Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Mike Clay breaks down projections, from another huge Justin Jefferson season to CJ Ham's carries

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

ESPN's Mike Clay joins Matthew Coller to break down his 2022 Minnesota Vikings projections, everything from how many passes Justin Jefferson will throw to whether Kene Nwangwu will see more time out of the backfield to whether Dalvin Cook is set for a regression under a coaching staff that might want to throw the ball more often. Plus how many carries CJ Ham will get, whether Patrick Jones gets multiple sacks and more... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Inside, I'm Matthew Collar here and joining me for Projections and Predictions Week is Mike Clay of ESPN. Every year, Mike, we get together, we look at your projections down to the finest detail. And I mean that, down to the finest fullback and backup tight end detail, which we will do. What is going on, man? Great to be with you again. Yeah, great to be with you too. And I love this. I wish I could do this for, you know, with 31 other beat writers that I respect because this is what we need, right? These are projections that are updated almost year round and they're based on beat reports like those of your own. And, you know, obviously I start from somewhere, right, based on roster moves and historical trends and common sense, that kind of thing.

But things are always changing, right? There's injuries, there's releases, there's signings, there's trades, there's, you know, a guy having a good camp who moves up the depth chart. So these are always evolving projections. And that's why you see the PDF change all the time that I have up live on the site. So I love exercises like this. I'm happy to be here and it should be fun. So I always click on it through your Twitter, but where is the best place that people can find your projections? Yeah, that's probably the best place.

I do tweet it out quite a bit when I kind of just share a team sheet and then kind of link to it. It's my pin tweet as well. But if you are looking directly for it on espn.com you can go to the cheat sheet section uh in the well you go to the fantasy page and go to the uh the cheat sheet section and it's there with all of our other cheat sheets so that's your uh your best route okay excellent because i just always see you tweet it out and i and i of course like uh you know before the season i end up having it all open all the time as i'm doing like previews and going through the schedule and looking like, wait, who's playing for this? I am amazed at your ability.

So like even with the Vikings, I looked at yours and I was like, you know, I think Johnny Munt might be the second tight end instead of Ben Elfson. And like that was the only thing that I thought was maybe which it could change possibly different. Like your accuracy with this is always amazing to me. And the projections, I feel like they make for great discussions going into the season. But I'd love to know how you come up with that. Like, I'm sure it's not you just going like, hey, Delvin Cook, probably pretty good. Let's throw him a couple thousand there. Like, what's your process for doing?

Yeah, well, we could do a whole show just on that topic for sure. And it'd probably be a few hours. We might need a whole series on it. But in a nutshell, it's essentially I'm looking at league trends. I'm looking at team, coach, player, all those levels, right? So I kind of a back-end build that kind of studies and analyzes rate stats, right? So if you're like wondering where does the yards per carry come from, right? And same kind of things on defense, right?

Like sack rates, interception rates, tackle rates, that kind of stuff. So, you know, that stuff is just, again, a work in progress. I update the formulas every year based on what's happening in the league and, you know, how well the player played and what year he's in and all those kinds of things. You know, at the league level, again, you're just following league trends, you know, where, which direction scoring going, do we expect scoring to come down or be higher, you know, plays the pace of play, all those kinds of things are kind of formulated. And then, you know, at the player level, again, there's a subjective element and that's based on again again, some some common sense.

Right. If a guy in his first year to 15 percent target area and is, you know, the number two receivers gone and he moves up to number two, maybe he plays a larger role this season. Right. And you kind of bump up his targets using a little common sense and maybe look at the history of players in that situation. You also use beat reports, right, to kind of learn where guys fall in the depth chart and how you can kind of distribute those targets. And same kind of thing in defense. I kind of base that around snap counts and kind of go from there. So it's the same thing.

It's just always evolving. It's year-round. You know, you have to start somewhere. I do it very early in the offseason and then kind of add players in during free agency in the draft and based on reports and constantly adjust, and, and constantly, constantly adjust, tweak, and try to get it as close to accurate as possible.

Well, it's one of my favorite things when you update it and put it out and I go through it and look at what you've done to the Vikings and where you think the guys are going to go. And I also like it as kind of a objective measure to bounce my own expectations off. So what will happen a lot of times, especially in an offseason like this when they've changed coaches, is all of us will be like, well, you know, maybe Justin Jefferson could catch, I don't know, like 180, 200 passes. And, you know, Delvin Cook's good for at least 2,200. Like we do, you know, and then go back to your projections.

