Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Mike Clay breaks down his projections and explains why he's high on the Vikings

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

Each year ESPN's Mike Clay puts out his projections for every player in the NFL -- literally. He joins Matthew Coller to talk about Dalvin Cook's workload, why he believes the Vikings' defense will take a big step forward, his projection for Irv Smith Jr. and Justin Jefferson and the projection that is getting the most anger from a fan base. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Yeah, it's good to be here. I don't think I've been called a wizard before. That's a new one. But I don't hate it, you know? I don't hate it. So I'll take it. Feel free to use it. So every year you put out predictions, or projections, I should say, for every player on every team,

which, of course, should come as no surprise to anyone who listens to the show. I love this. And every year that you've done it, that I've been covering the Vikings, I've taken them and written about them. And last year we had a chance to talk about them. And I like it from two perspectives. There's a lot of great discussions that come off of trying to project the exact statistics for every player and for every game, how it will go in terms of win-loss. But also I love how you don't just pick the starters. You pick absolutely everyone, which allows me to give you a hard time about how many catches the fullback will have. Yeah, I mean, well, look, first of all,

the background here is that I do the projections for the ESPN fantasy game. So, you know, the default scoring, right? Catches and yards and, you know, touchdowns, all that kind of stuff. But there's custom scoring and you can do defensive players. You can do head coaches. You can do punters. You can do anything you want. Returners, you know, you can jack it up.

So, you know, before I got here, we didn't project everything, right? Like I don't think there were punter projections, and some of them just weren't even covered, some of the categories. But I'm a nerd, so I do them all. Like I do every single category we can project, including the head coaches, which is mostly driven by scores and win total. So I do the whole picture. And, look, if you project a rookie to play 150 snaps,

that takes snaps away from other people. So I feel like having the whole picture is really important, of course, for projecting the whole league. So that's the serious answer. The more fun answer is, yeah, let's talk CJ Hamm. Let's go. I'll talk CJ Hamm. I'll defend this 13-touch projection all day. Yeah. So, all right, let's go there then. Only eight catches and five carries. My question is, do you only think that Kirk Cousins is checking down to the fullback 11 times is how many targets you have him for eight catches? Because this is actually a thing, Mike.

We know when something's up with Kirk Cousins in a game, if on the first drive, he checks it down to C.J. Hamm. It's like being a tell for when he's going to have a tough game. If things are going through his mind so quickly that he's checking down to C.J., it's a little bit of a problem. So I'm thinking that C.J. gets more than eight catches. Well, let me ask you a question. Why did he have eight catches on 11 targets last season then? Now, that is a good question i think it was because i've got the answer to this they were probably playing from

behind so often in shootout games that they were playing more five wide receivers more shotgun and cj ham was off the field i don't remember exactly how many catches cj ham had two years ago but i think if the team is yeah if the team is a little better, then you'll get more checkdowns to C.J. Hamm, who every once in a while will totally surprise the other team. Like they'll run a screen to him, and he'll get like 20 yards. So I think he's in for a huge 14-catch season. A huge 14-catch season, right.

So, yeah, that's a good point, actually. I do think, and this is a good way to start the pod, because people right now are like, I don't want to listen to numbers the whole time, and they're going to shut this off, but I am high on the Vikings this year, so we're going to have some fun. I like doing these shows more. Like, I'll be serious, right? If I was talking about the Jets or Texans on that podcast, I would be honest about my concerns, and I've done this millions of times over the years. A lot of times, you know, maybe a blog or a site or something will want me to come on because I'm so low on a team and then they'll give me a hard time.

And I'm happy to tell you why, because I'm studying everything, right? I'm studying the positions and ranking every position on every team and doing the projections. And this is how I feel about a team. I'm going to be wrong sometimes, I'm going to be right sometimes, but this is how I feel about it. But it's more fun to talk about the good teams and teams you're higher on than most people. And Minnesota happens to be one of those teams this year. So, you know, despite my hatred of C.J. Hamm, obviously, I do like Minnesota. Okay, you were giving him a solid four yards to carry. So I wouldn't call you a hater just quite. Okay, well, let's start there. I have other funny questions for you, but I did want to talk serious topics. So you are higher on the Vikings than I think most people.

