Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Mike Clay is giving big projections to JJ McCarthy

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

Matthew Coller is joined by ESPN's Mike Clay to discuss his projections for star Vikings, including Justin Jefferson and his big expectations for QB JJ McCarthy.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Coller here, and it is time once again for our yearly tradition of bringing on one of ESPN's great fantasy experts, Mike Clay, to give him a very hard time about his Vikings projections. Mike, we've done this probably four or five years in a row, and you know, sometimes you nail it, sometimes I nail it. And nobody really ever knows nothing about football until we get there. So how are you? How is you got to get ready here for fantasy draft season, right?

Yeah, we're already doing our mock draft project. So we've already mocked like 10 times in the last two weeks, just kind of preparing what our ADP will look like within the game and give ourselves an idea of who players that we like don weeks, just kind of preparing what our ADP will look like within the game and giving ourselves an idea of who players that we like don't like, that kind of thing. So, yeah, we're all in. As you know, I've had projections out for months now,

constantly working on them. You're a big part of helping me with that. From the Minnesota perspective, you know, adjusting little things with what's going on at camp or within the roster. So, yeah, I mean, football is year round. It is. It's always something I'm constantly working on this stuff. So it's not a complaint. We love it. I can't say enough how incredible it is that you have 32 teams with projections for every

single player on the roster. We were just talking before we went on here, whether Taki Taimani or Levi Drake Rodriguez would get more snaps. So that's the level of detail. I have this PDF open all the time and probably the easiest way to find it is just Google Mike Clay ESPN PDF. It will come up every projection every player. It is really an incredible resource. Now.

Normally what I like to do with you, Mike, is give you a really hard time about C.J. Ham's carries or receptions or somebody deep in the roster, J Ward's snap count. But I think we're in a different spot now in our lives where we have to begin with projecting J.J. McCarthy. So I've seen a grand total of one OTA practice and he was very good in that practice, which means you're going to have to hike this number up. But your projection

right now is 537 pass attempts, 3,705 yards, 26 touchdowns, 14 interceptions, and 206 yards rushing. Tell me about your process of trying to project a player who's on a really good team with a really good coach who has never thrown an NFL football before. Yeah, definitely a guy whose projection benefits from the supporting cast, whether it's Kevin O'Connell, we saw that Sam Darn last year, we saw it with Kirk Cousins in years prior. Not to mention the supporting cast, of course.

You had just a guy like Justin Jefferson alone is going to raise his rate stats up a little bit. You know, Jordan Addison, T.J. Hawkinson, you name it. So, definitely a good, a great supporting cast around him. That helps things. You mentioned, you know, it's funny you say I need to boost his projection a little bit. The thing is, I don't think there's probably anyone in the industry higher than me. And that's rare

for me because generally I'm pretty conservative and there's a reason for that. These are supposed to be essentially median projections. But there was nothing I could do to bump McCarthy down. I mean, he projects higher than Caleb Williams, Trevor Lawrence, Drake May, Matthew Stafford, Tua, Stroud, Jared Goff in terms of fantasy projected points, very important to notate here. And again, a part of that is the supporting gas, but it's also the schemer, this is an offense that's going to, you know, that's not afraid to throw the ball, but certainly that will score a lot of its touchdowns through the error, which is something we saw Sam Darnall benefit from last year. And Aaron Jones, on the other hand,

struggled to score touchdowns for most of the year for the same reason. So add all those things together, a little bit of rushing ability for McCarthy. And he has a fairly easy path to big statistical numbers. It just comes down to, is he the real deal? And that's the tricky part. And it was the tricky part last year with Sam Darnold.

It's a tricky part with rookies every year, second year, your quarterbacks often, but especially for a guy like this who came in super young, considered to be fairly raw and who missed his entire rookie season. So a lot to learn. It makes it tricky to project. But nonetheless, the projection comes in very strong. You know, it kind of reminds me of a few of our conversations

from the past where when Jefferson came out and I was telling you, I don't know, man, he's not in the starting lineup right now to begin the season. You're like, don't worry. They're gonna throw the ball to this kid. And of course, by week three, he's got 175 yards and he has never looked back since then.

But then last year, we were talking about Sam Darnold and there was literally nothing in Sam Darnold and there was literally nothing in Sam Darnold's past that you could look at and be like, Oh, he's going to win 14 games. He's going to throw all 35 touchdowns. He's going to be that way other than just to say the supporting cast and the coaching. But even last year, we didn't have as much information about Kevin O'Connell because Kurt Cousins had had plenty of good years in his past and Josh Dobbs and Nick Mullins were never

good at any point in their careers. And that's what we were working with. How much did last year and what Kevin O'Connell was able to do bake into this projection with JJ McCarthy? Yeah. So I definitely helps because even if you trace it back further to Kurt Cousins, you were wondering, okay, well, did Cousins make the offense look that good? You know, is he a top 10 quarterback?