Like, okay, this is probably much more reasonable than what we're talking about with Justin Jefferson getting Cooper Cup numbers. So why don't we start with the big names, and then we'll work our way down. Justin Jefferson is obviously the biggest one with the coaching change to go to Kevin O'Connell. But I've said on the show, Mike, that I think if you're changing too much about how Justin Jefferson is used, you're probably making a mistake. And your projection has him for 101 catches for 1,417 yards and eight

touchdowns. I think that this is much more reasonable than saying, Oh, they got, you know, Cooper cups, offensive coordinator. So one 30,

one 40. I don't think that that if they're using him that way that means a lot of short passes like they use with cooper cup probably means you're taking away some of his deep targets i don't know that that would be the right way to go about it yeah i'm with you i mean i i felt like he's been used great right he leads the nfl in receiving yards over the past two seasons actually his number one in airy yards and number two in end zone targets last year. Right. So a lot of volume, volume down the field and volume near the end zone. I mean, what, how are you going to really change that up? I,

I don't know what, what you would do. I mean, I guess certainly you can get more creative and they're going to with him, but you know, what they have been doing has worked, you know, say what you want about the Zimmer era maximizing Justin Jefferson has not been a problem for, you know, for those coordinating the offense. And certainly for Kirk Cousins, who say what you want about him, he knows how to get the ball in the hands of his star players. So, yeah, I mean, look, I have him as the number two fantasy wide receiver this season. If you wanted to take him over the older Cooper Cup, expecting him to come back to earth after a heck of a grind last year. I mean, remember, it wasn't just all that volume in the regular season.

It was four playoff games as well. He basically was used more than, you know, maybe the most, you know, heavily used season in NFL history for a wide receiver. Almost certainly was. So I would have no issue if you wanted to go. Jefferson is the top wide receiver this year. And he's you know he's been so good the past two years so I haven't projected very high um and and like you're talking about you know 140 catches or something is that a possibility of course I mean I would say that's you know more like a ceiling but you know if anybody if anybody is a shot to get there, it's certainly him,

but yeah, mine's a minor are going to be a little bit more reasonable. Um, you'd still like, if you bet these lines against the player props, it'll eventually be out from the sports books. I'm probably still going to lean toward the overs, which is not really smart. Uh, so they're a little bit aggressive, but they're also, um, way more conservative than you'll see out there. I mean, I think a lot of people who do projections, they'd be like 80% over, and you'd end up losing a ton of money if you bet them against all the props. So that's why you're not going to see numbers here that are kind of extreme. But, you know, they're also pretty high numbers, 1,400 yards and eight touchdowns for Jefferson.

That would be a heck of a season. Yeah, I mean, wouldn't this be one of – let's see. Would it be maybe the best start to a career in three seasons ever or at least like approaching ever if he was able to put up those numbers, like you said, leading the league in yards over the last two years and then adding another 1,400 to it? And, I mean, even like Randy Moss obviously had an unbelievable start to his career, but for the first three years, I mean, what Jefferson has

done already is truly unbelievable. And if you were to follow that up and continue that, I mean, you're talking about like hall of fame trajectory. So when I saw your projection, I was like, I mean, this, this is where we expect it to be, but also let's take a minute to talk about how insane the start to Justin Jefferson's career has been. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I don't know if people realize he does lead the NFL in receiving yards over the past two seasons, right? You think about some other guys that have had huge years, including Cooper cup last year, but it's been Jefferson. He's had in a tremendous first year, and that was only playing three quarters of the season, really, right? Because the first month, he was kind of a situational player. He had Busy Johnson

out there in the field ahead of him. Obviously, that changed after a month, and since then, it's been straight-up dominant. So no doubt about it, one of the best starts in league history, and if he does it again this year, there's no doubt he's going to be up there. And yeah, we've had some receivers in the past decade that have really come storming out of the gate right you think about like odell beckham's first few years and mike evans there's there's a laundry list of guys like that but jefferson certainly can end up number one on that list if he has another huge season and he won't be david boston i promise he will not be david boston uh i do have a beef with the Jefferson projection, though.

Can you guess what it is? Do you know what the issue I would have with the Jefferson projection? No rushing touchdowns. Zero pass attempts. Oh, zero pass attempts. I'm telling you, he's going to throw the ball. Justin Jefferson, after every practice, plays like long toss with people. The dude has an unbelievable arm, and I think they're going to keep using it.

What did he throw, like three passes last year? Oh, good call. That's a fair point. You got to throw him in the air. I'll admit that's not something I'm too worried about because it's just not going to move the needle. But I do have like, you know, like I'll have Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham, you know, projected with the occasional pass attempt. But fair point, fair point for sure.

Throw them up. I'm going to add that just for you. Okay. I appreciate that. But I mean, honestly though, of all the receivers that I've ever seen playing catch after game or after practice, I don't think I've ever seen anyone throw it like Justin Jefferson. He has like some, he has a quarterback arm uh anyway so

i mean it's like this is like nfl players and what freaks they are right like he's just tossing a ball 50 yards in the air like a laser beam and the guy's not even a quarterback so anyway talking about freak athletes delvin cook is one that you know you and i have talked about for several years in a row now and always the challenge is is it the age thing coming for Delvin cook? But now there's another part of Delvin cooks projection, which is his coach might not be obsessed with him, which his previous coach was absolutely obsessed with him, which might mean more distribution for the other running backs.