Now, well, I mean, sort of like Vegas has them, had them at eight and a half wins. I think Vegas has bumped them up to nine wins, which if you go sort of win-loss with your projected wins, you've got them closer to ten. And you have them having a higher chance in terms of your win probability to win some games that maybe I wouldn't necessarily have expected, like Dallas is one of them that I think is a little bit more of a coin flip. You've also got them with a slight edge against Seattle, which Seattle always beats the Vikings every single time in the Mike Zimmer era.

But just give me the broad why you are high on a Vikings bounce back. Well, I mean, I think fans of the Vikings are not surprised at all with what they did in the offseason, which is Mike Zimmer is a defensive mind, a defensive genius. He's one of the best in the NFL. I'm sure there's a few people that are frustrated with last year or maybe don't agree with that anymore. But I think you look at his resume and say, wow, I mean, to be this consistently good in the defensive side of the ball in the modern era of the NFL is unbelievable. He wasn't

happy with what happened last year. And it was somewhat expected. You had some key injuries and you lost some good personnel. You know, you looked at that defense on paper last year and it wasn't quite as dominant as it is other years. And then you lose Daniil Hunter for the entire season, and you lose Eric Hendricks during the season, and you barely have Anthony Barr for the season, and the cornerbacks are young, which, look, day one and day two rookies look good. Even top ten corners look good at the cornerback position on paper and for the long term. But they've been bad, you know, in short-term play.

Just they have. You know, Cam Dantzler was one of the best rookie corners in the NFL last season. He wasn't even a first-round pick. You know, that's rare to find that. So you can't go into a season with relying so heavily on those guys and expect to have a great defense. And you obviously saw it play out that way last season. But they went into the offseason knowing they had to make vast improvements,

and I think they did that. You know, they got some criticism for Dalvin Tomlinson because of the position he plays and some redundancies with Michael Pierce. I get that, but he's still a very good impact interior defensive lineman. You put him out there with Pierce who's back. Of course, he didn't play last season. Good up front. On the edge, you have Hunter back, obviously.

A little worried about depth on the edge there. We'll see how that plays out. I have a below average grade on overall edge grade for them on that side of the ball, but obviously Hunter is one of the best in the NFL. Kendrickson Barr, one of the better duos, an off-ball linebacker in the league. Patrick Peterson, look, I'll say this about Peterson, and I have tweeted about this before, and Vikings fans kind of tore me apart for saying this, but I'm just looking at the actual, right? I'm looking at the actual usage of players. Mike Zimmer, the last couple of years, has relied a lot more on zone schemes in corner.

You know, he hasn't – I know that years ago he was very heavy on man, and you put these guys like Xavier Rhodes in a situation where he was shadowing, and you could roll with man one. But just look at his usage the last couple of years. You've seen more zone schemes. And if he keeps that up, maybe that takes some pressure off Patrick Peterson compared to last season in Arizona where they were the man-heaviest defense in the NFL. There was a lot of pressure on Peterson,

and his numbers weren't as great as they were in the past. So that's my way of saying that. With a little less pressure on him, even if they revert back, even if Zimmer reverts back a little bit in terms of his scheme with this improved personnel, I think he can have a bounce-back season. He's still 31. It's been around a decade. He's still 31.

You know, he's not an old player. So I think that helps Dantzler in year two. We'll see what they get at Jeff Gladney. Mackenzie Alexander is a very good slot corner. So I like that. And then, you know, maybe you downgraded a little bit at safety opposite Harrison Smith, though. Obviously, Anthony Harris wasn't quite as good last year as he was the year before with Xavier Woods. But all in all, I think that's a long way of saying that they improved defensively. They improved their personnel, and they have a defensive mastermind. I think the defense has a shot to, again, be top five in the NFL. Top five, I think, is a little aggressive, Mike,

because I do have all those questions about exactly what you laid out, whether Stephen Weatherly, at least for right now, they could still make a move and bring in somebody else as a pass rusher. But whether that opposite pass rusher from Daniil Hunter can make an impact, because we know that Michael Pierce and Delvin Tomlinson are not necessarily guys who are going to penetrate very often and get into the backfield. They also don't really have proven rotational rushers that they can mix and match situationally either. So you're talking about guys like DJ Wanham.