Of course he leaves and struggled last year, you know? So I think Cousins was fine. Obviously he's getting a little older, but I think what we saw was the supporting cast and O'Connell got him to another level. Same thing with Sam Darnold. I mean, I think you and I could probably agree. I think most objective people would agree that we're're still not sure on Sam Darnold. You know, we saw things start to change a little bit

down the stretch there when the pressure was on, obviously, quick playoff exit. And, you know, he also benefited greatly from that defense playing well and the sporting cast because they rarely trailed. You know, they were leading or tied almost all the time throughout the first three, four months of the season. And when you just don't have pressure on like that,

it makes things so much easier. So, I say all that because I think that there is now enough where we can kind of move the needle a little bit towards saying, okay, the floor is higher for this offense with a coach like Kevin O'Connell, where when we don't know that, maybe you're like, okay, you're a quarterback, we have to kind of go and say, let's hedge and say it's an average offense. You know, in this case, maybe you say, let's we're still going to hedge a little bit, but

maybe an above average offense. You know, it's that's really the only thing you can do to objectively analyze teams and the impact of players, coaches, that those kind of things. So that's where I fall. I still think that they can at least put to finish say 16th in offensive touchdowns and that's already adding some risk for McCarthy being a bust. I mean, it's possible. It could be a bust.

We don't know that for sure yet, but there's more upside now because we feel like he has that first round pedigree and of course the coaching. And I think about this a lot, uh, especially when I'm watching him in OTAs about what he was talked about in college versus what I'm seeing and what I saw last year in training camp and the one preseason game, but really training camp is a great proving ground for these guys. And I see a lot of things that divert from the way he was talked about as a prospect.

And he was sort of talked about as the next Alex Smith, maybe he's going to be a check down guy and maybe he won't be a playmaker. Maybe his arm strength isn't the best. I saw our buddy, Kevin Seifert talking about that, how there were a lot of analysts who didn't love his arm strength, but then we're watching practice and going, no, I'm, I'm really seeing these throws here. It was that part of your thought process at all, what he was talked about as coming out, or have you kind of washed that away based on the fact that not only like some of our

reports have been that his upside could be higher than that, but also the fact that the Vikings chose him over Aaron Rodgers, they chose him over franchise tagging Sam Darnold. I have thought that there's evidence about what he can be just based on that because Sam Howell's the backup. Like there's no parachute for this. It's JJ McCarthy being the guy that's pretty risky when you just won 14 games. If you don't really buy it. Yeah, you're 100% right.

That helps a lot. And sometimes teams tell you what they're thinking. And you're exactly right. They signed a, you know, a Russell Wilson or an iron rod or someone like that. You maybe feel a little differently. And my thought process was, as, as all that analysis is going on was like, man, if they have to sign if they feel like they have to sign a guy like that, that's a problem. You know, if he can't beat out 44-year-old Aaron Rodgers, but Russell Wilson at this point in his career, uh-oh, like they're gonna be looking at a quarterback next year's draft.

That's a big problem. So I think they're making the right decision, handing the keys over to him in that quarterback room and seeing what he can do. So, and the fact that they feel so strongly, obviously, about the situation gives me some confidence in him as a, confidence in him as a guy who could be a breakout player this year. Or if you play fantasy, late round flyer, that's something I'm doing for sure just because of the situation. Again, you look at a player of Sam Darnold's caliber and look at the stats he put up last year, McCarthy should be better than that.

If they didn't think that, they would have brought back Sam Bartled, you know? So there's a lot of reason for optimism here. This sort of dovetails into the running game, which from a fantasy perspective is always really, really big, what these running backs are going to do. And I think that you rightfully gave J.J. McCarthy a ton of passes.

You're not buying that all of a sudden, Kevin O'Connell is gonna turn into Gary Kubiak or Mike Shanahan and start handing off 45 times a game. And I 100% agree with you, but the difficult thing to figure out is how they're going to distribute the handoffs between Jordan Mason and Aaron Jones. Aaron Jones is clearly one of the better pass catching running backs in the entire NFL. So he's got a little more dynamic element to him to get him on the field more for JJ McCarthy. But we're talking about a Jordan Mason who averaged over five yards of carry last year with a San Francisco team. That's great at running. The Vikings have not had that identity.