Possibly even we'll talk about Kenny Wong was projection, but I feel like you're very reasonable here to go just over a thousand yards uh 1172 10 touchdowns he's going to get the ball um in the in the red zone of course and 44 catches which you know i feel like it it needs to be in that range or even a little better they need to use him more effectively in the passing game and that was kind of an ota thing where you know he's lining up in the slot and you know all the fantasy sites are going crazy but I think that you're right to not go nuts with his receiving numbers but also not to say hey this is going to be a 1500 or or more season for Delvin Cook because

you can always count on a couple of games being banged up. And I also think they're going to lean a little more into the pass. Yeah, he's an interesting one because, you know, the durability is obviously a question for, you know, you don't see this like ever for a lead back, right? Four missed games, but none consecutively, right? So that was a bit bizarre last season that it went down that way. So you'd expect, I mean, based on, you know, a little common sense and, you know, historical trends, you know, I haven't projected to miss three games. I think that's pretty fair for him. You know, I'm already knocking all

running backs, at least two games, just because of the nature of the position. But I gave him an extra game off just based on his past. So that would be actually the way I have him projected would be one more game than last season. So that's good. I guess that helps him a little bit. But you mentioned the coaching change, the career low targets, 3.7 per game last year. That worries you a little bit. But I will say this. And our ESPN Fantasy Magazine will be out pretty soon.

And in there, I write an article about touchdown progression to the mean. And Dalvin Cook is one of the headliners, right? He had some pretty bad luck in the touchdown department last season. He had 13 and 17 touchdowns in 2019 and 2020, only six last year. He was top 10 in carries inside the five for the third straight year but the touchdowns just took a dive you know it's that's really what hurt him from a you know fantasy perspective but he's still even with those four missed games with seventh and touches sixth and yardage at the running back position so you know uh age maybe you know age and

volume may be catching up a little bit but you, you know, I could still see him having a pretty big bounce back season. He's still one of the league's best running backs. I think they're going to lean more, maybe more toward the pass than in the past. But I still think he's going to be the lead guy here. So, look, am I as high as him in fantasy as in years past? No, and no one is. You know, I think we all expect maybe a little bit more, you know, expect a little less than we did at this point last season for a variety of reasons that we just laid out. But at the same time, can this guy get 300 touches and score double digit touchdowns to be a top, you know, seven fantasy running back? Absolutely.

Yeah, I don't think Kevin Oconnell is going to miss the fact that delvin cook is really good at football uh it's just the the one thing that has happened to him year after year uh and i i think i ran the numbers for this i don't know maybe last year but the second halves of seasons for him tend to be a slide because he was been he's just been leaned on so much early in the year. And I think what Kevin O'Connell can do is just use them smarter, not harder. Like Mike Zimmer just love to run Delvin cook 30 times.

I think Zimmer was one of those guys that thought if you run 30 times, you win the game like that old cliche. We're yeah. We win every game when we run 30 times cause you're ahead. But I feel like football outsiders was writing about that in oh two. And yet we still hear coaches saying it, but anyway, just, you know, I think that with cook, that's an interesting topic, but also how much they're going to use Alexander Madison and Kenny Wong Wu.

So you have Kenny Wong Wu getting 17 carries for 72 yards. I think it could be more, but I also know that Alexander Madison is the more quote trusted guy. Like Kenny Wong Wu is four, three speed. He's got big playability, but there's always this, you know, this guy's been around. He could pass block better. Alexander Madison's a really smart player. I guess I'm not really sure how to project either one of these players because I think Wong Wu is the more exciting athlete for sure, but Madison is the guy who probably gets the start in those games that Dalvin Cook has to miss.

Right, and you kind of laid out the issue here, which is if if Dalvin Cook and and Alex, Alex Madison are healthy for a majority of the season. And again, I've cooked at 14 games, Madison at 15. Then how do those other guys really get the football right? I mean, they might design the occasional play for Nwongu. Right. Or even a Ty Chandler type, you know, get the mixed in at the end of a game, whatever it may be. But, you know, those are the two guys and they're going to get almost all of the carries when both are healthy. Now, again, if one misses time, like say cooks out Madison, you know, we've seen in the past, he can handle that full workload. Right. So you would expect him to be the feature back with some of these other guys maybe mixed in for occasional touch, but you know, look last year, you know,