They drafted Janarius Robinson and Patrick Jones, but we don't know anything about those guys. So I think that you make a case for if everything goes right, they can be one of the better defenses in the NFL. But how often does everything go right? You know, so I guess I'm in sort of the camp of this can absolutely work. But if you take away, if like one domino falls, then I think it's going to impact a lot of different things. And that even includes Daniil Hunter's status, which we'll find out this week going out there for OTAs for a practice, whether Daniil Hunter is actually there or not.

But with his contract status and how that's going to play out, there's a lot of different uncertainties, I think, with this defense, even though you make the case for if it all clicks together. Yeah, and that's fair, but I think you can apply that to a lot of teams, right? Most of the teams in the league. In terms of talent on the roster, though, I think Minnesota stacks up now. I really do. And you can see, if you look at my document where I go through all the teams,

I actually have them fifth on paper. And part of that is star power, for sure. You know, with guys like Kendricks and Hunter at the top and the really good duo up front, you know, not to mention everyone else I just rolled through. So, you know, some of it has to do, too, with, you know, strength of the position across the league, right? Like you might think, well, Barr missed most of the last season and Kendricks was hurt, although he's really good. Yeah, maybe that's an average linebacker group. But across the NFL, that position is not really strong.

So that's a good group. That's one of the better off-ball linebacker groups, maybe the best duo in the NFL, honestly. It's certainly up there for sure. And the same thing at corner. You know, how many teams have two day one slash two picks from last year? Bring in Mackenzie Alexander, who, again, was solid in Cincinnati and is one year away from Minnesota. And Patrick Peterson, who's an all-decade corner, and, again, still probably has a couple good years left.

I mean, a lot of teams can't stack up quite that well at corner. So, again, you're only as good as you are relative to everybody else in the NFL, and I think they stack up. So, you know, you're right. Maybe they're a little top-heavy. Maybe an injury or two hurts them. But, again, I think you can apply that to a really good chunk of the teams in the league, aside of the ones that are just loaded with depth

or talent at every single position, like Cleveland, for example, or Tampa Bay. Some of them are pretty stacked. But, you know, Minnesota, I think, is pretty darn good. Yeah, I think it's depth and it's also, like, what if this doesn't work? Like, what if the Tomlin thing doesn't really work the way they want it to? Or Xavier Woods, who you mentioned. I mean, Anthony Harris has been so strong there. Even last year in a year where he wasn't as good, he was still good.

And with Xavier Woods, he was not great last year for Dallas. He's been good in the past. So I think, and the Patrick Peterson thing, I think there's like, it could work, and I think there is a good case for Mike Zimmer making it work, but there's also a world where Peterson is washed and Woods doesn't fit and Tomlinson doesn't pressure the quarterback at all because he's not a three-time, you know what I mean? So that to me gives me a lot of storylines to write about. And I think that you properly diagnose like some of the things that could go wrong, but also the high end is quite high.

Now on the offensive side, I want to ask you about Delvin Cook and your opinion on this. Because last year, Mike Zimmer used Delvin Cook like it was Delvin Cook's last year on earth. He just pounded him the football over and over and over and over. And at one point, there was a stretch that went about half the season where he was on a pace to have like 450 touches, which is nuts. So historically, these guys, when they touch the ball this much, they dip back a little bit the next year. So what's kind of your observation about that when you're making your projections and studying running backs? Like you factor in the potential for a drop back after crazy usage the year before? It's something I think about for sure, but I apply that kind of across the NFL too. So you'll notice that if you look at my projections, no running backs are projected for 17 games.

None are projected for 16 games, right? There's an injury rate that I apply and kind of max out at 15 games per player. So for a player like Cook, who has never played more than 14 in a season, it's a little stronger with him, right? I actually expect him, I think I've been projected for, I'm mixing myself up because of the extra game now. So I have him at 14 games. Yeah, you've been 14, right? Yeah, which is below average for sure. So yeah, I did knock him for it. And it's scary with running backs a little bit when they get that much volume to imagine them holding up so long, right?

It was a concern with Christian McCaffrey last year. We saw what happened there. And you just see that across the NFL, especially with these feature backs who seem with so much volume. That being said, when he plays, he's still going to get the rock. You know, he's still 25 years old. He's still one of the best talents at the position in the NFL. And, you know, Alex Madison, I think, is very good as a number two back goes.