How are you dealing with this problem of the Vikings backfield? Yeah, so first of all, I want to point out that Jordan Mason kind of forced into that job in San Francisco without Christian McCaffrey did play well for a while. He started to fall off a little bit, though, toward the end. And then the question was, can this guy handle this sort of workload? And you started to see him this time with injury, and then he kind of split the workload. And McCaffrey came back. Then McCaffrey was out again and then you saw more Isaac Arendo, you know, so they weren't really just giving this guy the full treatment in the backfield. He's also 26 years old. This is not a guy that's coming in as, you know, the next big fresh legs, high pedigree running back. This is a guy that's a journeyman

that's kind of hung around as a backup most of his career. So I don't expect him to come in and take feature back rolls by any means. I don't think anyone expects that with Aaron Jones resigned. But what I could see here is they say, okay, Aaron Jones is now 30 years old. Let's take some of these carries off of his shoulder. Maybe even a split here with these two guys would not shock me at all if you see them each get, you know, 10, 12 carries. And then of course you have Aaron Jones is the preferred passing down back. Keep in mind, Jordan Mason has not in his career been very much of a factor in the passing game. Very little contributions there, so they need Aaron Jones to still handle that job. So that's kind of my expectation in terms of projecting.

Essentially what I do is I'll project, okay, what's perfect case scenario? So essentially week one, these guys are healthy. What does it look like? I give Aaron Jones a little bit of an edge in carries and then I Jones dominating the passing down work. And then of course, you have to factor in some injuries throughout the season. But at the end of the day, I think that's kind of what it'll look like with Jordan Mason, one area where I could see him outperforming your projection is touchdowns. And this is something that the Vikings were just so sad at last year was getting down near the goal line and I mean think of that Lions game at the end of the year I mean how different is it in that Lions game if the Vikings could just hand the ball to someone and have them run into the end zone but instead everything was on Sam Darnold shoulders that's another part of why

through 35 touchdowns was because he had to throw the ball into the end zone for this team. The fact that they have revamped the interior of the offensive line to be better at this and gotten a guy who kind of, if you squint runs like Marshawn Lynch a little bit with violence and power and that kind of thing. I think there's a chance that he's their guy for those situations because it was pretty clear that Aaron Jones as great as he is at everything was not a difference maker with that.

Yeah, no doubt about it. Jones, one of the biggest underachievers in the league in terms of scoring touchdowns last season, I think actually was the biggest underachiever. If you look at expected touchdowns, sometimes that is bad luck. Sometimes it'll help having a player that's good at it. But really, it's an opportunity stat. If they run the ball at the goal line consistently, they're gonna score more rushing touchdowns. And I will say this, yes, I only have them, the reason the rushing touchdowns are so low

for Jones and Mason is because I have them projected for 10 rushing touchdowns as a team, but 29 passing. And you might say, wow, that ratio is wide, but that's the product of this scheme. I mean, you look at Kevin O'Connell's offenses, 80% of their offensive touchdowns were passes last year. The year before, 81%. The year before, 63%, actually kind of a lower number.

But the year before that, 81%. I mean, teams are usually like that. You know, the league average is 61%. And O'Connell's offenses are clearly well above that. And again, you look look at play calling. It's still 69%, 64, 73, 68. That's all well above expected, or above Lee Gabbard. So it's very clear that this is not just the fad

or just a fluke or a short, small sample size sort of thing. He clearly prefers throwing the ball near the goal line. And I suspect that'll continue this season. Yeah, I think that they would love to change that. But we, I mean, how many years before we decide, like the Tigers not changing his stripes when it comes to Kevin O'Connell.

Now I endorse this generally. I mean, I think it's smart if you have Derek Henry to just hand him the ball and have him run in. But I mean, as far as being a past first offense and have that drive your success overall, even with the more talk about running backs and running games and so forth, I think you still just need a serviceable run game that can scare somebody so you can pass the ball more. Uh, and that's what they're going to do because Justin Jefferson is their best

player, so we should talk about wide receivers a little bit here. Jefferson has gotten to the point, Mike, where it does not matter anything. Just who's playing quarterback, whether his contract signed or not. He's just going to catch a lot of footballs and be the best. Which other Vikings wide receiver? Unless you have something more to say about Jefferson, because your projection looks like all the Jefferson years. What do you expect from him what other receiver?