again, talking fantasy points when Dalvin cook was out, Alexander Madison was the number one scoring fantasy running back. It was volume, it was execution, production, efficiency, you name it. The guy dominated. He was even better than Cook from a fantasy perspective those four weeks. So that's where it makes it tough to kind of find touches for these other guys. If I give them more touches, I'm taking away from the starters and that's going to really knock them and again i already have you know cook down to sixth or seventh kind of in that range at running back you start taking away more touches then maybe you're talking ninth tenth i mean that's that's a big drop from where he was in the past so we're already knocking him a little bit for some of

these things and you take away more then you're thinking, okay, well, maybe this is too low for cook. You know, he still should be the main guy and that's kind of the issue that you can run into sometimes a projection because look, if cook has a major injury or Madison and they miss half the season, then obviously I'm going to be way off. These projections for the backups are going to be much higher. They're going to get more touches.

So that's just one of the lines you have to walk with this kind of thing. Oh, for sure. You can't just predict random huge injuries. Exactly. How would you ever know? But the Wong Wu thing is interesting to me because I feel like if they only get him the ball, you have a total of 21 times. It's probably a mistake because of his potential for the huge play like this is where i think they can do better than in the mike zimmer era and i i don't know that your projection is like unreasonable i think it is reasonable but i also look at it and go and this is why i love to look at your projections and say if they only give them the ball 21 times maybe that's not enough

because i mean if you saw him kick return you saw the pure speed and agility and ability to read the field and create explosive plays he only got what 17 carries or something last year 13 carries last year and one of them was a run against chicago that just like blew my mind um so i feel like they should be using him more, but I don't know that they will. And I also need you to address zero handoffs for CJ Hamm. Come on, man. He's getting at least one. I mean, I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful for it.

I hope they can find ways to get the ball in the hands of all these guys. And by the way, if they're successful and they're winning games, these guys will get more carries at the end of games. So hopefully I'm wrong. As somebody that's been high on Minnesota the past few years, they've kind of disappointed me, maybe of games. So hopefully I'm wrong. As somebody that's been high on Minnesota the past few years, they've kind of disappointed me, maybe look silly. I hope I'm wrong. But, you know, we love C.J. Hamm on this show for sure when I visit.

And, I mean, look, there's not many fullbacks left, right? He's one of the few. So hopefully they continue to utilize him. I mean, it's what, three years in a row he's played a third of the snaps. So let's do that again. Let's see. So hopefully they continue to utilize them. I mean, it's what, three years in a row he's played a third of the snaps. So let's do that again. Let's see. And by the way, the reason I don't have him with the carry is the scheme to change, right?

I mean, are they going to hand it to the fullback, do you think? I think at least three times. You think three times? I don't think it's going to be. I mean, I don't know. Now, I do know that Kevin O'Connell likes C.J. Hamm, that it's one of the players that he talked about, like not sticking like dead on to the scheme that Sean McVay used and't really know what to do. And we've seen this in recent years. It really worked with Kevin Stefanski where they would be putting out, you know, two tight ends and a fullback. And the other team is like, who do we put on the field line?

Do we have more linebackers? Is there a linebacker we can sign to put to play against the Vikings? And it really worked for them at times. So I think that they actually will use him. I'm not saying a huge number of the snaps because they're going to play 11 personnel but from time to time enough to get three carries that's what i'm thinking all right fair enough three carries uh that's fine but you see my issue here right we want carries for cj ham we want them for you know justin jefferson

will get a couple we want nuongo and of course you have the feature back cook and you have alex madison you need some quarterback sneaks from kirk cousins and oh don't forget about ty chandler they took in the fifth round does he get you know is he active and do they get the occasional carry so you can only add up to 100 of the carries that's that's the exact issue yes but it's my favorite thing to grill you on the most minute. Let's see. So Vikings fans would be very jaded also to say that C.J. Hamm will get nine – you have him for nine catches on 11 targets, and Vikings fans would say, and every one of them will be on third and long. Yep, probably.

Well, maybe at the old scheme. I don't know if O'Connell lets that happen, but not every coordinator slash coach works out. So we'll have to see how he, how he applies what he learned from McVay to this offense. Yeah. I guess that comes down to whether you believe that's a Kirk thing or a scheme thing. And I,

