Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Mike Clay projects every Viking player's 2023 season

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

ESPN's fantasy football guru Mike Clay joins Matthew Coller to talk about his projections for the Vikings' 2023 season, including whether Alexander Mattison will be a three-down back, whether Justin Jefferson will repeat last season's greatness, whether Addison or Osborn will catch more passes and much, much more. Here's where you can find his projections: https://g.espncdn.com/s/ffldraftkit/23/NFLDK2023_CS_ClayProjections2023.pdf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Oakley. Express yourself. Build a look that's made for you. When you wear Oakley, there really is more than meets the eye. Try it for yourself. Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality. So head on over to oakley.com for more information today. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and if you notice I'm talking quietly, that is because it is a little bit early in the morning where I am in a hotel, but that is not keeping me from bringing on ESPN's Mike Clay for our yearly get-together to talk about all of his projections, in which he projects the statistics of every single player in the NFL. And I think every year, Mike, I ask you how in the heck you do this.

It is incredible. I always just Google Mike Clay projections if I want to look at any team in the entire NFL. And not only that, but positional rankings and everything else, win-loss projections. It's an incredible project, man. Yeah, thanks. As you can imagine, it's a tedious process. It takes an insane amount of man hours, especially at the beginning. Once basically once the, well, I should really put it this way. It's a living document, right? So as soon as the regular season ends, I start kind of adjusting the teams that were eliminated and

putting IR players back or moving free agents, that kind of stuff. And then, you know, do a lot of research in the off season to update for league trends, coaching changes, free agency, the draft, all that. So it's just always living. And that's why it's basically available, you know, 11 months a year, because we kind of always know who the roster core is and, you know, things like that. So, yeah, it's a grind, but I enjoy it and it allows me to really have a good feel for the entire league, you know, where it's easy for fans to say, well, oh, man, we just signed Player X, so we're in great shape at that position. But, you know, you're only as good as you are compared to the other 31 teams. And doing a project like this and just constantly keeping an eye on it and updating it

allows me to kind of have a good feel for the league yeah and it's really excellent for anyone who does fantasy but i also think just really excellent in general or if you're like making out your madden rosters when you first get mad or wait people might not have to do that anymore because you can download them because maybe i'm old uh but this would have been great in like 2004 mike i really could have used this. Maybe maybe you were still doing it then. But, you know, one of the reasons that I love to do this like annual show and I was looking back at like my old shows with you is like, yeah, right around

this time every year in June, because we really don't know how some of these battles are going to play out. And we can have some really fun discussions trying to project. And in years past, when you and I are talking with the running back position, we would just be like, oh, well, Delvin Cook. So he's going to get the football all the time. And there's really no more to talk about there. But this year you have three guys that are backing up Alexander Madison, and we're not really sure even what kind of workload Alexander Madison is going to get. So you project him at 214 carries for 881 yards and eight touchdowns, 35 catches. I mean, I think this is a great projection for him because I don't think it's going to be like 300 carries for 1500 yards or something like that. I think they are going to rotate in the other guys, but I guess

I'm curious how you kind of came to that conclusion with somebody who's stepping into a role that they have never had before. Yeah. So some of it is, you know, just looking at players in similar positions across the league in recent memory, right? Some of that's going to be instinct. Some of it's going to be comparable players. And certainly there's a ceiling on, you know, usage within a game.

You know, we're not expecting him to be Derrick Henry, for example. Right. So, you know, some of this number factors in missed games for injuries, which is something I do as a blanket across the NFL, just because, you know, it's very rare for players to hold up. In fact, over the last two years, the only lead backs to make it all 34 regular season games were Najee Harris. And, uh, and he was beat up along the way and Devin Singletary. They're the only two. So it just shows you how hard it is to, uh, to make it through the full season. So that's kind of factored in here. Um, but in terms of like a week to week projection, you know, just kind of looking at what, forget about injuries for a second.

I have them with 63 percent of their designed called running plays going in that's a pretty decent number right it's a respectable lead back number so um yeah i i just the way you look at this step jar right now there's no clear and obvious number two or clear and obvious threat to alexander madison um and that's what we've seen the last couple years even when he's been the backup, right? When Cook has missed time, which he didn't last year, but before that he had missed quite a few games. Madison didn't really share. He was the clear feature back and put up.

In fact, two years ago, there were four weeks Cook was out and Madison was actually, speaking of fantasy, the number one fantasy running back. He had a massive workload and was very productive. So yeah, right now I have a pretty large gap between he and the rest of the field. But, you know, it's not – again, I don't know that he's being valued essentially as a workhorse but more of a guy that's going to handle a pretty large share of the workload.

And that's going to be good enough for a decent stat line. Yeah, and you really have to factor also the fact that they just flipped a switch last year and suddenly became a pass first offense and i think that that really plays in alexander madison's favor for getting a lot of work here not that he is the next roger craig or something but i think when it comes down to knowing the detail, how already Madden 2004 and Roger Craig are on the show. But, you know, when it comes down to like the details of the position and Kevin O'Connell already used the words three down back for Alexander Madison. And I think it's, you know, the pass blocking kind of if they need him to run routes and make sure that he's in the right positions and on the same page with Kirk Cousins. Like those things are very hard to replicate for younger running backs.