Interests you though what where's your intrigue lie in the Vikings receiver room? Yeah, only one other one that is obvious Jordan Addison You know I was a little nervous about him because there was a lot of mouse to feed last year obviously the quarterback uncertainty He was very touchdown dependent as a rookie So what would we see going forward? And then he comes out last year. And honestly, the target share wasn't very good. And I was a little still a little nervous. And then things kind of changed there, at least for a little while where the

target shares were up in the production was good. Again, I'm high on this pass often. So obviously, I'm going to be high on some of the other pass catchers. And I, and for that reason, I like Addison. The only thing obviously that we're looking at is potential suspension. We don't know if that'll happen this year. And that's only gonna be, we would imagine a game or two if that does happen.

So not a big concern there. It's something I have factored into the numbers a little bit. Basically took a game off just to add some risk in there. But I think they're in a really good spot with that one, two punch. Then you consider the other pass catchers, including T.J. Hawkinson, and you feel pretty comfortable with this group. I know the depth is still a question mark, but they have invested there

with just trying, just trying to add some depth that wide receiver. But, you know, obviously, it's lottery tickets with guys like Ron Dale Moore and of course, the rookie Felton. Yeah. And with Jalen Naylor, I feel like one of these guys has the potential to break out and do more than you have expected, which is Naylor 22 receptions, more 17 and Ty Felton 10. But I don't really know which one I think as of right now, I would guess that it's Jalen Naylor because he has been a favorite

of Kevin O'Connell since he first got to Minnesota, but he had some injuries. It was kind of buried on the depth chart. And then last year, he started to have some of that breakout when Jordan Addison was out a couple weeks with an injury and then kind of went back to the broom closet for a while, had a big game at the end of the year against Green Bay. If there's a multiple game suspension, if it's maybe three games, which doing a little research on DUIs in the past, three is pretty much the maximum,

but I don't know how Roger Goodell decides on any of this stuff. If he ends up with that, that is more opportunity for Jalen Naylor. And there might just be a situation where McCarthy is looking for one-on-one matchups a little bit more. One thing that Sam Darnold was really willing to do was just like,

Jefferson's covered, I don't care. Like, here's the football. I'm going to work it to him. I am very curious about how the passes get distributed underneath because I think that McCarthy will be much more apt, especially early on, to say like, let's just make sure it's in play. Let's make sure it's in play. Let's, let's make sure we're moving the offense and then go from there. And that also could impact TJ Hawkinson who you have at 77 receptions and 111 targets. But I could see him with even more if he becomes like he was for Kirk cousins that check down option underneath.

Yeah. Well, again, this is one of them things. If you give him more targets, you're taking away from someone else. So that kind of and that's that goes for those depth receivers as well. You know, I haven't looked at it, but I imagine you look at these secondary receivers behind Jefferson and Addison when they played, not to mention when Hawkinson was out there. I'm guessing there was only a handful of targets and catches for those guys, you know, last season. So when you know, it's not about it, it's just like So when, you know, it's not a bad thing. It's just like the Rams, you know, it's the same thing

as Sean McVey, obviously O'Connell comes from that tree. They build these teams around, and this goes for defense as well. You see giant snap counts for star players for, you know, a team like the Rams, because they're just gonna feature those guys. And most teams don't do that, believe it or not. They're gonna rotate these guys in,

they're gonna spread their ball around in offense. But that's not the case for Minnesota offensively with, you know, last year we saw with Aaron Jones, but certainly Jefferson, Addison at times, and obviously TJ Hawkinson is the same thing with the Rams with, you know, obviously Cooper Cup and Kyron Williams and Todd Gurley and you can go on and on. So I think that that gives me a lot of confidence

in the statistical output for Jefferson, Hawkinson, Addison this season. I think they're gonna feature those guys and it's gonna not really leave a lot of room for these other guys. So big numbers for sure. Yeah, I'm thinking a lot about how a different quarterback, if he plays differently and is less experienced, might impact those things.

But I mean, this team, that's why they spent a first round pick on Addison. That's why they traded a second round pick for Hawkinson. They want these guys to drive the success of the offense. I'm just always curious if somebody else takes some step or takes targets away from Addison. I don't know. I mean, maybe Naylor's that guy or maybe it's going to be exactly how it was last year where it's two or three big games, but you go back a couple years and here's another factor that I'm tossing

into this. We could get into the strength of schedule thing because I tend I tend to think strength of schedule at this time of year is incredibly dubious. But at the same time, look at the quarterbacks. They're playing look at the teams. They're playing a lot of them are going to be good. If you're in games where you're chasing the Eagles where you're

chasing the Lions where you're chasing the Ravens. You might end up with a KJ Osborne situation where wide receiver three gets a lot more targets than you think that wide receiver three would have gotten just because you're throwing the football even more in situations like that. You have their strength of schedule and we can get to a defensive player too,

but you have their strength of schedule at 30th out of 32. How much do you factor that when you're trying to figure out projections and how good this team's gonna be? Yeah, I mean, I project out the whole season. So, you know, that's week to week projections. And kind of a baseline for each team.

