Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Eric Eager thinks the Vikings should get Trey Lance

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

Live from Circa in Las Vegas, Matthew Coller is joined by Eric Eager and Parker Fleming of SumerSports. Eric talks about his take on Trey Lance and what the odds say about the Vikings' chances this year and Parker takes us through the data that suggests they have areas to improve on offense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome back inside of Circa in the Galaxy Ballroom here, where myself, Matthew Collar, is here with Eric Eager of Sumer Sports and the Sumer Sports Show. And we are both doing shows because of the Million Contest and the Survivor Contest that Circa has here, which are unbelievable. And I will be mentioning throughout the show. But, you know, I had Tate Seth, your co-worker at Sumer Sports on earlier, and I feel like a good place to start the conversation is with something that he said. He said that during the summer, his opinion of the Minnesota Vikings has changed, Eric. Now, you have been a longtime Viking opinionist. That's one way to describe you, especially online. But no, honestly, has anything changed for you?

I mean, you you read Purple Insider, you know, religiously, you know, what is being said about the Vikings in the summertime. Brian Flores, the offense. Also, some a little bit of drama sprinkled in with their tight end in contract situations. Have you gotten higher or lower or nothing uh throughout the summer yeah i think for the vikings to me right now they're either where i had them projected in may or better and and the reason i say that is i think everybody knew this defense was going to be terrible and i think that you know not to be like i don't mean to be an alarmist here, but this defense doesn't have the players to be to run Brian Flores scheme and to, and, you know, you bring Danil Hunter back that helps. But, you know, we always expected that to kind of happen too.

You don't really have much in terms of run stopping your linebackers. Brian Asamoah was already a small linebacker. He's going to be replaced. It seems like possibly, or he has been since he's been injured by a small linebacker he's going to be replaced it seems like possibly or he has been since he's been injured by a smaller linebacker so i think stopping the run is going to be hard for them and then in the secondary i like what quasey's doing as far as get a ton of bodies in there a corner um but he might be rolling snake eyes here like i don't know if any of those guys are going to be good and losing patrick peterson um after two years where he was at least steady and at times really really good um it's just not gonna

be great there but they play in an nfc that is not terribly hard um they play a division where the quarterbacks are all kind of mid or worse and fields golf and jordan love as much as i like jordan love the thing i know you liked Jordan Love. You like Jordan Love? I like Jordan Love. Jordan Love is the kind of quarterback that I miss on. And I don't want to, like, I look at great coach. So Daniel Jeremiah said something really cool,

like during draft season where he's like, when I'd have a bad grade on a player and he'd go to a great offensive line coach, I'd be like, all right, I lost that one because he's going to coach him up and be good. I had a bad grade on Jordan Love. I didn't think he should have been a first round pick he goes to matt lafleur matt lafleur to me his opinion has a lot of cachet if they're going to buy into jordan love i'm going to buy into jordan love that's kind of my take on it not being a ball like i know a

lot about football but as far as quarterback eval i'm going to trust kind of the wisdom of the crowds and the crowd there is matt lafleur butleur. But as far as the Vikings take the offense, I think it'll be pretty good, right? Like think about all the things that had to happen for Minnesota this fall, you know, for you to be bullish on them. They've all kind of happened.

Brian O'Neill has come back. He's, he's, he's going to, it looks like he's going to play fairly quickly. No injuries other than that on the old line, which is, which is a positive

um the hawkinson thing hurts but i always sort of baked in regression for hawkinson because you know i generally think you are the person you've always been rather than the person you were the last 10 games of a season um but the one that really is good for me is jordan addison he's gonna it sounds like when on the field he's gonna be a pretty good player and i think kj osborne uh complimenting justin je. I, the other thing that surprised me is Jefferson has no contract and he's not holding out. That's the other one where he's there. He looks committed. Um, I don't think you're going to get regression out of him unless you get injuries. So I think the offense is going to be better than I thought. And as such,

the offense wins in this league. So I'm a little bit more bullish on them than I was going into the fall. Yeah. I would say that Justin Jefferson's version of committed is just destroying everything in sight. And I, not just the Viking secondary that he's playing against. Cause you could be sarcastic about that if you want, but even in the joy practices,

he hasn't missed any reps. He's really been all in on, you know, continuing to solidify his position as the best wide receiver in the entire NFL. And that's really what's going to matter most is Kirk Cousins throwing to Justin Jefferson. If you were giving Kevin O'Connell advice, let's say that he stopped by here. Somebody said, I looked like him. Do you think I look like him?

So like, you know, good looking guy, both of you. I mean, both are kind of, you know, the hairline's about the same, you know, that's about the same jawline, about the same. No, the the jawline is not so he has a much better shape he has like uh he has he has a much more definitive one but like that you know the size and the if i was in way better shape like if i dropped maybe like 10 pounds i might have the jaw line of him i think i think it is the hair like for both of you guys both you know um i i know what you're trying to say about the hairline i hear that and i feel that by the way if you want to come sponsor the the uh purple

insider podcast uh hymns keeps any of them come and get that right it's gonna advertise some dollars here um no i think uh i i think they do a lot of sharp things on offense right like when i look at o'connell their red zone they pass a lot in the red on offense right like when i look at o'connell their red zone they pass a lot in the red zone that's sharp thing to do they throw it to their best freaking player a lot and then they got a secondary and tertiary wide receiver now that adam thielen was washed i know um you asked that question uh about in the one of the press conferences about feeling speed and all that kind of stuff and i think that that's like ceiling was underratedly washed last year.

And I don't think people really understand that. Like my metrics and the tracking data and stuff were not good towards him. The open score stuff in ESPN was not good to him. That's going to be beneficial. The other one, so, okay. So I haven't come up with my answer yet. The thing I would say would be,

run Kirk Cousins into the ground, into the wheel. Like, do not – there's no value in preserving Kirk Cousins at this point. It's the final year of the deal. He's 35 already. He's got a great wide receiver. He, last year, to the – like, he did the thing that we didn't think he could do, which is sacrifice efficiency numbers for team winning. He like he threw the ball he threw more interceptions he had a lower yards for past stems but when the game was on the line he threw the ball up to the

it well except for the giants game he threw the ball up to the best player and that was effective and i would say lean into the lean into that aspect of it look if kirk cousins is average this year you're gonna fail if kirk cousins is a failure this year you're gonna fail the only way you're gonna have success is if kirk blacks out and has a great season and the only way he's gonna do that is if you if you let him let him loose like and so that's my only piece of advice is like you have nothing to lose this year and and and it's hard to say after a 13-win season, but they're an average football team that needs some variance to be good. I think part of it for me was I was curious how Cousins was going to look after a year where he got really beat up and where he took a lot of hits.

And at least in training camp this year, I think he's actually looked better and stronger and more confident than he looked last year. I was saying to you last year, like, I just don't see zip on the ball. And there was a part of the beginning of the season where I didn't see zip on the ball. And then as it went along, it sort of came back. And I don't think that was arm. I think that was confidence. I think it was, I know where I'm throwing it and I can just let loose and he will ramp it up sometimes in training camp and really let loose and still has at least enough of the fastball to make all the throws he has made and to execute a lot of what if Kevin O'Connell wants.