You know, obviously we've seen that occasionally when he stepped into his place. But Mike Boone's gone and not really replaced, right? You know, you have Amir Abdullah who will do some returning. You know, obviously CJM could chip in a little bit. But I don't know if there's anyone else who's actually going to play a role in the backfield. So there's plenty of room for both Cook, for Cook to be a little bit, but I don't know if there's anyone else who's actually going to play a role in the backfield. So there's plenty of room for both Cook, for Cook to be a feature back, getting 20 plus touches, and for Madison to chip in and get his share as well with a little bit of Abdullah in passing situations. But I'm at 296 carries for Cook, 51 catches in 14 games.

I think that's a completely reasonable projection. And honestly, with his injury resume, maybe it is a little bit high, but remember, there's also the extra game this year. Folks, if you are pumped up about how the Vikings did in the draft and now the schedule's out, it is a great time to get yourself a Skull Flag or Bud Grant shirt. And, of course, there's much, much more. If you go to Sotastick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com, check them all out.

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at birdiegolf.com, B-I-R-D-I golf.com. Call 651-998-2200 today, and I'll see you there. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that your projection is fair to say 17 games would be too much to ask for Delvin Cook considering his injury history and the injury history of running backs. I guess I just wonder about, like, how do we figure out when a guy is really going to hit that wall? And with Delvin Cook, we still think of him as being kind of young because he just hasn't had these multiple full seasons.

It's not like Todd Gurley who had multiple years where he just was terrific for full seasons. So we've thought of Cook as still having, like, potential. But here we are into his second contract now. And that's sort of like the danger zone a little bit. And I guess I wonder, like, I feel like it was fantasy people who started to initially figure this out with running backs and the analytics people kind of came behind of like,

yeah, you know, when they get to a certain age and as weird as it is to say, Delvin Cook is sort of approaching that. And I want, I wonder how, how, how we should sort of look at it and say, like, is this a year where we should worry about that? Or is he still like enough young, I guess, or not enough carries to sort of be concerned yet? Yeah. He, I will. Okay.

I can, I can answer that. He is not at an age where I'm worried, right? I'm just – for me, it's just this year, right? It is a matter of can he hold up for 17 games. Obviously, I'm projecting that he will not just because of the nature of the position and obviously his history. But I'm not worried about him dropping off in play. I don't have any major concerns. In fact, maybe he has more help.

I'm sure we'll talk about it shortly. But there's obviously a lot of potential, not proven, but potential in the offensive line. But, you know, he's still 25 years old. Although I have to say this, it is funny to say that as someone who just turned 36 a few days ago that he's not even 26 and he's an old man by running back standards or at least getting there, right? But that is – you're exactly right. It is the nature of the position.

And if you just use fantasy as an, as an example here is a, you know, a way to list running backs, the top running backs in the league, fantasy running back rankings is a good way to do that. Good luck finding someone that's 28 or, you know, 29, you know, like Derrick Henry's an old man now, you know, like there hasn't been a top 10 running back that's his age in a few years now. I think it's like three or four years. So is he going to fall off this year? You know, there's definitely, there's definitely that age and it's probably closer, I think, to 27 or 28 than it is 25. So,

and of course, Cook turns 26 here in a few months. But nonetheless, I think he's okay from that standpoint. I'm not worried about a drop-off in player ability. If anything, maybe they work Madison in a little more, but it's not going to matter. He's still going to be in position in this offense to push for 20, 25 touches. Every year we hear, you know what, we're going to try to work in Madison more. Every year. Yeah, we're going to try to limit Cook a little bit. Yeah, nope, no, you're not.

And then here's Mike Zimmer in overtime against the Jaguars, handing it off to Dalvin Cook 11 times in a row or something. So it's always one of those things that Zimmer will say, but he'll never do because the games are tight and he's not going to take his best player off the field. So it's an interesting discussion of whether it's worth sort of watching for, but they do have the contingency plan in Madison, and I think that when he's been in, he's been very good.

Now let me ask you kind of an odd question before we move on to some others because I know people want to hear what you think of Justin Jefferson for this year, but let me ask you this first. You have Kellen Mond projected at 26 pass attempts. Now here's my question for you. When does he get them? How does he get them? Let's think about this. Does he get them in a meaningless week 18 game because the Vikings have locked up their playoff position? Does Kirk get benched in the second half of a game? We know that Kirk doesn't get hurt. How does Kellen Mond get his 26 pass attempts?

