, which is just under pressure. They will play a team in the playoffs that causes pressure for him and he can't make plays out of that. And it will just get him at some point, uh, which it always has, even when he can get deep into the playoffs or even into the super bowl, there's always just some defensive answers for him that make them come up short. My super bowl pick is a little ridiculous,

but I'm going to roll with it. I'm saying all Texas Superbowl Dallas Cowboys and Houston, Texas. Is that crazy? I like, I like picking the Texans. I'm not super high on the Cowboys relative to, uh, the, the public, but yeah, Texans out of the AFC is definitely a good, good Paul. I think that people are too far down on Dallas. I just, I just feel like we're focusing too much on the wrong things. They have one of the best passing offenses in the league. I'm not that concerned if their running backs are old, and I'm not that concerned about some of the defensive weaknesses,

although Bland's injury is serious, it sounds like. But Mike Zimmer is calling the shots there. They're going to stop the run better. And some of these teams, and maybe I'm holding out hope this way for Buffalo as well. They're just knocking on the door for so long. Eventually they have to break through. Right. And maybe Dallas is that team or maybe they're six and 11 and Mike McCarthy is fired. I don't know. That's why we watch the games. Uh, Tash Seth, one of my favorite people in the world to have on the show stats and scheme podcasts. Really appreciate you coming on,

man. We'll definitely do it again. And what I'd like to do is the next time we talk about this, let's talk about how our bets are going. So if we're connecting halfway through the season, let's go back and look at these and see if we're looking good or not. Yeah. Oh, we definitely have to keep track of our, our bet slips. They're not, not throw them away when we think they're gone. They can always make a comeback. Exactly. Tej, uh, we'll talk to you very soon.

And, uh, what is it? Uh, Tej analytics or something on Twitter. People should follow you. Yeah. T E J F B analytics. Very good. All right. Thanks everybody for listening slash watching.

Thank you, Tej. We'll catch y'all next time.