You know, you expect them to score and give up, and then you compare that to the opponent. And then, of course, are you home or are you away? And then you come up with a win probability and go from there. So certainly, if I think they're going to play a lot of teams that I've evaluated as good teams, then that's going to give them a lower record.

And that's why, if you look at this PDF, you see that Minnesota is one of the best teams in the NFL on paper. However, around nine wins, and that's because they play in that division with a brutal schedule, and that matters. I think it matters more than most years. Usually, I don't have teams slide that far

from being the sixth-best team in the league to basically the last wild card in the league to basically the last wild card in the conference. But it's so substantial because that division is really good and I expect Chicago to be better. We know the Packers are good and obviously Detroit actually was the best team in the league on paper. Don't forget about how good that defense was last year before all the injuries piled up. I mean, that would have been, I kind of feel bad for them. I know no one in Minnesota wants to hear this, but like that defense got like no attention all year because all eyes were on the offense and everything. And you

know, Dan Campbell and Jared Duff and you know, all the stars on offense, but kind of quietly they were just dominating the defense. And then they had some of the worst injury luck you will ever see for one unit down the stretch. And obviously they just couldn't like, they couldn't even stop Jaden Daniels at all in the playoffs, and it all fell apart. So they're stacked. And I just say that to kind of really drive here how tough this division is, and obviously the conference.

So yeah, I think it matters more than most this year. And I think it's going to be a bit of a nuisance for them. They're really going to have to stay healthy and help hold up. And McCarthy's going to have to play well to hang in there this year. Yeah, this is something that I think about a lot is you know going into the season and trying to project Are they really going to be the toughest division by a mile because that's how it looks right now When you can even say Chicago improved pretty greatly Likely at the head coaching position, but on the offensive line,

they improve their weapons, they improve their defense, and then there's oftentimes a jump for somebody like Caleb Williams. I would still say the Bears are the most likely team to surprise us and not be good just because they've done it so many times. I have to, I don't agree with Aaron Rodgers on a ton of things, but him saying they're the off season champions every year the other day was pretty accurate for them. But if there's one team that in the NFC North is going to disappoint versus projection, which one would it be? Disappoint? I think I probably agree with you on Chicago, just because Kayla Williams, the jury is still

very much out there. But if not them, it's got to be Minnesota, just because we don't know on McCarthy. I mean, we have a pretty good feel for Jordan Love at this point. I mean, he was hurt most last year, too, so we lost a little bit of that rushing ability, but he threw the ball well.

And, of course, we know the powerhouse that Detroit is. You know, I don't feel like they lost enough. In fact, they should be better with all the guys getting, they're getting back where healthy and they did a nice job adding a lot of depth, better in depth on the defensive side of the ball too. So I think just because of that quarterback uncertainty, it has to be Minnesota.

I just think that's the answer by default, but I say that knowing full, as I said before, I have a very good team on paper. I think this is a team that's in a really good spot this season and the pieces around McCarthy should help them be a contender. I mean, that's why someone in my seat is just so intrigued by this team. Because when you look at all over the roster, and I was just standing there at OTAs yesterday and looking around going, this doesn't have a lot of weaknesses if they stay healthy. And that's something that I never try to project in May.

Well, how healthy they're going to be on the defensive side. Last year, they were a top five defense. And what I think was impressive this off season from the Vikings brass was saying that's great that we were a really good defense last year. But look at the quarterbacks were going to play. And I'm sure this had to be some part of the calculus. We've got to be better than this if it's just that same defense last year versus this group of quarterbacks You're probably finishing 16th and not in the top five when you're facing Lamar Jane Daniels Jalen Hurts and so forth

How much better did they get though? Do you think on paper with the offseason moves that they made? Well, it's funny I have their defense ranked fifth. So you said they were top five last year, I saw them fifth on paper. A big part of that is upfront. I mean, interior and edge is huge. Obviously, you know, when you have Dallas Turner as your, you know, third edge rusher, I mean, you're in such a great spot. So you just have to really love what they did, you know, moving on from one of the best edge rushers in the NFL into Neil Hunter and then replacing them with underrated players like Bernard and Van Ginkle is just huge.