Yeah, so that's another thing. I don't – let me confirm with Minnesota here that I have it, but where I have him. Yeah, so I don't – I max out at 95% of dropbacks for any quarterback, right? And that's where I have Cousins, right? He's held up pretty well. So he's at 95% of the dropbacks. I'm never going to go above that for a quarterback, most likely. Very, very extremely rarely anyway. So that's part of it, right? It's just a little bit of an injury factor. You know,

it could be a variety of things. It could be, like you said, they're in a blowout win or loss, and Mond gets a little work. It could be a lock up their seed situation. It could be Cousins gets knocked down and misses a few snaps a couple of times during the season. It could be Cousins gets knocked down and misses a few snaps a couple times during the season. It could be a variety of things. So that's the accurate answer, I guess. It's funny to think about. But wait, we're on a Vikings podcast. Yes, Matt, it's because they clinched the NFC, and they're undefeated going into Week 18.

Why worry the impending NFL MVP Kirk Cousins? Why injure him? So that's why Mond is in there. See, I think you're underestimating my audience here because the audience, the Vikings audience is always terrified of everything. So any worst-case scenario that you bring up will probably be welcomed as more safe for Vikings fans than the best case scenario. I just think this is one of the things that I love about your projections is it's fun

to think about if this was the final stat sheet, then how did it happen? And if Kellen Mond were to get in, I think that that is the most reasonable is that they've locked up some sort of playoff spot and they want to give him a look. But you always wonder, like like what would it take for Mike Zimmer to pull Kirk Cousins off the field and play Kellen Mond for the second half of a game because you know once now you've drafted a quarterback even if he's a third rounder that if things go wrong for a half which they will at times for Kirk Cousins that you're going to hear Kellen Mond well he doesn't have a great name for a chant Mond Mond no Kellen Kellen Mond. Well, he doesn't have a great name for a chant. Mond, Mond, Mond. No. Kellen,

Kellen, Kellen. It's got to be Kellen. There it is. There it is. We've got him. But with Kirk, I think that you are in your projections, which, you know, I always think that you are in the right ballpark with all of these. And I think it's amazing because you have to do it for all the teams. But for him to not have some huge year where he's throwing for 600 passes and such I think you're exactly right they're changing offensive coordinators but staying within the same system I always wonder tell me if you wonder this too if they had ever with a similar system pushed it all into the middle on Kirk and just said go nuts my friend throw 600 passes. I've always wondered kind

of what that would look like because these last couple of years, it's very much focused on, let's make sure we hand off, let's, you know, try not to turn the ball over too much and then have Kirk hit the deep shots to the two great wide receivers. Yeah, it's an interesting question. I'm looking right now, he's been over 600 pass attempts twice in Washington, and it was the first year in Minnesota, right? And he threw 30 touchdowns that last season. That was, you know, obviously he was pretty good from that standpoint, his first year in Minnesota with the 30 touchdowns and 10 picks.

But I think he would do okay. But, you know, it's the nature of the NFL is, you know, if you're throwing a lot, it's probably because your team's not good, right? You have a lot more pressure on the quarterback in the second half of games. So they haven't had to really do that too much. Obviously, last year, a little bit, their plays weren't super high. They called a relatively balanced leaning toward the run offense. And there were a lot of close games.

You know, to this point, I can't even believe they didn't make the playoffs last year. It felt like when they had that winning streak going. And I remember the post-game interview of Cousins when they jumped back into the wild card where he was all confident. I think we all were. We were like, man, like they're rolling now. You know, the offense is, you know, the defense is struggling. But the offense is scoring at a top-five rate, and they're just too good to be this bad. So it's still hard to believe that they kind of fell off the way they did.

But I thought, you know, I think Cousins is a top-15 quarterback. He's a, you know, maybe borderline top-12 quarterback at times when he's playing good football, and that shows up in efficiency metrics. I'm not just saying that randomly. You know, if you look at QBR and adjusting net yards and PFF grades, that's where he falls. He's right in that range. And I think if you put more pressure on him and more on his shoulders, I think he would play similarly, right?