But that I mean, that means I think they could be very competitive. And that's what Kevin or that's what Kirk Cousins gives you. But also, I think that we always wondered what it would be like if you leaned into him and threw 700 dropbacks or 650 passes. And the answer was, it was okay. I wasn't okay. It was a good offense. It didn't fall on its face. It didn't fall on his face. And I think that O'Connell wanted to find out like, what is this going to look like? If I just pushed the gash pedal all the way down, it doesn't look as good as Stafford looked when you were able to do that and give him Cooper Cup. But it wasn't as far away as I think people might have thought

it would be when you ask him to do as much as he did in the dropback game, which to me, it just all equates to your team's probably going to be pretty good. And if we just agree that offense drives it so much more than defense, it should be pretty good. Here's the problem, though, with this, as every discussion comes back to, is, okay, if it's pretty good, what if it's really good,

and you end up with the sixth or seventh best? What if they're the Lions? What if they have the sixth best offense in the league, and they finish 27th in defense because the defense just doesn't have the roster, and the blitzing doesn't solve all the problems, and play great quarterbacks and you miss the playoffs at nine and eight. And, and, you know, Kirk cousins and his agent come and say, look, we're not offended by what happened last year. We will sign a three-year contract extension. We just finished sixth in

offense. Give us the extension. Would you consider that extension if Cousins put up that kind of year in Kevin O'Connell's offense? It would depend on price. But I've been on the record this entire offseason saying, look, I don't agree with how it's gotten here. I don't agree with the void year. Like, the void years are an instrument, but I don't agree with pushing it out too far and all this stuff. I don't agree with not having traded for Trey Lance by now. I don't agree with not taking Will Levis, you know, to an extent. I mean, I'm like the fact that they don't have an heir apparent.

And if they were to move on from cousins without an heir apparent over the next, you know, six, seven, eight months, they would be going into the draft with everybody knowing ahead of time that they have to trade up for a quarterback or they're going to play with somebody like Baker Mayfield. And this is a fan base that you know most of the pushback i've gotten for my cousin's takes have been well what would you would you rather have us going in with marcus mariotta and all this kind of stuff i well how many different playoff wins would you

have in the last five years if you did yeah it's about the same i mean they were able to want to play off well they were 18th in epa last year per play. And now they had more volume, so that helps, right? Volume is a good indicator as well. And a lot of people just talk about efficiency. But I think that if that were to occur, it would have to be at a number similar to the Jimmy G deal with the Vegas Oakland Raiders. Win the AFC West before I change your name.

But we're here. We have to, right? Maybe. When we're in Minnesota, I feel like we can mock them more but like their their radio setups just over there I don't know whatever we'll go with it whatever so so I think I think if it's like a 20 or sorry not 20 like a 30 million dollar APY deal for three years with some void years so you can spread it out um i wouldn't necessarily be against it i think though i wish that they like this is the problem i i've i've had with like cleveland but also to a certain extent quasi they they push off a lot of these decisions and they get to a point where they actually have to make one and it's like when we it's like when covid where there were like no good decisions do you lock down or do you it's

everybody die like either both of those suck right and with like the situation like it is it's like well do you want to extend kirk at 30 million a year or do you want to go into the offseason with no answer quarterback they both are bad bad choices in my opinion but the better one is probably extending kirk and i you can't fault the gm for making that choice you can fault him for putting himself in position where that was his only choice and so can we with this can we i i don't know if i want to agree with that first of all first of all the the information has changed on trey lance i no longer think that's a good idea. Because one, you have to keep him as a backup this year, which I don't think helps you all that much. But two, this is now three training camps the man has.

And his team decided this ain't going to work. That's a lot of information. But isn't that just a type, though? Like, Kyle Shanahan preferred Kirk Cousins and preferred Jimmy G and preferred, you know, some say Mac Jones because he's going to color between the lines. And when you are a spaz like that and you are like that kind of genius and like you're like it's sort of you're the Sheldon Cooper of play callers where like anything perturbs anything and you're you're freaking out, but you're a genius kind of in your own realm a quarterback like lance like granted i maybe get a pres ascribing to him virtues that he might not have but a guy like that that can make plays out of structure and all that kind of stuff that's not necessarily viewed positively by a guy like shanahan but but kenny i mean he's had a couple of pre-seasons now he's had some starts and i don't know that we've seen that he actually can because there

are great athletes Desmond Ritter's a great athlete I don't see him doing a whole lot out of structure right like I don't know that there's any evidence that he can do these things that we think he can he can throw a football very hard you can throw it over the mountains actually the mountains right behind us he can throw it over them but can he do anything else like Paxton Lynch is a great example here of a guy or Blaine Gabbert, guys who are physically through the roof, but it's just not there to play quarterback in the NFL. And I think that after this long, I would guess that Kyle Shanahan wants nothing more than someone who can make him right when he's wrong.

He's probably right 90% of the time, but the 10% is where Mahomes wins you the Super Bowl and not Jimmy Garoppolo. And I think that's why they drafted him. I don't think they want anything more than that to happen. And maybe if there is a Brian Dable who comes along and says, you know what, we can just squeeze all the weaknesses out and we could put them in a bubble and we could only have them do X, Y, and Z. But for Josh Allen, that may have worked because he developed in a lot of areas. I think he is the outlier of all outliers. I think the best case scenario is you end up with an average quarterback who still has some severe weaknesses and then becomes very expensive. I would rather

be okay with whatever is behind door number two that I don't know in the draft. Yeah, I agree. And I, you know, my take, you know, it's so funny because of the betting at the time of the draft is like, you know, George and I were so irritated by the idea that he would take Mac Jones over Justin Fields. And we all like, you know, the whole community was so irritated over the fact he'd take Mac Jones over Justin Fields that we ignore the fact that he took the worst of the three guys or the least, you know, efficient or elite, the least accomplished of those three guys my issue though is like right now what's the going rate i mean we're talking about a fifth round pick right fourth round pick and you know i i look look here's a here's a question maybe level set i know you weren't in minnesota when this happened but i think you can answer it very intelligently was the josh freeman signing a mistake well i mean i i think that you're probably going to say it wasn't because it was a swing but in my mind if you say that something well it had a whatever percent chance to work out and you know maybe it would maybe it would but if the answer is it really had almost a zero percent

chance then was it worth it of course it wasn't i mean josh freeman had about a zero percent chance to work out but josh fre Freeman had like a 27 touchdown nine. I mean, like even Freeman, but Freeman was more gone than Lance was at the time, but he's more accomplished. So it's not the same, but everybody will come back and be like, oh, you know, Josh, you want the Josh Freeman thing to happen again? It's like, well, if the Vikings are in a position to start somebody other than Kirk Cousins this year, you're damn right.