I tend to think that ham won't be on the field for third and long, but I do think we'll still get the same short of the sticks issue with Kirk cousins, which we should probably talk about the quarterback. I mean, we could spend all day on the fullback, as you know, but with Kirk Cousins, this is one where I feel like if it turns out the way that you've got it, which is a very fair projection based on Kirk Cousins, 27 touchdowns, 10 picks, 4,123 yards. If it turns out that way, it will be disappointing compared to expectations of what people think or want Kevin O'Connell to do for him. But I've been skeptical on that of having the Tiger changes stripes in his mid thirties

because of a, because of a coach change that I think that there's a lot of people who want this to be the Matt Stafford going to the Rams. I'm not certain that it will be. Yeah. I mean, look, he's a, well, by the way, first of all, uh, exactly at the 50th percentile and short of the six throws the past two years, if he could believe that. So, um, you know, I know there's been some issues with him on you know third and long i guess but uh not being aggressive enough but nonetheless i just thought it was kind of funny that he ended up he's exactly mid pack and short of the six throws he's exactly mid pack and absolutely everything like well yeah when you see but when you see the when you see all those

charts that are like here's the success rate of this or that or whatever, it's like Mahomes always has to be the best. Darnold has to be the worst. And Kirk has to be in the middle. And he has to have every season between seven and nine wins. It's just who Kirk Cousins is. And every quarterback ranking has him 16th. Yeah.

Look, I hear you for sure. I think that, you know, at this point, he might be a little underrated. Certainly, if you're looking at just efficiency metrics across the board last year, you look at YPA, YPA over-expected, completion rate, completion rate over-expected, interception rate, he was elite in that department. You know, he's been, he's been top 10 in yards per attempt, three straight years. Right. So I, again, and you know, he's been top 10 in touchdown passes five years in a row. So, you know, again, I'm not sitting here trying to say that he's an elite quarterback or anything like that, but you know, he seems to have a knack for at least getting the ball to these, these playmakers to getting them to Jefferson and Thielen and, you know, hopefully Irv Smith this year. And, you know, he's even got kind of a little mini K.J. Osborne breakout last year as well. So, you know, he's done some things pretty well.

He doesn't add as much with his legs as he used to, at least in the touchdown department. But on a per-throw basis, the yardage has been there, you know, and obviously the scoring's been there uh through the air as well so uh again i think that he's you know good enough to to be efficient and help jefferson to a big season and if he's healthy adam thielen you know he's a different conversation based on his age but um i just i don't think kurt cousins is gonna crush this team's hopes right can they if everything else works out and they stay healthy and the offensive line is competent, can they get into the playoffs and win a game or two?

Yeah, I think they can with Kirk Cousins. Yeah, I mean, I think that everyone believes about Kirk Cousins that if everything around him goes the way that it's supposed to go, that he can get to the playoffs. He can win a playoff game. We've seen him do that in a year in 2019, where everything did go their way. They were an unbelievably healthy team that year. They had a very favorable schedule,

but that's just kind of how it is. And I just thought it was funny. Like the fantasy projection of cousins ranks him 14th, which is where every, you know, between, between 12th and 16th is where every ranking has kirk cousins and uh you know but i think that for you to not say like oh kevin

o'connell is going to make this vastly different i think that's smart on your part because we're talking ourselves into it a lot and it is possible that they air it out like crazy and he throws for 5,000 yards. His career high is 4,900. So it's not completely insane. And that was with Sean McVay. But I also think that being a little more cautious on this than to just say, oh, this will be very, very different is the right way to go. Yeah, I definitely think that makes sense. And again, I have Minnesota, you know, kind of mid-pack. you know, I think they're in contend for a playoff spot, you know, have them outscoring their opponents, right? So I think they have potential to be a solid team. And, you know, he shouldn't necessarily need to the quarterback. But, you know, sometimes that's a good thing if your quarterback's not chucking it around the field in the second half.

And also, again, I mentioned this before, but I have them with fewer touchdowns because I have more of them going to the running back position. Right. Again, there was kind of, you know, kind of a misalignment there last year. And I think we're going to see a little regression of the mean on top of this scheme. I think that you'll see more rushing touchdowns yeah you have their overall offensive rank as being 14th which I also think is something that if it happens it's it's a little disappointing because they were 14th in scoring last year and the expectation is you fired Mike Zimmer so you could score more points with the offensive coach but I don't think it's unreasonable because of the quarterback and how far that can take you. They also didn't improve some of the interior offensive line that have been a problem for Kirk Cousins in the past.

But I do think on the defensive side, if we can talk about that for a second, that ranking them 15th on the defensive side is what they should be. Like, I don't think that adding a handful of these players suddenly makes them an elite defense, but I think that if they ranked 14th and offense and 15th and defense, they've got a decent shot to at least be a playoff team. But I feel like also Mike, we're dealing with the same issue of the roster being thin on defense that we

talked about last year. It was like, well, if all these guys play and they hit your projections, then yeah, I mean, this is a pretty good defense, but then a couple of guys got hurt and suddenly you're down to that next

level. You only get half a season out of Daniel Hunter. Your projections here for Hunter and Smith is that they combined for 20 sacks. I think that's totally right if they play the whole season. It's just, are they going to play the whole season? Yeah, exactly. You're exactly right, and that's the concern here.