Maybe not quite as good because you'd have more turnovers and a little bit more pressure. But, you know, I don't think he'll ever be in the, you know, the Matthew Stafford situation where, like, the whole team is his, right? He just has to carry the team, and they can't seem to win because he has no help. You know, it's just not, he hasn't really been in that situation very often. So, you know, I think he's in a good setup here. It's a good plan. It's a good offensive scheme for him. He has a couple good weapons, maybe a third if Irv Smith emerges, or a fourth, I should say, if we're including Dalvin Cook. So, you know, it's an interesting hypothetical for sure. But

I think at the end of the day, we kind of know what Kirk Cousins is. I agree. And the thing that I know scares Mike Zimmer is when you mentioned the turnovers, when you said more turnovers, that's exactly why they run Dalvin Cook as much as they run. But the thing is, you just can't stop Kirk from being Kirk. So we have, maybe I'll make t-shirts out of this one day, but I've said lean into the Kirk. You look at his 2016 season where they didn't even really run the ball in Washington.

I think maybe their leading rusher had like 400 yards or something. And he puts up his best statistics and they had the only time that Cousins has ever had a top-five passing offense and expected points added was that year when they really leaned into it and sort of said, let's ride the variance and hope that it sort of clicks. And I know that that's never going to be what Mike Zimmer is, but, you know, I like to think of these what-if-it-goes-this-way kind of thing. All right, let's talk about Justin Jefferson.

You have major regression. He falls off the side of the earth uh no i'm just kidding but you have him dipping a little bit in terms of his total yards which i actually think is fair i think the offensive environment this year will be a little bit different with fans back in the stands uh and there will be a little more attention for justin jefferson but you've got him having another absolutely phenomenal year. And I don't see any reason to say, oh, let's question what we saw last year. I think it was all things that are repeatable, beating people off the line of scrimmage. It wasn't just like some lucky contested catches or something. It was well-earned.

And then you have a quarterback who's very accurate down the field. I think Jefferson should be one of the best receivers in the league again. I agree with you. He's, again, talking fantasy, certainly a top-ten fantasy-wide receiver. I like him a lot. Looks like a home run hit as someone who grew up as an Eagles fan. You know, still some regrets about what happened last season in the draft. I think we were all surprised.

I think Minnesota was surprised that Jefferson fell past the Eagles. But nonetheless, I have the targets up. I have the catches up. I have the efficiency. The touchdowns are the same. I have the receiving yardage down as he regresses to the mean in those categories a little bit. That's a podcast for another time. But essentially, it's still high, right?

I still have him with a high yards per target, a high yards per catch, over 14 yards. It's down last season just because that's the trend of the NFL. You don't see guys keep up numbers that high in the range of the average depth of target that he holds. So that's not a knock. It's much like when I said Patrick Mahomes' numbers would fall off in a big way the year after he won the MVP. It doesn't mean he's not going to play better or be a better player or still be a superstar player. It's just the course of the NFL, right? Even the best players in NFL history peaked at some point, right? And then came back down and then had another great year and then,

you know, leveled off a little bit. You know, that's just the nature of stats. It's just the way it works. It's really hard to keep up in insane efficiency for 32 straight games. It just does not happen. We see this time and time again. So in zero way is this is the drop in yards per target and knock on Jefferson. I think he's a home run. I'm buying into it. I think he's going to be their clear – it's hard to say clear number one, you know, but I still think he'll start to take more and more control

as the go-to guy in the offense with maybe Adam Thielen now, age 30, taking a slight step back in target share. But, again, he's still, Thielen's awesome. Just a terrific player. Huge asset near the goal line. Easily number one in end zone targets last season in the NFL. Number one in touchdown rate each of the past two years. So they have a terrific one-two punch there, a wide receiver.

And you could see toward the middle and end of the year where defenses started to shift their attention to Jefferson, which only benefited Adam Thielen, especially when they got down to the goal line where he catches everything. Now, I want to ask you about Irv Smith Jr. because he's the one I get the most questions about when I go on other shows because everyone wants to know, should they draft Irv Smith Jr. in their fantasy drafts? And I think the answer is yes, but I'm not 100% sure because being tight end one is just different than being tight end two when you can be moved around a little bit more. He's going to have to now block on every single running down as opposed to just, hey, you're in or you're not in. I think it's a different beast, but I like his talent in terms of where he can go. And I think the fact that they don't really have a legit wide receiver three makes it so he's going to get a lot of targets.