I want the Josh Freeman experience. See, I don't think that just on the face of being, and this is where I would always disagree with the PFF mock draft simulator where taking Jaron Hall would give you an a plus you'd be like, that's not a, that's not an a plus pick because the chances that that works out are almost nothing. And it's, I mean, it's so almost nothing that it's really not worth your time. And you should just pick a receiver because that maybe he's digs or, or even KJ Osborne or anything that can give you some valuable production. I feel like with Trey Lance, you are spending at least some asset that you could use for something, even if it's just to,

to move up in the draft, to trade trade some or to sign somebody else or whatever, or make a trade or whatever it might be. But there's also a commitment that goes along with it. Like you have to have him on your team and then you have to try him. Plus you absolutely hate him. But how do you find out if you hate him? Because you didn't have him for camp. Yeah, but I think, yeah, I guess practices can give you some information,

but certainly not a lot of the information. Yeah, I mean, that's a good point. I'm just thinking to myself, though, play this out, right? Let's say they go into the season with Mullins and Cousins and possibly Jaron Hall. I'm already out on – like, I'm not out on Jaron Hall, but let's assume, like, the six-round pick. You know, if he's not – if he doesn't look like Dak Prescott in the preseason, just, you know, right away right away, it's probably over.

So you go into the season with Mullins and Cousins as your only two real options. March comes around. Do you really want Cousins to have that kind of leverage over you? No, I don't think he does. I think that they are in a position where they can say, we will go into the draft, we will go into the draft. We'll go into the off season.

And it's fine because think about this. If they win nine games this year, like they're projected to do eight and a half. If they win nine games, then could you not go into next season and say, we'll improve the defense and bring in a veteran quarterback and draft one. Even if it's in the second round, we've seen some second round quarterbacks work out Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo, Jalen Hurts, most recently, you could draft a quarterback there. And it's not guaranteed that there'll be a quarterback there. And that's what everyone's afraid about. Well, if it's not somebody they love, what are they going to do? But you've just been missing the playoffs with an expensive quarterback

or barely making it or being eliminated in the first round. So to me, I'm, I'm less concerned about that. And then you take a swing at somebody in this draft. The other part is to talk about whether there should be regrets over some guys that were there. And I think you would say yes. And I would say ish, I would say, can he pick it ish? I would say, well, Levis probably not. And having seen a little bit of Will Levis in person, probably not. I mean, but even like a Malik Willis or whatever, like, I don't think so. I think that they probably viewed it as if there's any chance we can get Anthony Richardson, then draft, then there are guys for next year that are going to be identified as players that they're going to go after. And they can trade multiple picks to get them if they want to do that. Yeah.

I think like pick, it's the example though, if somebody like, I have to look like week 10 on last year, that the Steelers were like top five in EPA per play. And I like volume some of that, but, but a lot of that is just what we've been preaching on this show and in other shows forever,

which is that Kenny Pickett's nowhere close to as good as Kirk Cousins. Right. And even the Steelers offensively, the scheme's nowhere near as good. But you just have such an absolute advantage when the guy's making hardly any money that it can work right

and so like i agree i you know i wasn't a huge fan of levis and frankly a lot of people who like will levis were the kind of people who i i would love to exclusively bet against at places like this um but like will levis still has a chance to get to compete against you know when when he has you know on a rookie deal with with an with an actual roster around him to the point where i think that that is you know i still think that would have been a decent option for them at 12 or trading back to 20 or wherever you know whatever you could have done there and again like conditional on not doing that the cousins option is probably the best one for them right now it's just that everything that's brought you to this place is brought you to this place and that stuff counts okay so i was going to ask you about some of these uh playoff odds and things like that that we were given since

we're here at circle so allow me to do that because this quarterback discussion will go on it is odd to be in a season where an off season where you have a team that can win and you have the best player in the universe that is positioned in Justin Jefferson. But yet the quarterback discussion is sort of where it all comes back to because he does not have a contract extension. And that's where all roads lead when we talk about how they're handling this situation in general, the competitive rebuild and everything else is fascinating to me. But in terms of the playoffs, if I'm reading this correctly, which I'm not great at, okay,

I can help you out a little bit. It's it seems to me like the Minnesota Vikings are slightly leaning toward not making the playoffs on it. Have I, have I gone at least in the right direction with that? So circa puts them at plus one 15 to make the playoffs, which means if you bet a hundred dollars and they make it you get 115 back so anytime that the the return is more than the than the wager they're underdogs and they're minus 135 to miss which means you have to lay 135 to win 100 and so anytime the

payout is less than the wager then that means that's the favorite so they're um they're slight underdogs which is funny. You look at some of these other NFC teams here. The Falcons are minus 110 both sides, meaning that's a 50-50 proposition. That's better than Minnesota. The Seahawks are minus 120 to make the playoffs, so they're better than Minnesota per this or have higher odds, better odds. The Lions are minus 185, meaning the lines are drastic favorites to make the playoffs

to an extent uh giants no um i'm just looking at a couple others uh yeah i mean even cleveland at plus 105 that's an afc team but they have in that conference which is a much harder conference the cleveland browns quacey's old team has slightly better odds uh to make the playoffs than the vikings do so you know it's it's one of those where, again, if you believe in Kirk Cousins, if you believe in this football team, and there's certainly elements to believe in, you have some opportunities on the markets. Is this the best bet on the board? The Vikings to make the playoffs?

You know, no. The Packers at plus 160 to make the playoffs is the best bet on the board. Have you ever seen minus 1600 before? So that's Kansas or the Cardinals Cardinals on the no. Yeah. So, wow. Matt's referring to the Cardinals being minus 1600 to make to miss the playoffs, meaning you have to bet $1,600 to win 100. I'll do it.

Yeah, I'll do it. I mean, it's similar to like, I mean, you look at the Chiefs, for example, the Chiefs are minus $500. So that's, you know, the thing is, is, you know,

learn a little bit about betting, minus $500. Generally speaking, you take the five over the six. So that's 83%. You know, so that, you know, 83% to make the playoffs, you have to think the Chiefs

are better than that. And, you know, generally speaking, they are. But, you know, that's how people lose money, though, because that's five wagers to win one wager and that's you know a tough when you lose that one then you're in the hole quite a bit okay uh as far as best bets on the board i think tampa bay buccaneers at plus 355 is is pretty good i mean to make the playoffs 100 to win three 55, because that division

is just so unimpressive. And I think that with Baker Mayfield, I completely understand why everyone would be as far down as, as they are on Baker Mayfield and the Vikings fans feel this way that Baker Mayfield is going to be a quarterback. beat easily in week one. But that team has talent. I don't really trust their coaching. I don't really trust Baker Mayfield. But do they have more talent than the Falcons? And also the Falcons could completely fall on their face with Desmond Ritter. It could be horrible.

The Saints, though, I think are a good team. I think the Saints actually have more of a legitimate chance to do something than they're getting talked about in the NFL. I don't know how you feel. You're not going to make a living betting laying $1.80 to win $1 on Derek Carter to make the playoffs. But I do think, though, they obviously have a lot of talent. If things stay healthy for them, like a lot of their good defensive players are over 30, like DeMario Davis and Cameron Jordan and stuff like that. So they have to stay healthy because of all the pushing the money down the road that they've

done over the past few years. They don't have a ton of depth, but they do have really good high end talent. I don't mind that. I mean, I'm more of a Panthers plus 195 to make the playoffs out of that division because I like Frank Reich. I like a Jiro Evero. He had that defense in in denver playing really good football no one noticed because of russell wilson how bad he was um but he's the

defensive coordinator now i think that they'll be solid um the falcons the thing with the falcons is look when you have three top 10 picks at skill positions tight end wide receiver running back your offensive line is to all pros defense you get jesse bates you get david on your moda you get uh calais campbell up the middle um i think they're certainly improved arthur smith is thought of as a great coach i have to see it now when there are expectations on him yeah no that's a good point and he's been rocking this mustache that's very disturbing and he kind of looks like a nicholas cage character and i think that there were sitcoms about people like that in the 90s and 80s on weird cable channels.