So I love that. Obviously, Alan and, you know, don't forget how good Javon Hargrave is. I mean, he was hurt all last year and now I feel like he's just kind of been like, well, he got hurt last year, you know, recency bias. We forget about him. I mean, he was an absolute superstar in Philadelphia. It just didn't work out in San Francisco with the injury. So still love that with him and Alan up front.

I think they're, you know, linebacker and safety are fine. And then corner is the only one that bothers me. You know, that was something that nagged me during the off season. I know they have some versatility. They use three safeties. That's going to cover some of that up. I like Byron Murphy a lot.

But after that, it's a lot of question marks there with Blackman and I look Isaiah Rogers. I mean, that guy's never been like a full-time starter long-term in the NFL. He's even last year in Philly. He was coming off the bench. So I don't think that's a guy you want to step into week one as a full-timer on the outside. And maybe it look maybe maybe I'm wrong. He'll he'll be fine. But I think that's the only position on the defense

where I'm saying, yeah, probably the low average or a question mark position, but everything else looks pretty good. Yeah, what's ended up happening the last two years for us in trying to project what they're going to be as they lead up to the season is you just add like 25% to whatever you think someone's going to be because of Brian Flores.

And it sounds like, you know, we're really crowning Brian Flores as this guy who just gets the best out of everybody, but like gestures at everything the last two years. I mean, even somebody like Shaq Griffin or Stefan Gilmore, we would not have said those guys would have been as sound as they were. And we would have said like,

this is gonna be a problem with the secondary. And it turned out that it wasn't. That doesn't mean he's gonna be right about every single one though. as they were and we would have said like this is going to be a problem with the secondary and it turned out that it wasn't that doesn't mean he's going to be right about every single one though and when you hear that he loves Isaiah Rogers you're like okay well you've got my attention but they're going to have to prove it in the secondary which leads me to this there's only one player still out there on the trade market that has buzzed that it moves the needle a little bit when you talk about him and that is Jalen Ramsey. Is that worth it for the Vikings to look into Jalen Ramsey? 100% you know it's especially when you have a quarterback that's unproven in a quarterback that's so you know relatively cheap in the NFL you always want to add superstars around them to carry the team. So look, after what they did last year, I think if you're in the front office there on the team

or fan or onlooker, you're thinking this is a team that was in the hunt last year and maybe they could win the conference this year or make a run at it. So if you really feel that way and you don't believe this is just a rebuilding year with J.J. McCarthy, then you go all in. And if you can get your hands on Ramsey, it's probably not super expensive. I assume it won't be super expensive considering it's pretty evident Miami's ready to move on. You add him to the fold here, and he's a very versatile, talented corner. I think he probably is another year or two left of high-end play. He was very good last year, so I would love that. That would be such a connection I'd made, but that would be awesome to put Ramsey in there with Byron Murphy at corner. I'd love that.

I didn't really think about it until the other day. And then I think it was maybe Jason McCordy brought it up on whatever, wherever he was talking. And I was like, does this make sense? And when I went through it, the salary cap situation in the future would cause some problems. There's no doubt about that, but they are in a spot with the rookie quarterback contract and they have some restructurable

deals into the future that they could make cap space for me. As soon as McCarthy enters year two, regardless of whether he's played before history tells us take that gas pedal and shove it all the way down. I mean think about even moves that we question for like a San Francisco trading for Christian McCaffrey. I think a lot of us, I know I was like, really, you're giving up that much

for a veteran running back, but they were just trying to stack as much talent around their quarterback as they could. And it got them to a Superbowl. Now you and I have two more staples of our yearly visits that we always have to touch on. And one of them is giving you a really hard time about super random players on here. You know, it's funny how where we could go in a year. Ty Chandler, last year, a lot of the fantasy community, every fantasy show that brought me on, I was like, well,

how much is Ty Chandler going to get the ball? Everyone's looking for that RB2, RB3 that sneaks up. And let me tell you, he didn't. He didn't even come close to doing that. So we got Ty Chandler this year for 153 yards on the ground and four catches. Is this year the year for Ty Chandler or how we work in that? And also throw this in there too.