Yeah, so first of all, we're impatient, right? We used to be more patient with these young players that came in the NFL, especially wide receivers. It was like year three. You didn't care about them until year three. It takes a while to develop tight ends too, right? It takes some time. Sometimes these guys don't break out until like the middle of their second season,

sometimes into their third season. And that's a regular tight end. Irv Smith turns 23 in August. You know, like, he's crazy young. So there's definitely reason for optimism that he can break out this season. And, you know, the hype's building, right? In fantasy, his ADP is starting to climb up there to borderline tight end one, which makes you a little nervous, but I think he can do it, right?

I think he has a shot to potentially almost double his stats from last season. But that's, you know, that's a prospect that's projecting forward, that's hoping he takes the next steps and improves. I think he can do it. He's flashed at times for sure. My concern is when Kyle Rudolph was out last year, he was out targeted, right, by Tyler Conklin. You know, so what's with that? I mean, does that happen again? You know, is Tyler Conklin, you know, are they still going to roll with the 12 package? Of course they will. You know, they don't have a – they didn't really improve

at the third wide receiver spot. Does he end up getting out-targeted? Why was he out-targeted? So maybe it's my podcast now and I'm interviewing you because I'm wondering that too. That's one of the struggles I've had with projecting him this year is weighing that upside, that clear upside that he has, the higher ceiling than the other tight ends on the roster, the fact that there's no clear-cut number three wide receiver that perhaps he

could be the third or fourth target in the offense versus the fact that he's yet to really take control like that. And we saw that with Conklin racking up all them targets down the stretch last season. Hey, everyone. I want to tell you about our friends at Scout Logistics. And I really do mean it when I say friends. They are fans of Purple Insider over at Scout Logistics. And since they reached out wanting to support this show, I want to tell you about what they do.

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i do think if you're drafting earth smith jr in your fantasy draft you are a little concerned about the fact that they will play two tight ends they've been high on tyler conklin for years now that mike zimmer's been talking about. And then that really bared out. Is it bared out? No, probably not. At the end of the year when he was in there and they played him a ton. So they really do like him. I think if you're a fantasy player, that's a concern for you.

If you are a Vikings fan, maybe it's not a concern because they've got somebody to replace, you know, that tight end two role. But I guess I just look at someone like Kyle Rudolph and I say that job is a little harder than you think it is like oh well he's just been Kyle Rudolph and we've had him since 2012 and you know we'll just or 2011 whatever it was and he'll we'll just have a tight end who goes out and does the job and then you figure out and you probably run into this all the time like there's only like five dudes who can play tight end in the NFL right I mean there's just not that many guys who are actually great at it. So that's one of the questions for me kind of going into training camp is, how does he make that adjustment to a role that's really hard?

And Kyle Rudolph, I think everyone sort of took for granted. Yeah, and I'll say this. I mean, Conklin had five or six targets in all four of those games after Rudolph went out. Irv Smith had more than five targets once last season. That was that nine-target game late in the season. I mean, that's bizarre, you know, to see Conklin come in there and get the consistent targets, whereas Irv is kind of falling behind. He was behind him in three of those four games and just had the one big spike.

So, you know, that definitely makes me a little nervous. It's very odd, and I don't have an easy answer for it other than, you know, Conklin was open, and we know C know cousins is going to go to the open guy so uh that gives me a little bit of pause but you know again if we're talking fantasy where you're picking him it's nothing that's that's crazy and certainly he has the upside to potentially break out okay before i let you go mike this has been super fun um who's the team that's harassing you this year like who's the one with your projections with your picks who's jumping into your dm saying espn hates my squad like who it's clearly not vikings fans since you're picking them to have a good season so who is it yeah and and also i want to make sure because i i alluded to it earlier love the upside on the o-line i just want to

throw it in there all the talent all the investment the last couple years all them early round picks just want to throw that note in there so i'm excited for the vikings o-line. I just want to throw that in there. All the talent, all the investment the last couple of years, all them early round picks, just want to throw that note in there. So I'm excited for the Vikings O-line. We'll see if it comes together this year. But I would say the teams that I'm – and it's easy to find out, figure out, right? I know going into the – going in who it's going to be based on if I'm lower than the consensus on. And the team is definitely Miami.