But yeah, I mean... Okay, yeah. How weird are you going with that? I don't know what you were watching. But okay, here's just to finish off on this, looking at some of these odds. What about the Super Bowl? I mean, what about winning the NFC?

I look at Philadelphia as having plenty of reason to still argue that they are the best team in the NFC. I also look at how many teams ever get back and how hard it is. And now they've added games. So even though they did have- Well, the Super Bowl losers. I mean, the loser of the Super

Bowl, I mean, think about Kansas City. They've made five straight AFC title games, and the one year they didn't make the Super Bowl, the last four, was the year they came off a Super Bowl loss. It's the Niners lost 10 games, 11 games the year they came off the Super Bowl loss. It's tough.

Is it just flat out dumb to think that the Cowboys could do it because of mike mccarthy because i think the cowboys have the best roster in the entire nfc is that is that a hot here's the thing about mike mccarthy he's better than your favorite coach except for like five guys like i i've never seen a guy win 12 games two consecutive years with the quarterback that none of us are putting in the Hall of Fame. And Cooper Rush, by the way, for some of those games. Against Minnesota.

But I've never seen a coach who has had this much success be this disrespected. And again, I get it. Look, yes, conditional on the fact that you're in the playoffs against a team like San Francisco. Yeah, sometimes they fall flat. francisco is also a wagon you know like give me mike mccarthy over robert salah give me mike mccarthy over mike mcdaniel give me mike mccarthy over a lot of these guys who haven't proven anything folks there is no crazier time in my schedule than the fall season and let let me tell you, it is tough to find myself a good and healthy meal, but that is why I have factor America's number one, ready to eat meal kit that can help me fuel up with chef prepared dietitian approved,

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calories per serving. Head to factor meals.com slash purple 50 and use the code purple 50 to get 50% off. That's code purple 50 at factor meals.com slash purple 50 to get 50% off. It's it's so weird with him. When I did coaching tears, I put the Mike McCarthy tier. He got his own tier. Cause I didn't know what to do with it because he has one of the best winning percentages of all time. Like the only coaches who are up there and you could say, well, he had good quarterbacks. Um, I think Bill Walsh had a good quarterback as well.

Andy Reid. Yeah. So it's that he's not the only coach to ever win a good quarterback. Belichick's Belichick hasn't pissed a drop in the playoffs since Brady's. Right. Right. What are we doing? That's that's the thing.

So but I think that what they did in the offseason didn't get a lot of attention. But moving on from Ezekiel Elliott was very smart for them and getting stefan gilmore who i think is so i was watching a game the other night from 97 you'll appreciate this loves 97 uh falcons 49ers and rod woodson's out there playing for the 49ers and i'm like oh right and uh the kicking matchup by the way was gary anderson versus morton anderson which ultimately was a... Was that the Garrison Hurst broke his leg game? I don't know. Did he?

I don't know. The playoff Falcons. It wasn't a playoff game. No, it was just a regular season game that YouTube suggested and I had to watch. So anyway, who do you think is going to win the Super Bowl? Buffalo at 9-1 is the best Super Bowl bet you can make. So like, and the thing, I think of this

Buffalo Bills team like I thought of those Colts teams. You know, 2003, the Colts are the best team in football. They go, they absolutely bludgeon Denver. They did it every year. At home, they bludgeon Denver. They go to New England. It's a snowstorm. No one's calling pass interference. No one it every year. They go at home. They bludge in Denver. They go to New England. It's a snowstorm. No one's

calling pass interference. No one's calling anything. They lose those two games, 0-3 and 0-4 in New England. New England steals their Super Bowls. They go and headwind. 2005, they're similarly good. I think undefeated for most of the season. Pittsburgh, the kind of Cinderella story comes in, wins.

They win that game because big ben like trips up nick harper at the 50 yard line and nate vander uh uh vanderjack misses a field goal to tie the game so then everybody comes back the next year and they're like there's not i can't win the big one right like a dungy you know dungy didn't win the big one in tampa he needed gruden to come in and you know paint manning didn't win the big one in tampa he needed gruden to come in and you know paint manning didn't win the big one they start nine and oh they finished 12 and four three seed and they they win a super bowl out of three seed and it's like those teams are thought of as can't not being able to get over the hump until they get over the hump and there's only one team getting over the hump every year right so it's like i look at buffalo buffalo has been the best team in the

nfl for two straight years they they got snakebitten been the best team in the NFL for two straight years. They got snakebitten by the Chiefs in the 13-second game. Probably a game the Chiefs should have won, but they should have also won. And then your six-point favorites at home in a snowstorm against Cincy, and Cincy manhandled you, and everybody over-indexes on that one game and says, well, I guess it's over. I'm fading that entire narrative. I think they have all the goods. They have a great coach.

They have a great quarterback. Defense is of the Bengals, Chiefs, and Bills. They have the best defense. And I like Ken Dorsey in year two. I just think that that team has some of the goods to win the Super Bowl here. And the other part is that AFC East is a lot more fragile than people want to say. I mean, the Jets, Dolphins, and New England, it could go very badly for all three of those teams

fairly easily. I'm going Bengals because of the same sort of logic. I mean, you could make this case for a couple teams where they're just going to keep banging on the door. But I also think in the AFC, so like the Cowboys have the best roster in the NFC. I think in the AFC, the team with the best overall roster in the NFC I think in the AFC the person the team with

the best overall roster top to bottom is Cincinnati I think they have the most complete team and I also think that their vibes are better than Buffalo's vibes like we've got some Stefan Diggs noise we've got some tension building we've just got some things going on there that make me wonder is it is it going to galvanize together or is it going to crumble apart and crumble apart for a team with that much talent could probably mean 10 wins but you could see that happening after so much tension builds up because i think when you have a 13 seconds game when it there is just such a tragic thing that happens to your team it's it lingers over you that you missed your chance well i, I know you run, you, you're a

runner and, and, and stuff like that. And I started to run a little bit, hopefully, hopefully it, uh, it's, it works. But like, I think about like every day I try to like, I try to add one 10th of a mile to my run every single time. And the thing that's tough about that is it's not that you run two miles and then, and then the next day your goal is 2.1 and you just have to run the next, it's like, Oh, I just got to run an extra 10th of a mile in the snow. You got to run the two and then 0.1. Yes. And like, that's the, that's the, when you don't win the Superbowl, when you don't cash in, that's the melees, right? It's like, God, we gotta, you know, we gotta go through that whole, like, it was like with the ravens back when you know when uh they lost to the chiefs in week three of 2020 it's like well we just had the best season

our our franchises you know history we lost to tennessee kansas city wins our super bowl we get them week three okay we're geared up you lose that game you're like well what do we do with our hands the rest of the year you know i'm saying like it's it's you the the troubling part for the bangles the bangles of the world and the and the um bills of the world is you not only have to like win that chiefs game you got to win all the you got to have a good season up into that and that take and to your point about the dig stuff that is the leak right is is keeping it together for the 17 games so that when you get into that coin flip against the chiefs or the bangles it close up heads instead of tails but getting to that point is the hard part and my thing with cincinnati

though is just i agree with you they were the best team in the afc like probably best team in the nfl down the stretch last year they ran out of gas against the chiefs um because they started so slow ish yeah i mean they were right there they were right there. They were right there. And, yeah, I mean, they're a very good football team. And they're annoyingly good at the draft and free agency. And they just don't make mistakes in that realm of play. You'll see what they do with Burrow, Higgins, and Chase. That'll be an interesting test for them. But, yeah, I don't hate that take at all.