We've had some major injuries from this team over the past couple of seasons. And again, as you know, I was pretty high on this unit last year. I thought they were in position, at least in the starting spots, to stack up with some of the best defenses in the NFL. But, you know, you miss a couple guys, and next thing you know you're starting these backups and it doesn't look so hot. Again, we saw that two years ago even more severely.

Remember all the just the back-end depth corners that were playing for this team every single week. It was a rough go. So, look, you could say this about a lot of teams, but if this core stays together, if they stay healthy, it's going to be an above average season. But the depth is a major concern. And obviously, there's some guys here that are a bit of an unknown, right? I know you and I talked the first time you looked at these projections about them using, you know, more dime and using three safeties perhaps, but, you know, they're a little unproven at that position behind Harrison Smith, right? So those guys are not sure things to be good players.

Maybe they will, maybe they won't. You know, so that's a concern. And then the same kind of thing at corner with depth, right? The corners are going to miss some time, you know, especially Patrick Peterson's almost 32, you know, Cam Dantantzler probably a little underrated you know I don't understand what happened last year that he wasn't uh really given a shot to start it didn't seem like I mean maybe you could expand on that but that was a little surprising how that kind of went down after an impressive rookie year the Chandon Sullivan was a nice get in the slot but you know he wasn't exactly great last season and then after that you know again you got you got guys that are coming most of them from other teams you know obviously Andrew Booth's a rookie second rounder you don't know rookies rookie corners tend to take a little while to

come around um so you know you you worry about that then you could really apply that kind of thinking across the board with this defense yeah the uh Dantz thing, he really had a horrendous training camp. I mean, it was bad. And then comes out in the first preseason game after struggling in the first few weeks of practice and then gets roasted for a touchdown on the first drive against him. And I think that that stuck with Mike Zimmer. And even though Bashad Breeland was really struggling along the way and should have been benched for Dantzler. There's no question about it.

I think that the first impression died hard of what it looked like in training camp. And then when Dantzler got in, I thought that, you know, the biggest moments he came up short, which is Amari Cooper mossing him in the end zone to lose to Dallas, Detroit beating him where he's too deep in the end zone. And those are also like, I mean, that's just natural, right? The big plays are going to stand out in your mind more. And I think that's what happened with Zimmer. And eventually, you know, he got to play a little more

when Bashad Breeland basically quit the team. So that's what it took. But I mean, I think that there's reason to believe that Dantzler could be good, but there's also his best games. You kind of look at some of the quarterbacks that he went against and go, I don't know if that's what we should really judge him on. Right. You know, including even Cooper rush. So yeah, I think, I think that he's a big question mark for the season. So let's let's do this. I w I'm going to throw a couple of

random numbers at you that you projected and let's talk about whether you think it'll hit the over or under. How do you like that? Okay, well, I'm going to say dead on, right? Because if you're using my projections, these are all perfect. You should know that. I mean, they're all going to hit exactly right on the money, and if they don't, then I'm a hack. That's how it works.

Okay, then maybe I'll tell you. Here's how we'll do it. I'll tell you if I think it's going to go over or under, okay? Now we're talking. I think that James Lynch is going to go under 408 snaps. Okay. James Lynch. All right.

So who, all right. So you have up front, you know, we're three, four, right? So they're going to play a lot of snaps or more snaps you would think in the interior. So you have Dalvin Tomlinson, Harrison Phillips. We have Armand Watts is third. I've lynched fourth on the depth chart. Then I have Jonathan Bullard. You have T.J. Smith, T.Y. McGill.

That's pretty much your core there. T.Y. McGill is definitely a guy on the team. Yeah, I think that while they picked up Jonathan Bullard, who I think is a Ryan Grigson guy from, what, the Colts maybe? And so I think that he might play a little bit. But I also think that when you look at Tomlinson, Phillips and Watts, they have really good health records. And I think that those guys are just going to rotate a lot and we won't see a

ton of James Lynch. Also they've never been able to figure out what James Lynch does like what his position is supposed to be. And it's kind of like, if you're playing James Lynch, it's break in case of disaster. So I don't know that he's going to be a guy that fits with what they want to do because the previous coaching staff just seemed to really want him somewhere but could never figure out exactly where. How about a Patrick Jones over 1.2 sacks?

I will take that. I think he's going to play. All right. Patrick Jones. 1.2 sacks. I will take that. I think he's going to play. All right. Patrick Jones. Okay. So the issue there is if healthy again, and I understand it's a big hit if I didn't, a big if I didn't knock them a little bit for their health, but to Neil Hunter's various Smith, their track records say, you know, they'll be playing almost every snap, right? 80, 85%. At least in the past, you know, that could obviously change, but I do have them projected pretty high in terms of snap share. And that kind of limits the opportunities for the other edge rushers. So that's kind of the knock there with Jones.