You know, I'm just, I don't see it. You know, they had, they overachieved a little last season. I mean, for a team to win 10 games that was rotating in and out quarterbacks, right, and not even getting great play out of that position, at least from the rookie Tua. But they got some luck in terms of variance with turnovers, right? We even had a repeat, a team defense repeat in terms of leading the league in right we even had a repeat a team defense repeat in terms of leading the league in turnovers back-to-back years in a really long time

and they had a really good hit rate in terms of generating turnovers last season so I think that comes back to earth they have questions along the offensive line some of the players that were it was it's very bizarre what they did in the offseason right some of their star players from last year or solid or good players that they signed last offseason is dumped this offseason, right? And kind of like starting over again. So I will be wrong if Tua is legit and all these young players that they've been able to draft the last couple of years make a leap this season. But I just, again, I objectively just look somewhat subjectively, but I try to be as objective as possible, go through every team at every position and rank them.

And Miami just doesn't show up well, right? It's just maybe a lot of potential there, but a lot of unproven players, a lot of question marks, and I don't see it. So they're the team, you know. I'm a Dolphins hater this year for sure. Don't they have co-offensive coordinators or something? Isn't it like a weird situation? It feels like they were the team that was on the rise, and all went like oh watch out for miami here they come and then

it's almost like they forgot to run march on the goal line or something it was like you you just handled the draft in kind of a weird way trading back but then trading forward again i don't know yeah i think there's some some odd things there didn't they released one of their better defensive players kyle van noy yeah i yeah there were some odd things there. They released one of their better defensive players, Kyle Van Noy. Yeah, there were definitely some things where I just didn't really get it. And it seems like, I don't know how you have the Patriots, but it feels to me like the Patriots will be ahead of them. Even though some people didn't love the Patriots offseason,

they got a bunch of veteran players that Belichick can now coach up. I don't know. I'm with you on this, that Miami just did weird things, even though it seemed like they were right there to be that next team on the rise. Yep, I'm with you for sure. That's kind of how I feel. And a lot of it really comes down to the quarterback play, too. We don't know.

I mean, how do you sit here and say Chua's an average quarterback and great in that way? You can't do that. Like, even he might have a higher ceiling than Kirk Cousins, but Kirk Cousins has settled in as a worse than average NFL starter, worse than average NFL starter. We know that. Tua could be a horrendous one or it could be a great one. We just don't know yet, and you have to consider that

when evaluating these teams. So that makes me nervous. And I'll throw the Colts in there too, by the way, another AFC team. We're talking through AFC teams. They have so much cap space. We're on the cusp. I loved them last year. I was really high on them, which was obviously a hit. They had a great year. I was disappointed with their offseason. They've decided to stick like the Packers did for a long time, just stay at home, home cook players and build them up and build that way and not spend. And I thought that they had

voids that they could have attacked in free agency, spend some money. They had all the cap space. They could have done it, and they could have afforded it. They decided not to do that. So I'm disappointed with what the Colts did. I like Chris Ballard a lot. You know, I think he's done a great job, and maybe he'll prove me wrong,

but definitely too many question marks for me with the Colts. Yeah. The division might help them, though. That's the only thing they've got. They might bail them out for me with the Colts. Yeah. The division might help them though. That's the only thing they've got that might bail them out for some odd moves. Okay. How many touchdowns is Rogers throwing for the Broncos? If I had to put money on that right now,

I would say zero. Yeah. You're probably get that to say that. Right. You're probably right. Follow him on Twitter at Mike clay NFL. Your projections are super fun and useful. If're a fantasy football player, for sure, because who in their right mind would be able to track every single player?

You are the only guy. A huge nerd. Exactly. So thanks for coming on, man. I love getting together. We'll do it again. And this time, I won't try to throw you off the Justin Jefferson scent like I did last year. Last year during camp, B.C. Johnson was getting all the number one first team reps,

and I sent you a message that I don't know. I think they're going to bring on Jefferson slow. They did, but once he got in, he dominated. So I won't do that to you again. Thanks for coming on, Mike. It was great to get together with you, buddy. Always fun. Talk again soon.