Good. Because I'm always wrong about the Super Bowl. I have never gotten one right my entire life. here picked eagles chiefs last year did you really yeah oh wow yeah i so i'm going bills um lines i think i i think i said chargers i don't know why i did that but you're saying bills i mean like that's a tortured franchise so all right you got to run uh thanks so much for coming on as always and by the way we're able to hang here by the way congrats on the book um that's on your book yeah i feel like uh your book yeah go ahead and buy matt's book it's it's tremendous there's a there's a chapter in it about me that's my book the uh if you want to get into football analytics with python and r

i'll go ahead and order that but uh really proud of you and i i'm i'm excited to see uh it was it was a pleasure being able to read that book. Yeah, thanks so much for dropping by. And just real quick about why we're here in general, and if you want to run, because I know you've got other radio appearances to make, so I can tell our audience about it before we sign off, is just the Millions and Survivor Contests here at Circa, which are extremely exciting. The Million Contest, you pick five teams against the spread every week,

$6 million in guaranteed prizes, and it is open until September 9th. You have to sign up here in Vegas, but you play from anywhere. So you come here, register. Trust me, Circa has been amazing to us. It's a great place. Stadium swim is incredible. So you have to come here at least before September. So you've got plenty of time to show up before the start of the season to come down to Vegas. Quick, easy ride. There's lots of

flights for Minnesota. Come down, do that. The Million Contest. And then they also have the Survivor Contest, which means you pick a team straight up every week. So you sign up here, then you go back to Minnesota, presumably, and you pick a team each week until you try to go 20-0 and survive the entire season. And then there's tons and tons of prizes as well. So Survivor Contest, Millions Contest, if you get a chance to come out to Vegas, you're going to want to sign up. So thanks to Eric for coming on and for all of you listening to another episode of Purple Insight. Joining me on Radio Row as we are here for the Million and Circa Survivor Contest, Parker Fleming, who is a data scientist for Sumer Sports. In the podcast version of this episode, you're going to be paired with Eric Eager.

So I hope you're comfortable with that, that both of your appearances are going to be next to each other. Is that OK with you? Could we split them in separate episodes and then see who gets more likes and views? And I could use that as a personal point of pride. Yeah, but I mean, he's kind of got like the whole thing going on. I mean, he's been building his media profile. Yeah, he does have the incumbent advantage. Right, right. Exactly. Although you have the facial hair advantage.

And for audio listeners, that doesn't make any sense. But you have a beautiful mane. Anyway, but you do brilliant work, Parker. And I really enjoy following you on Twitter. You are a TCU guy. So if there's any TCU alums out there, then they probably have seen your work and listen to your podcast at some point. But for Sumer sports, you are studying all of the world's data of the national football league.

And yesterday we were just chatting and you showed me something really interesting that you call echo ratio. Don't turn off the podcast right now but so this is something that i've talked about a little bit on the show and i'm really interested in hearing your thoughts after studying this it's about offensive efficiency and how we should look at it and one thing that i feel like i've just been very comfortable with is saying the vikings will have a great offense this year. That's what's going to drive them. And the defense will see it's hard to predict. Probably we'll have some trouble,

but one thing is they have to, I think have to be a better offense this year than they were last year, which feels weird to say because they were 10th in scoring, but I feel like the numbers that you have run back that up. So could you explain how and why they actually have to have a better offense this year to get similar results? Yeah. So what I look at with,

with Echol is just kind of like that idea of opportunity creation and then what you do with that opportunity. So Echol is analogous to like Corsi in hockey, right? It's kind of the ratio of quality possessions. So last season, Minnesota ranked in the nfc they ranked uh what is the seventh in echo ratio 50.8 so they only controlled 50.8 of the productive drives in their um in their games and they averaged uh negative 0.5 net epa per echo so the expected points they added when they got a quality possession was actually negative when

you compare offense and defense that correlates really well to their uh you know negative point differential on the season which was just just under negative one point per game um and so kind of that thin margin you can compare them to instance uh for instance to dallas who had a 52 percent uh echo rate but they are excuse me ratio but they had 0.74 net EPA per echo. So what they were doing was adding, they were finishing those drives better. So Minnesota kind of laid on the skin of their teeth because they were barely creating more opportunities than they were allowing, and they weren't finishing those really, really well. So of course, we know finishing drives matters. That's an inarguable claim, but it's something that Minnesota wasn't excellent at

last year, and they didn't control their games super well. And they didn't finish super well. We talked about yesterday the fact that they were getting in so many negative situations. They had to make up so much lost ground. I think them getting in those negative situations in the first place is really a testament to how they weren't doing a great job at creating and preventing opportunities. Okay. First of all, as you're talking with your hands, I'm sorry I put a mic in your hand as well. Try to keep your mic closer to your face. Okay. sorry I put a mic in your hand as well. Try to keep your mic a little closer to your face. You got very excited there about your echo ratio.

But explain this a little bit more in terms of not being a data psycho. Okay. So here's one stat that I've used as sort of a vague way to come up with the same results. Is the percentage of drives in which the Vikings produce points. Okay. I think that it has been pretty good evidence of their inconsistency. The fact that they are like 18th in scoring percentage. So they get the ball and they only score whatever, 40% of the time.

And the best teams score 45% of the time. And that sounds like not a lot, but it is. That's the difference between being an average offense for how much you produce and a really good offense. And the other thing is, too, that they were playing for behind a lot last year late in games, which forced them to continue to throw the ball, forced them to continue to score points, which I think artificially jacked up their offensive production at the end of the day when it came to actual scoring. Am I am I barking up the right tree with what your numbers are saying? Yeah, absolutely. So if you look at the top of kind of the ECHO rate and ratio, Kansas City is number one, 56.7% of their offensive drives got across the opponent 40 or were a big touchdown, right? I'm going to count if you

break off an 80 yard touchdown, I'm going to say, hey, that's a good possession. You should do that more often. And we look at EPA per ECH right? Expected points added how well you kind of finish those drives relative to where your starting field position was Kansas city, 1.19, uh, every point. So not just on a drive, but on a quality possession, they're at 1.19. If we look at Minnesota, they're down at 12 at 49.2% echo rate. So only 49.2 percent of their offensive possessions are they creating a scoring opportunity a quality opportunity and they were 0.084 uh and uh excuse me point yeah 0.084 which puts them at 15th in finishing ability there so really really kind of middling rate and middling finishing there from from uh minnesota so definitely gels with kind of your perception

and the scoring and the scoring percent right i your, your process of how often did you get to the opponent's 40 because they can't control whether the guy makes the field goal or not. And a lot of times if a drive Peters out, but you should have had some points scoring percentage would include missed field goals of which the Vikings always tend to have a handful of those sometimes in the biggest moments historically uh but not being able to get to the 40 as an elite team not being able to finish drives as an elite team then of course there's the question of how much some of this impacts the defense as well like when you're not able to do that consistently i think it puts more strain on your defense and there are no excuses for their defense last year absolutely none but at the same time the inconsistency of the offense that felt like it was just very boom or bust even

throughout games they would start out hot run down score points get up 14 and then squander away leads and of course our natural inclination to say how you defense how dare you let the league or let the lead squander away but yet i think what we're looking at here is that offense may impact defense when you're not able to push the ball to the other side of the field or finish drives. Yeah, absolutely. And certainly, you can go through the game theory of, well, if you didn't finish a drive well, then that affects the starting field position on the next drive for Minnesota. Looking at their defense, yeah, they were 10th in echo rate allowed negative worst.