I think that we think that you can draft anyone. Draft Dwayne McBride. He'll just come in and just break a bunch of tackles like he did in college. But for the coaches, they're not going to have guys who can't be part of that passing game. I think in both ways, both in blocking and in receiving. I think that that really gives him an advantage, but I'm very intrigued. I think it's Wong Wu versus Chandler. And then Dwayne McBride is kind of a very distant, and that's the way you've projected them to kind

of even between Wong Wu and Chandler again, with two guys that did not carry the ball almost at all last season. How do we kind of weigh these two versus each other? Yeah, so my answer there is I'm hedging because I don't know, right? It's pretty clearly a camp battle. The two were barely on the field offensively last season, as you know. And again, a big part of that was Dalvin Cook played in 17 regular season games. So it's tricky for sure. But yeah, when a guy plays, you know, what, Nwongu played 18 snaps last year, Chandler played 13. You know, they had 10 touches and six touches. It's just not it's not much to work off.

So I'm looking a little bit at how they were used in the past, but also a little bit of draft pedigree in there. For example, I have both of those guys clearly ahead of Dwayne McBride, who's the seventh round rookie. Those guys generally don't make much of an impact, right? It's a long shot. It's easy to say, okay, well, number two jobs wide open McBride as an opportunity. That's true. But history tells us, you know, seventh round rookie running backs, probably not going to make much of an impact like Isaiah Pacheco you could point to, but look at seventh round running backs otherwise. And it's not great. So again, it's going to be a battle. And also another reason

I hedged here is because they might not be done, right? They could sign somebody. There's guys out there. There's Leonard Fournette, who maybe he ends up coming cheaper. There's Kareem Hunt. There's who else is out there? I guess Zeke. I don't know that that's the landing spot for him, but there's a couple other guys out there that could still land here at some point this off season. So for now, I'm hedging. And like you said, we're going to keep an eye on these camp battles. And maybe someone like you will, you know, be able to report, Hey, it looks like Chandler's winning that number two job. And then I can adjust. That's always what I'm doing. I'm always following reports and, and tweaking these based on what makes sense.

Yeah. And I appreciate your diligence on that. And it's impressive how much you're able to keep track, again, of 32. I'm trying to keep track of every detail of one team. But, you know, when it comes to Wong Mu and Chandler, the funny thing is that, you know, three or four days ago in minicamp, I'm thinking, all right, probably Ty Chandler because of how well he performed in preseason last year. And then Kenny Wong Wu gets the majority of the reps, you know, with the ones mixing in with Alexander Madison and then, you know, Ty Chandler's getting

the second rep. So then we're going like, wait a minute. But then, you know, you have also taught me not to overreact too much because one year I was messaging you being like, I don't know. I don't know about this Jefferson kid. They're just not using them. And they didn't for two weeks. And then, you know, B.C. Johnson got the bench after that. But you never really changed your projection. So I think that'll be a very interesting battle. Of course, you know, we have to talk about C.J. Hamm cj ham projections this is very important four carries four carries for 17 yards to me says he should be getting a bigger workload if he's averaging that yards per carry i don't care about sample size um and nine catches for 70 yards do you type

in cj ham's name into this thing and go he's still there? Every single year he comes back. How does one project a small sample size fullback? Absolutely not. I mean, I love it because there just aren't many fullbacks that matter, right? In terms of projecting, all right, he's actually going to get a couple of carries and a handful of targets. There's just not many like that. In fact, if we did a fullback fantasy draft, he'd be a lock first round pick. You know, you have Kyle Juszczyk up there.

There's not many other great options, maybe like an Alec Engel, someone like that, but him would be right up there. So I love it. I have him projected, like you said, four carries. He's never had more than seven, but he did have four last year. And then the 12 targets is actually exactly what he had last season. He's averaging 15 per season in his career, over 18 once. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know if people would, you know, believe that he has 90 targets in his career. 70 catches, 610 yards, two receiving touchdowns. Like, he's a factor in this backfield, and it is sustained even with the coaching change.

So, yeah, I love the guy. And if you need 22 fantasy points, according to my projections, this is where you go. You go to CJ Hamm and you get them 22 points. You know what? A fullback fantasy league. Now, you couldn't have many friends participate because there's only five or six of them in the league. But if you had a couple of buddies, fullback fantasy league sounds like something that Purple Insider should absolutely start. I mean, we've seen CJ Hamm do some amazing things, break off big runs or screen passes.