Kick returning. Is everybody just going to be kick returning like crazy this year or what? Yeah, actually, that's funny. All morning. I've been working on exactly that because you see, you know, in the PDF, you see the return numbers. I need to have a little bit of an uptick there with the new rule change. So I was doing some research on that and the next time I run an update here, it's going to be reflected in there. So I'm not going to say they're going to double the kick return numbers,

but it's going to be close to doubling them. But yeah, well, I mean, again, returns are so tough to predict. There's obviously a handful of guys, you know, for sure are going to be involved, but part of it is just roster building. You know, who can we sneak onto the 53? Is, can we fit a return specialist

or is it just a kind of a depth player on the roster so yeah for now I have. Chandler Mason involved in the returns with Isaiah Rogers who's a who's a good returner but I will see once I make in the fifty three. I'm not sure Chandler look I are does he definitely make the team do you think I like I don't know I don't think he's a factor I think you go in the week one with Jones and Mason, and if they miss some time, then Chandler maybe gets involved a little bit. But, you know, who knows? They might look outside for, you know, more running back help if that happens. I think that that's probably right.

If he is viewed very much as their returner, which he should be, an RB3, historically, is the perfect guy to have as your kick returner, because even if he gets banged up doing it, you're not losing anything on the offensive side. And I think he's pretty good at it. Not quite as good as Kenny Wong Wu was before, but he's got some juice to him. You might as well keep him on the roster. It's just that they very clearly do not trust him to be a full-time running back.

And I think 153 yards is exactly where I would put him too. Yeah, he'll probably sneak in there from time to time, but that's about it. Now, let me throw the deep one at you, because this amazes me about you in general. There are 32 of these teams. There are hundreds of draft picks. There are super random players all over the place. And I'm still like, you know, I kind of agree with Tyron Ingram Dawkins, who was a fifth round draft pick.

You've got him listed as an edge. We'll see where he ends up playing. I think he's going to kind of be a play everywhere guy eventually for tackles and a third of a sack. Now that's the one that's going to be inaccurate. It's not going to be a third. See, they're going to be a half, could be one, you know. Yeah, look, one of the problems with the depth edge guys,

I think the only one still on the team is Gabe Murphy, who played a snap last year, is the only other edge still on the roster from last year. But the fact is, when you're projecting this, it's essentially, think about it, you have two edge rushers on the field most of the time, so it adds up to essentially, you know, 200% essentially out of the 1100%. I don't know, I'm getting deep into it here, but essentially

you have 11 players, 100% snap for each of those positions on the field at a given time. But most of those snaps are going to go to Granard, Van Ginkle, and of course, Dallas Turner. So if that soaks up 90% of the snaps, if they're healthy for most of the season, it doesn't leave room for these other depth guys. It's very good situation for Minnesota, but it makes it hard for these depth guys to kind of find their way to numbers. You can't just manufacture snaps.

Either they're available or they're not. And for the depth guys in Minnesota, they're not, because they have only star players that are going to play 70, 80, 90% of the snaps. So I'll give you one. So you mentioned Gabe Murphy. He's going to be in that competition as well. I'll give you a guy who is the deepest of deepest cut, but I would not be shocked

if he ends up making a difference in the Russian group. And I mean, can you can you guess who I'm talking about? Could make the smallest difference. Is it an undrafted player from this year? It's last year. Undrafted player from last year. Undrafted from last year? Uh, no. Uh, I said, Dave Murphy already.

He was undrafted last year. He was. Uh, let's see, uh, there who else was undrafted last year? Bo Richter was, uh, the guy. That's it. You know what? I have them listed at our linebacker and I should not have him there. He should be with the edge rusher.

So he is. Yeah. He's more of an edge rusher. But with the Vikings, it's a little bit tricky sometimes with outside linebacker, linebacker, whatever. But last year, so Bo Richter, if you look up his athleticism, it's actually crazy numbers that he put up coming out with like relative athletic score, or if you look on mock draftable and he was very productive and he came into training camp and actually made some plays and then got bumped up onto the

active roster and was a very good special teamer. Plus he did a one-on-one sit down interview with purple insider last year. And well, anybody who does that gets an automatic bump in the projections for me. But I wouldn't be surprised if he becomes like a Patrick Jones for them or a Jihad Ward. Like last year they were rotating in a Jihad Ward on third downs or something. He's gonna have to earn that. But he made some plays in preseason and then on special teams that caught my attention a little bit. So we'll see. This is like I said, the deepest cut of deepest cut for this roster. Now, the other staple is I love to ask you which fan bases are

most ticked off at you. Which fan bases? Because I think if Vikings fans look at these projections, I think they should be very happy with a 26 touchdown, 3700 yard season from J.J. McCarthy right there in the division race. There's not too much that I look at and go, wow, Vikings fans are going to be mad at Mike this year. Who is mad at Mike this year? Yeah, they still are. I was getting picked apart by Vikings fans because I have the big question was how I've been rated so high as a team, but still mid-packing record.