So the highest, 10th worst, 49.7%. And they allowed 0.138 EPA per drive, which is ninth worst. And so you can see that it is true that the offense struggled with opportunity creation and the defense struggled with opportunity prevention. Those are absolutely related because if you're kicking field goals and you're missing field goals, you're getting better field position. If you're not scoring those touchdowns and the game state becomes where the opposing offense can run or pass kind of at their whim, they can run their game plan. They're not trying to catch up. And it does put a little bit more pressure on that defense as well. Guess what I'm doing for all my road trips. I'm figuring out what other sports games I can go to. And you know who's giving me a huge hand with this?

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You get the lowest price guarantee and event cancellation protection. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the code INSIDER for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account, code insider for 20 off download game time today last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed all right now what's the actionable element of this be better uh i i mean i score more points would you just score instead of not scoring so i think that it is a staple of kousins in general throughout his career to have ups

and downs for somebody who's talked about as a game managing type of quarterback. I have sort of had the opposite experience watching Kirk Cousins. It's big touchdowns to just the Jefferson amazing drives where he's incredibly accurate and sacked and punt and third quarter where they don't score or October where he's incredibly accurate and sacked and punt and third quarter where they don't score or October where he's the MVP of the league. And then December, he's not, I don't know if there's any solution, but I feel like if there's a man who could be a helper to the solution, it is Jordan Addison, because what they, I think went out and tried to do is find more answers on those situations that would keep drives going. So really, I mean, third downs, they were 12th in the league, but that's not at the top of the league, right? I mean, I guess that's the best thing I could think of is just Kevin O'Connell and making some adjustments from early in games and then having a wide receiver who's better at separating and get up getting open

than Adam Thielen was late in his Viking career. Yeah. So I think that the couple of things that you might suggest or might say that a, a poor finishing rate on those, on those quality possessions suggests is either two things. One, when the field gets shorter, you don't have the weapons to really generate, uh, those, those good plays that are going to get you across that line, past that red zone and into the end zone there, Addison might answer some of that. The gravity of the offense is going to change. If he can, we talked about yesterday, he's kind of small. If he can stay healthy and they could find a way to make sure he's not taking those hits

over the middle or anything and get him the ball creatively, I think he absolutely gives you another dimension to having Jefferson down there. Secondly, another way that Addison could help there is maybe the way that you're getting those quality possessions is unsustainable. And so it's those low percentage explosive plays and you're getting there and you're not able to generate it again. One, Addison probably helps with your explosiveness. Two, probably helps you turn those explosive plays into instead of 30-yard gains into 60-yard touchdown gains, right? And saying, hey, we're going to actually convert that big play and get and get into the answer there so i think addison having options and the gravity offense is something i'm really interested in because it's less of a player

stat right and saying like oh once kurt gets across the 40 he gets bad well it's not really indicative of performance right as we know that's more indicative of there's a schematic reason there's a gravity reason there's a defensive reason why that's happening and i think what we're seeing is last year a a lot of the Vikings offense was find Justin Jefferson, which God help him. That's a great offensive plan most of the time. But if they want to take that next step and not live on the edge of the knife, what they're going to need to do is have a credible second threat that they can actually use when Jefferson gets covered, or they can stretch the defense so much that Jefferson can

get open. And when the field gets shorter, they can create those explosive plays and still get into the end zone. Now, big data over the years has had a war on the running game. I mean, you have to admit, it's been awful. They've tried to cancel the running game, which is, I think,

what people are talking about when they say cancel culture, right? Data people in the running game. However, I do feel like the running game for the Vikings is extremely, extremely important to what you're talking about, which is finishing these drives, sustaining these drives, creating opportunities to score points, and also keeping the other team from getting opportunities. Now, I mean, I know that sounds a little bit too old school for even the show,

which is very data driven. But when you are an extremely negative team in my eyes in running the ball last year, when they would get up, I didn't think that they had the ability to just hack away at their opponent. And I also thought that when you talk about drives failing, let's say you get the ball at the 40 yard line, the opposing team's 40 handoff on first down minus two yards.

Now you're at second and 12. like it's just harder at that point like you give the defense so many more options to attack you when you're on second and 12 when you're on third and eight and when you're on second and 12 and your only real option is justin jefferson downfield exactly exactly and and so i think that even though a even though Alexander Madison is not as gifted in their careers as Delvin Cook, I think this was a huge emphasis of them in the offseason. And it has to be better. Essentially, the running game has to be better, or you're not going to pass every play. You can't do that, right? And you do need to have a semblance of a run game. And the Vikings last season, 25th in rushing success rate, 38.1. Not going to cut it. You cannot be unidimensional to that level. And yes, Addison is going to free up some options theoretically in the secondary there.

But that run offense has to be a lot better. They were negative.128 EPA per rush last season. That is getting you behind schedule. That's putting more pressure on Kirk Cousins, who can't have that boom and bust, to be in a situation where more negative plays can happen. That extends the tail of the possibilities there. You've got to be able to take some pressure off of that passing game.

And yeah, Minnesota just frankly has to be better, whether that is Madison, whether they're kind of making a calculated gamble saying we want our resources to not go to the running back and we want to be able to shore up other places. We'll see if that works out, but yeah, it doesn't matter if it was cook or if it was Madison that has to improve. If we're looking at the Vikings, not substantially regressing, giving their point differential, given how the games happened last season and what the record ended up. Yeah. And when you talk about expected points added,

I mean, that's sort of performance versus the situation. And you're getting farther away from scoring than closer is the best way to describe it. And when you're running the football last year, and if that doesn't improve, then you're in trouble. Now, their, I think, way of closing the gap between Delvin and Madison is by bringing in Josh Oliver and using potentially CJ Hamler fullback more often, which of course we support very much on the show.

What can you tell me about big personnel though? Because one of the things that I think is that it is a nightmare for opposing defenses when you can play that regularly so when you can bring in a six foot six 270 pound dude who can also catch the ball by the way and and he's your second tight end so what do i do do i leave my nickel in but then what if i go up against that guy and then he just runs me over right right and and so i think this was actually a very like clever strategy for them to bring in this second tight end to have a nice little counter punch and change up but that also might be just me loving second tight ends and fullbacks like uh how do you feel about and and who doesn't like a minnesota fullback is like as american as

apple pie right like that's just something you want to see out on the field you want the beef there absolutely shout out jerome felton um our uh my friend and colleague tageff, wrote an article at Summersports.com the other day about personnel diversity because we are looking at those ideas of kind of how is there this endogenous choice about what you put on the field and how does it work? And what you see is a little bit of a U-shape in how many personnel sets you use and your efficiency.