And by the way, just to kind of circle back, you know, the same kind of thing with the interior, right? You look at the track record of Dalva Tomlinson. I mean, all season last year, he's playing about 55, 60% of the snaps. Armond Watts, same thing, you know, kind of around 55%. And Harrison Phillips has a similar resume, right? So that's why you have extra snaps for guys like Lynch and Bullard in the interior, but maybe you don't have as much for the depth guys on the edge. So it's kind of, you know, again, it's the same thing we talk about with offense, right? Like the, you can't put a, fit a square in a circle hole, right? You know, you have to, it's the same thing we talk about with offense, right? Like the, you can't put a fit a square in a circle hole, right? You know, you have to, there's only so many snaps to go around.

So it's kind of the issue we have in both of these, these departments. No, it certainly is. My thinking on that is that I think Patrick Jones fits a little bit better with what they want to do than DJ Wanham. And Zedaria Smith is probably going to miss like three or four games just based on his age and his recent health and if that happens then Patrick Jones has a chance to be next man up grab a couple of cleanup sacks while Daniil Hunter is chasing the guy the other way or the defensive line is pushing him forward or there's a blitz or something and I and I think he's going to get to

two I also wanted to compliment you on the DJ Wanham projection. A lot of times people look at his sack number and they're like, oh, well, he should be their next Daniil Hunter guy. And last year was the ultimate cleanup sack season for DJ Wanham. His pressure rate was incredibly low. He wasn't really an effective player. So I think that one is also right. I am going to say Amir smith-marset has more catches than bc johnson i'm gonna go with that okay and again that's one of them things

where we have to watch the camp battles right because you have a lot of guys kind of competing for that four job i would say osborne should have the three pretty much locked down after what he did last season i mean obviously things could, but you would expect him to start there. And then you have Johnson, Smith, Marcet, obviously, you know, Jalen Naylor, Albert Wilson, they just brought in. So there's kind of a lot of guys competing for those spots. So I'm admittedly hedging and kind of spread out a handful of targets over a few guys there. Yeah. I think that Smith Marcet is the higher upside guy that is going to shine in training camp and they're going to like him more and get him on the field using three wide receivers rotate him in a little bit as a deep threat and go to him maybe a little more often but coaches are coaches right like bc johnson is

experienced and he's also a very smart player so he could end up on the field more with them saying oh we trust bc johnson more than smith marv said uh okay one or two more here i'm gonna go greg joseph under 85 field goal percentage oh interesting we're going kickers here all right hey if you're gonna protect them i'm gonna i'm gonna question them i'm gonna yeah i'm i'm i'm looking here i want to see why uh he is where he is okay so has it has i need to know this has any other podcasts or radio hosts questioned you about the kicker projection um very rarely almost never but i will say this i i'm gonna i'm gonna put i'm gonna put you back on the spot here because he made 85 percent um at in 2018 when we first saw him in the league and then last year he made 86.8% with an expected field goal percentage of 83.4%.

So he's actually 3% above his expected. So that's pretty good. I mean, he was an above average kicker in terms of field goal accuracy last year. Yeah, he's a Vikings kicker. That's my counter to that. That's all I got. I don't know. How the hell would I project a kicker?

I'm looking at, again again I'll keep this tight but basically expected field goal percentage is based on distance right I mean some guys kick longer field goals some have a lot of chip shots and that can make it kind of misleading right it can make a low field goal percentage look kind of you know bad um you know but if you look if you kind of adjust for that you could see who's actually accurate so he was even better than his field goal percentage was or looks last year i didn't look at his extra points but yeah that was part of the uh well yeah and my counterpoint is only vikings kicker so you've got yeah scientific method but it feels like once you feel like you found one like remember remember when blair Walsh hit all those 50 yards. Oh man.

Yes. Yep. See, Blair was, Blair was good. He, that, that was a shocker when the wheels kind of fell off there.

History is on my side. So, okay. Last thing you project 8.8 wins, a nine win season for the Vikings. How confident are you in in the win project projection because with mike zimmer over the last few years we felt like we just knew everything like we've seen this guy coach forever we know that the ceilings the limits um but we also know

that the low end was not ever going to be a disaster under mike zimmer kevin o'connell we know nothing about how he's going to be the head coach of the team other than he wants everybody to like each other. We do know that, but that's it. So how confident are you in a nine win season for the Vikings? Yeah, I think they are right around a 500 team again. You know, here's the thing in terms of my unit grades, which I'm grading position by position, I have them 14th, right? So it'd be a mid-pack roster. You know, you look at strength of schedule. I have them 10th, would 10th be 10th easiest, right? So that leans in their favor. The problem is really when you get in, and by the way, they're in the NFC, that helps their cause toward a wild card berth potentially, right? Obviously the AFC is the stack division, but, or the stack conference, I mean mean, but you know, you look at this, you only have three wild cards, you assume the Packers are the favorite. And then, you know, you think about who they're competing with, right? So it's whoever does not win the NFC East, right? So Philly, Dallas, Washington, I think they're all going to be in the conversation. I think Washington's kind of underrated right now. Philadelphia made some recent additions that helps them a lot. So I think all three of them teams are potential playoff competitors,