And of course, strength of schedule is the issue that we already talked about. And so there's no doubt about that. I think it's basically those wild card teams in the NFC because it's so tough. Commanders, same thing. I have them at eight and a half, nine wins right there in the thick of it with Minnesota

for a wild card. Green Bay, Chicago, maybe in that conversation, I haven't heard a ton from them 49 years. Uh, actually even fourth in that division. I mean, I think if you look, I've been burned by this before it happens, whether it's seeing a team on paper and being like, wow, this team just looks so good, there's no way they could fail barring massive injuries like the jets last year, and I was wrong. Um, and, uh, this year, the 49ers defense, I mean, they lost, they already there's no way they could fail barring massive injuries like the Jets last year and I was wrong.

And this year the 49ers defense I mean they lost they already were you know kind of struggled a little bit last season in some categories they had a lot of believe the fourth most points in the NFL and they lost a lot of key players and did not really replace them in the off season so on paper it doesn't look very good but they've good coaching so maybe I'm wrong on this one, but for now, I've been projected pretty low. And I've heard a little bit about that as well. I would agree with you. And they also drafted a bunch of nose tackles, which I know does not tend to impact the following season because we can't always ask a lot from rookies. But their draft was perplexing to me for San Francisco.

And they just got to stop the touch push, right? So how else are you was gonna do it. Well, you have to be in a game where it matters to have to worry about that, which I'm not sure they will be in. Who's the surprise team this year? Surprise team, I think a couple options. I think the Patriots are the one that really pop out.

I have them as a very fringe wild card in actually I have them as a seven seed in the AFC at the moment, it's very close of course, but I think their defense on paper looks really good. I like what they did this off season there, just adding pieces, spending some money in free agency, which isn't always the right way to go about it, but it depends how you do it.

If you're filling a lot of blanks in weak spots with free agency and trades, I think that's the right way to do it. I think a team like Houston has kind of quietly done that nicely the last couple of years, just continuing to do that. And it's not always big moves. It's sometimes the medium or even lower moves that take an area that's like a clear issue and makes it at least serviceable. And that matters when you have so many players on the field at a given time. So you figure if Drake may a solid or makes a leap forward. I think the Peter, it's really could be a surprise team this year. I like that pick my pick. I almost feel like I see too many people making it now. Arizona seems like they are just good one.

They're ready to take that step. They've improved greatly along the defensive line. I thought when the Vikings played them last year, I was very impressed by Jonathan Gannon. And if he had maybe game managed the clock a little bit better, they just win that game. And they gave Kevin O'Connell a very tough time last year with a lot of their looks that I don't think the Vikings were that prepared for, but they just didn't have

a ton of talent. Still, they squeezed a lot out of it and Marvin Harrison, Jr. take another step. Kyler Murray, another year removed from that ACL. So I think there's a chance there for them to maybe compete for the top of that division. Love that call. Definitely think they have a shot to win

the division. I think the Rams are probably the best they've been on paper in a couple of years and say kind of like, you know, that spent all traded all their picks for all them players and then had to kind of invest in the draft they built back up and I think this is the best they've been in awhile but you're right, Arizona, I mean,

they have Dalvin Tomlinson and Kaleus Campbell up front, and that doesn't even include their first round pick spent on defensive tackles over the last two years. And then they also brought in Josh Sweatt to go with Zaven Collins and spent a third round pick on Edgrush or this year. So I love that call. I'm a little more, a little concerned about corner.

And I don't know if linebackers bring in a ton to the table, but we're going to find out what a what a dominant front, you know, edge rusher interior defensive line can do because they have some serious talent up there. Yeah. No, I think they do. Uh Mike Clay ESPN, our yearly get together and I feel like we didn't pick you apart quite enough on this because I agree with a lot of the projections but make sure you go check them all out. I mean, we didn't even touch on like, uh, sorry, I'm thinking of a red Ambry Thomas.

We didn't even touch on the Ambry Thomas projection. The big mistake there from us, but I guess we'll have to do that next time. Uh, like I'd really do appreciate your time. I'm always appreciative every time you can come on and we can have some fun with this. And I again, love using this PDF, love doing it for my own articles and your projections, breaking them down, taking them apart, and also for my prep for every game, I call up this. So great stuff, really appreciate all the effort

that you put into it. Of course, thanks for having me on and always enjoy doing this because you give me some insight what you're seeing and helps me actually improve it. So it looks, you know, it's even more accurate so always fun. All right thanks again Mike and we'll catch you all later.