So you see like Colts, Jets, Raiders are kind of on the lower side of personnel use because they just don't have the identity. They don't feel like they have the players to do that. And then you see like Browns and Falcons kind of throwing a lot out there and saying we need to get innovative to try to make something work on the other side. Right in the middle, you see a lot of diversity. Kansas City, for instance, right in the middle at the highest efficiency. They're using about three different personnel sets about 5% of the time.

Minnesota last season was almost right there with Kansas City, obviously not as efficient but it did look like they were able to get into some different looks but not perhaps fully maximize kind of what they wanted with that personnel diversity they get the fullback in there they get the tight end in there that does free them up to give different looks and change the balance of the defense which as we know really really basic looking at like a rush yards over expected model your run your run game is going to get better if you over expected model, your run, your run game is going to get better. If you can force light boxes and rushing situations, your pass game is going to get better. If you can force them to respect the run in those personnel groupings. Um, and so I think that's something that empirically we're kind of just beginning to scratch there, but it's really interesting to look at. Uh, it's really hard to

separate execution from intent in football, right? Like, Hey, we want to do X, but we don't have Y. So we have to do Z. It's hard to put that together. But I think with Minnesota, you're watching, okay, are they going to that heavy personnel in non-obvious heavy personnel situations? Are they able to pull that out of their bag to make opposing defenses have to substitute in certain ways and kind of respect that? I don't know. I think it's an open question. I think bringing in those guys potentially suggests that they want to get a little bit more diverse with their personnel. And I think looking at where they are in the graph,

a change in, in, in kind of increasing that diversity is probably going to pay off in efficiency. I think so too. And I also think that Josh Oliver was the number one ranked PFF run blocker, which helps as well.

And if you've seen him, you can see why. I mean, that's, that's the funny thing about pff grades they come up all the time like when we look at the vikings almost every all of them overall in a long period of time match up with what the numbers are saying and josh oliver's blocking the early returns i mean he was in the game against seattle their preseason game just like setting the edge or whatever you know i mean he's just

moving dudes like a tackle and i think that there's some real value in that when you get up in a game and you're up by 10 points in the third quarter and you need a long drive just being able to pound away at a team or be able to run play action off of that which is very much a key and the vikings last year if there were two areas, and I think you can also run screens more effectively because you can have Josh Oliver be a blocker for you on screens much better than a third wide receiver. And if there's two areas where I thought that Kevin O'Connell was not successful really at all, it was in the screen and the play action game. And so I guess my question is like, when

we talk about room to grow, is there schematic room to grow for the Vikings? Because Addison, I think is the swing guy to this whole thing. The running game is the swing element to this whole thing. But as a first year head coach, first year play caller, I think that there is room to have an entire off season to assess everything they did and go into this year with more answers than they had last year? Yeah, absolutely. You noted, I think they were 21st in run block last season and the preseason isn't what it is. We don't want to overstate it, but they're up to 12th in the preseason in PFF run block. So at least maybe some early returns, if that's an idea for emphasis. Yeah, I think that what's really interesting about the personnel

stuff and the grouping is that it's so interdependent on this being a habit. It's like, can you get a guy who can line up as a, as an H back as a tight end, maybe even go to fullback, maybe even split out a little bit so that you're not having to substitute and say, Oh, we're bringing in this guy. Now, you know, we're doing that. Right. And then can you also create those levels with that guy? So that one, he's not, he's not targeted as an individual, um, uh, like a very specific option, but that he's freed up a little bit. I do think the run blocking is really the key there. If Minnesota can run block well enough to let them show some diversity in the run game and the RPO game and the play action game and the screen game that just makes that downfield

threat, a weapon, not a, not a, not a, a rope into a well to get them out, but it's a weapon that can kind of get it on their terms. They can be on the attack there instead of in the desperation. Yeah, and I feel like you need to just have enough Gary Kubiak and Kevin Stefanski elements in your life of big personnel and play action. So they weren't as good. I thought that they were a good running blocking team last year. Is that not true? No.

According to PFF, they were 21st, if I'm looking at this correctly. So looking at their run block game, they were, oh no, oh no, I said it totally wrong. I looked at the run grade and not the run blocking grade. Run blocking was better. Excuse me. They were very good at run blocking last season, fourth in PFF grade. That's what I get for looking at live stats on the show. Sorry about that about that well that's why i wanted to circle back on that point because i think that when your team doesn't run successfully most of the time it actually is the offensive line yeah but i think that what we almost underappreciated now vikings fans not so much but i mean the outside world of course was how much dalvin cook struggled last year yeah

and i think that the evidence is right there. Like when your actual whole running game is 21st, but your run blocking is fourth, then the running back probably had more opportunities than he took advantage of. And I think from watching that in person, I would say that's absolutely correct. And so when the outside world saw that Delvin Cook got released, I mean, I think that there was a national outlet that accused the Vikings of tanking and was like, well, if they were tanking, they would have traded Kirk Cousins.

But not only is this not tanking, this is actually trying to improve because if you can go from 21st to even above average, then you know your passing game is going to be like borderline elite with what you have for weapons. Then you've got a really good offense on your hand so i think we almost we sometimes when you run and it goes for two yards you're like on to the next play yeah and and when you look at the accumulation of all those you don't realize how much that was damaging the efficiency to not be successful on those runs right right and and and there's been a lot of work done about like perfectly blocked plays and kind of the value there and you look look at a perfectly blocked play, a run versus a pass.

A perfectly blocked run is going to be on average worth over two and a half, excuse me, over 0.25, a quarter of a point per play and expected points relative to a non-perfectly blocked run is negative 2.5. So that's an issue right there with a running back where, Hey, you're, you're, you've got a good run block, uh, grade. You're getting those perfectly blocked plays often, and you're not able to capitalize on those explosiveness. I don't even care about the negative plays. Like you've got to have the explosive hammer on those perfectly blocked plays to capitalize on that value there. And so that is, that is an issue where I think it's an issue where running backs can matter is saying like, if the running back, I think the running back determines a lot of your ceiling on this perfectly blocked place can you can you

maximize values on those more less so than can you run successfully on third and two or whatever and i also think uh one of my feelings coming out of last year was that getting four and a half to six yards regularly as opposed to a 75 yard touchdown run every few weeks is way more valuable to the entire health of your offense and i again think that this is a part of the math that the vikings are doing with madison and i also think they thought they were going to have other running backs they could count on and right now they don't but uh i i think that that is a fascinating element of how the vikings offense can better. So let me ask you this question. How good do you think they'll be? I'm okay. I'm a little worried. And we talked about this

yesterday that like, I'm, I'm, I do a lot of with college football. And so what I look for in college football is like, all right, last year, what was your record in one score games? What was your point differential? What is your returning production look like? And if the Vikings were a college football team, I would have a big fat red circle to say like, I don't think 13 wins is what we're looking at what i think is interesting is in terms of talent and what they've got i mean obviously with the offense they can score um you've got you know you're looking at like a median of eight or nine wins i think addison's staying healthy i think the run game may be getting some positive regression and madison getting those explosive plays to their ceiling uh if that all goes well i I think we're looking at like 11, 12 games.