especially because the NFC East has the easiest schedule in the NFL by far. So don't be surprised if they're hanging in there. And then you have, you know, the Saints who I think are going to be very much in the wild card competition of defense, still pretty loaded. And then you have the other two NFC West teams, you know, let's say the Rams win the division. You have Arizona and San Francisco.

Unless Trey Lance is a complete disaster, which is possible. But, you know, Kyle Shanahan has seemed to maximize that offense even when, you know, they've had quarterback issues. Those two are in the mix. So that's one, two, three, four, five, you know, including Minnesota, six teams competing for three wildcard spots. And some of those teams have extremely light schedules. So that's kind of the issue. And that's why they end up at 8.8 wins and just outside the playoffs. But it's very close, right?

It's like a half game. If a bounce goes right, which is, again, has not been the case for them the past couple of years. It seems like any time they get in those 50-50 games, they seem to fall short or just blow it. You know, you think about the Lions game last year, just the team that, I feel your pain as Vikings fans. I really do. As someone that's been high, you know, if I'm high on a team going into the year, you know, I root for them. I want them to win. I want to look smart, you know, and they're a team that has just let me down over and over and over again. And again,

I know it's been worse for actual Vikings fans. My dad's a Vikings fan, so I get it. But, you know, they need a little bit of luck to bounce their way. They need to finish games, and perhaps they could sneak into a wild card spot. They're certainly in that mix. Well, your dad, having presumably been around for a long time, is a broken man at this point. There's nothing you could say to him that would change that. But I thought it was interesting

that DraftKings has six NFC teams favored to make the playoffs. And then like three or four more are who knows. And the Vikings are right there in the who knows, which is unfortunately where they've been many times in recent years. Mike, you're always super generous with your time and patient with me when

I DM you. I think Johnny Munn's tight end too. But I really appreciate your time and you coming on for Projections and Predictions Week on Purple Insider. Follow him on Twitter at Mike Clay, C-L-A-Y, NFL, and check out the PDF, the massive monster PDF as every team. It will help you for sure. Draft in your fantasy league. If you're especially in a deep league where you get to, I'm in a WNBA league, Mike, where I'm not kidding. There's so many teams in this league and not that many teams that exist are, I have backups

who are like in my lineup. So I know that there are people in football leagues like that and they need what you're doing. Yeah, exactly. I mean, if we, if we can have a fullback slot, you know,

that'd be, that'd be awesome because we would know who to draft, right? CJ ham would be a top pick in a fullback league. So, and by the way, the first fantasy football league ever created had two fullback slots. You know,

the league has changed. The league has changed a lot since way back when, but yeah full back slots you know the league has changed the league has changed uh a lot since way back that when but um yeah we you know we should call this essentially the cj ham segment or the cj ham show or something because no one else talks about cj ham as much as we do on the show uh no no we don't um his own family does not but uh we um yeah when he gets that first carry of the year your d DM is going to light up. Told you. I know it is. I may I may make a couple tweaks again. This is a learning experience for me, too. I love little stuff like that.

I'm a perfectionist and I like to get things like head of Ellison. Right. And in fact, you again, the other day we are finalizing our magazine and you mentioned, you know, the quarterback competition to the backup quarterback. And I actually made a late switch on our mag and put Sean Manion as the favorite for the two job. I thought maybe Kellen Mond here too would make a, you know, a leap forward. So I gave him a little edge in that competition, but I plugged in Manion. So when you see that magazine on newsstands, you could open up to the Vikings page and you'll see Sean Manion there and

you can feel good. You can feel good. You made an impact on the ESPN fantasy football magazine. Yeah. I mean, that was always a goal of mine, but you know, the Sean Mannion thing, he was taking all the second team reps in mini camp and Kellen Mond looked pretty much the same as he did last year. And I just, but you know,

the other thing is I'm always nervous when I tell you one, because if it turns out to be wrong, I'm going to feel like a total dope. Yeah. I mean, look, if Mond wins that two job, you know, we're done. I'm blocking you. That's going to be a problem. I think that's completely fair.

Okay. ESPN's Mike Clay. Again, thanks so much for all your time, man. Phenomenal stuff. And I'll continue to toy with this and steal it for my own content. So I really appreciate you, man. Love it. Love it.

Appreciate the insight. And, uh, you know, again, we'll, we'll circle back on some of this stuff next time.