But then again, I could see the floor hitting that six. I could see it hitting that five. Just you get some negative regression. The run game doesn't improve. Addison gets hurt or they can't figure out how to get those two guys to gel in the passing game. So I think that they're really kind of equally distributed. You know, six wins and 11 wins seem equally likely with that median being in that eight or nine range there, just because I think there will be some regression from that thin point margin last season and, um, and how good the record was last year.

It feels like a wider band of potential outcomes because there's a lot we don't know. And in the past, we felt like we went into the season really knowing and, uh, a listener sent me the win total over under for every year going into the season since 2012 and for the Vikings it was almost always almost every single year 8.5 7.5 9.5 and you know they've just been such a predictable team I think for a lot of years and then every once in a while, they have a crazy year like last year, where it just pops up and they win 13. I don't think anyone expects that. But I also think that the closer I get to the season, the more information we gather, the more I feel like if we're not talking about the playoffs, then it's a pretty

big failure for what they decided to do and how they decided to sort of try to thread the needle of refreshing the roster without moving major, major parts, being the quarterback really namely. And, you know, that's what it comes down to for me, but I think it's going to pay off for them with a playoff appearance. Do you project that though? So what we've got at Sumer right now, and Eric Eager has done a lot of work with his projections. What our our sumer looks like here our sumer projection looks like is vikings are third most likely to make the playoff 39.3 uh in the division excuse me and third and third most likely to win the division uh at 29.3 so we actually like the packers a little bit more than the market even when at the time of this article uh the market had the Packers at 38.5% to make the playoff.

The Vikings at 49. We're a little higher on the Packers than the Vikings. Although the distribution, I think, is a lot more narrow for the Packers. The Vikings, I do think, have a high CO. There's a really important element that Eric is from Minnesota. So he would have built in at least a couple wins less. Yeah. Just based on field goal kicking and whatever bad things

could go on to the Vikings. Absolutely. There is a bias of the data creator here. We dock you 5% for existential despair. That's right. Exactly. Exactly. But so let me let me ask you this

before we wrap up. I mean, I think that the standard should be a playoff appearance. And that's where I'm putting them but I understand why the numbers would say that because when you lose that much talent including you know you have Delvin Tomlinson going Patrick Peterson Zedaria Smith these guys were all good for them last year so when you have that type of exit then it's really hard to say like oh yeah they'll repeat anywhere near what they did before and then you have a division with a lot of teams

that have the potential to be good. But here's what I want to ask. We're here at Circa and they have the survivor contest, right? And $8 million guaranteed to the winner. You have to sign up in Vegas before September 9th. So if you're coming out for any reason, you're just going to want to try to do that. Yeah.

Because that's insane. It's hard to go 20 and 0 so you you usually have to use a lot of teams here's the viking schedule how good are your eyes can you see that i can see that yeah okay uh what game if you had to pick the vikings to survive would you pick the vikings on their schedule because you can't just use the cardinals all the time right right can't do that i have to okay so one if i were if i were entering my thing i would be looking at the entire slate but here i'm just going to look at the vikings of each week and say like which one do i like of course um i'm kind of interested in at las vegas right after the bye week on december 10th i know it's a road game kind of a weird there but i think you get the bye week before las vegas has some potential for um hey it's been six weeks and we really don't

know what's going on. We're going to shake things up. That could be a great opportunity for you to swoop in and go, um, and, uh, swoop in and take one there. So I'm really interested in that. Um, and I think you get, uh, yeah, at Chicago early, uh, again, maybe you're never new at Chicago. I guess Justin Fields becomes an MVP it's really about Soldier Field yeah so one time we did a little analytic study of our own where we looked at the Vikings history at Soldier Field and tried to figure out whether it was actually cursed that's analytics right so you do and it was that the losses that they had versus the spread were so astonishing through the years at Soldier Field that it must be cursed.

They lost to Chad Hutchinson once. Chad Hutchinson. Who is Chad Hutchinson? Yeah. He was the Bears quarterback, and they lost the game there against him. So I never I'm always very nervous to pick. I changed my rule this year, and I actually did pick the Vikings to win that game. But if you're talking a survivor situation, absolutely no way.

One of the first actually might have been the first road game that I ever covered as a Viking reporter was Vikings at Chicago. Chicago was like one in five. Jay Cutler was done and the Vikings were five and oh. Yeah. Guess what happened? Chicago won. The Soldier Field Field got him. Yeah, the Soldier Field monster got him. So the one that I would pick out, I think a lot of people would say week one.

But to me, I'm a little dubious about that because week one is weird. Yeah. Are we sure Tampa Bay is going to be awful? That's it. Yeah. They have good defense. Yeah. And when another team has a good defense, especially defensive line,

get a little nervous about the offensive line, pressure on Cousins. And Baker's been around the block. He's not a dude, but he's a guy. Yeah. Andy Dalton has beaten the Vikings fairly recently. So TCU legend, the Red Rocket. That's right. That's right.

With Dallas. Yeah. He beat the Vikings. So it does happen. And Mitch Trubisky did it a few times. So if you have a good team, good defense, you could beat this team. But the one that I'm looking at is Carolina October 1st.

I just think that Brian Flores against a rookie quarterback could be an absolute nightmare for Bryce Young. And I think the Vikings are going to smash Carolina. I just don't think they're a very good team. Yeah, I think that's totally reasonable. And especially with kind of the, excuse me, development kind of uh narrative that we know of those those those you're going to play your rookie quarterback because you want to know you want to give him the reps you want to know who he is but you know he's going to take some lumps and you know that like the college game and the program are very different and it's going to be an adjustment period so especially if

they're giving him a long leash and saying hey we're going to try things and we're going to let you fail which i think good nfl teams are going to do with their quarterbacks to know you've got a great opportunity. One, you're not week one, so you're not going to get stunned by anything. And two, you've got a couple weeks to make sure, hey, we know what we want to do on defense. We know what we look like on the offensive line. Yeah, I think that one that one lines up really well as well. What is your Twitter these days? Did you change it? No, it's it's at StatsOwar is the handle. Yeah, that's Owar. Yeah, you can find me there doing a bunch of – that's really a bunch of college football stuff.

And then follow Sumer Sports. We're doing articles and products and graphs and stuff for the season. Got some cool stuff. We're actually – for a little plug, Eric Eager and Thomas Dimitroff have a twice – they're going to go twice a week during the week with their show. Tej Shaif and Sean Syed are going to do kind of a scheme-based podcast. We'll talk about that. And then I'll be on Thursdays during the season with a podcast we're calling Odd Man Front.

It'll be me. I'll have a guest or two. I'll do kind of a stat deep dive into the week of the NFL. So it should be a lot of fun. You can get all those at the Sumer Sports feed on YouTube and wherever you get podcasts. Yeah, and I was mentioning to, I don't know, Eric or Tej, that this has become my jogging podcast. Yeah, yeah. Sumer Sports show. mentioning to i don't know eric or tage that this has become my jogging podcast yeah yeah show so uh i was listening to you the other day and then you guys are doing an incredible job there and i'm glad that we could all catch up have dinner last night yeah that's so fun

thanks so much parker appreciate stopping thanks for having me