But I wouldn't suggest what they did with him once last year, Mike, which was run him on an end around. That didn't work. He went nowhere. But that was maybe Kevin O'Connell overthinking it a little bit. As far as the receivers go, we've got a whole debate going on in the sidelines already about whether Jordan Addison or KJ Osborne will have more catches. And you've got them very close and targets very close in catches. When it comes to rookie wide receivers, sometimes they're Justin Jefferson. Sometimes they get banged up because rookie receivers go through a lot. Sometimes they don't show up at all, like Laquan

Treadwell, who had one catch his rookie season. How are you approaching Jordan Addison? Because it seems like the fantasy world is very excited about him. Yeah, they are. You know, it's kind of interesting, the dynamic with these first round receivers picked back to back to back to back this year. Of course, Smith and Jigba to Seattle, Addison, Quentin Johnston, and Zay Flowers. But it's weird because last year there was a bunch of wide receivers picked in the top 20 and they were kind of undervalued across the fantasy industry. And people were just kind of, you know, just drafted veterans and they were kind of overlooked and they proved to be terrific values, right? You think about Chris Alave and, you know, the list goes on and on.

There's a whole bunch that were impactful last year, specifically Garrett Wilson, who was terrific as well. But this year they were all picked from like the 20 to 23 range. And that, you know, I did some research on that because they're really hyped up, right? Like to your point, these guys are all really hyped up, especially in early fantasy drafts, Addison being one of those guys. So I did some research on that, trying to understand that dynamic. And I thought the evidence was pretty concerning for guys in this area. I'll actually give you the number here. Since 2011, 17 receivers picked in the 15 to 25 range. Only three of the 17 got to 800 yards as a rookie. Jerry, Judy, CeeDee Lamb, Justin, Justin, and there's

your boy, Justin Jefferson, right? So that shows you kind of what level of exception Jefferson was. Injuries were a big problem too. Those guys had a hard time staying on the field. So that's kind of why I'm hedging a little bit here and not just anointing Addison for a big season, even though he is a first-round rookie. Obviously, there's a lot of upside. If he is the real deal, he'll put up some numbers, even opposite Justin Jefferson. We've seen proof of that with Adam Thielen over the last few years. So I'm still being pretty generous, I think.

57 catches, 766 yards, five touchdowns, a little bit ahead of K.J. Osborne. Even if he starts low like Jefferson did, I think within a few weeks, he'll kind of take control of that number two job and start to emerge. But again, I'm not getting too out of control here. I don't have him down for like a top 30 or top 35 season, but I think that this is kind of a fair middle ground for Addison. Yeah, no, I agree with you. I mean, 57 receptions for 766 is, I think it's very fair.

When I was looking at those same kind of numbers of former first-round picks, one of the guys that I was thinking about was like Jahan Dotson for an undersized kind of guy who was banged up a little, and I could see that happening. And I know you adjust somewhat for missing games, but didn't have this huge fantasy season. But I also think Washington is happy with them. And I could see that happening here where, you know, the Vikings are happy with what they got out of Jordan Addison, but it's sort of uneven. And KJ Osborne talked about this, and I think it's an interesting factor. I'd love to hear you talk about it is these other receivers when they're around a Justin Jefferson, he is going to vacuum

all of the targets away. And even if they pass the ball a lot, it's like some weeks you can have, you know, KJ Osborne gets five or six catches and has a big day. And other days he just gets a zero because Justin Jefferson makes, you know, 10 catches for 190 yards or something. I think that that does make it difficult to kind of project everyone around him. Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, I do have him projected with a massive target share, right? So it's going to limit what other guys get. I also have TJ Hawkinson with one of the biggest target shares at tight end.

So that's soaking up right there, 270 or so targets from this, from an offense that, you know, I have cousins with just a hair under 600 pass attempts. So yeah, those, those two guys I'm sure we'll get to Hawkinson, but I think they're going to vacuum up a lot, especially Jefferson. And then it just leaves that battle. But here's the thing, you know, first of all, I'll say this Osborne, obviously a late round pick. And again, history shows that the guys who pan out, even if you go to like a, you know, like a Julian Edelman, someone like that, the guys that eventually do pan out into good players, it takes a while, right? And part of that's pedigree.

It's investment, right? These guys get drafted late or they go undrafted and then they're buried on the depth chart. And if they're impressive in camp and in preseason, they're like, okay, well, that's enough to make the team. That's not enough to be like a starter, but you'll make the team. If he played that well as a second round pick, he might be a starter, right? So it just takes a couple of years for them to get going. So maybe there is something here, right? Osborne looked really good down the stretch last season. It's taken a while. He's kind of missed some time that he had to win the three job and he's kind of worked his way up. So maybe I'm too low here. But the other part of this is if they feel like this is a two, right, we got ourselves a good number two.

This is a starter. Maybe you don't spend a first round pick on Jordan Addison on a wide receiver. Maybe you use that and take a defensive player, right, or, you know, fill another void. So I think they kind of told us a little bit about how they view Osborne and how they view him as a number three wide receiver. So that's kind of why I'm giving a little bit of a nod to Addison here and kind of knocking Osborne down a little bit in the projections. Folks, our new sponsor, Oakley, maybe you've noticed it has taken our show to the next level. Oakley, express yourself and build a look that is made for you. And guess what? That's exactly what I did. Just got a new pair of matte black prism sapphire polar sunglasses from Oakley.

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settings as well if you want to know more and i know you do head over to oakley.com and do your own research there and while you're at it get yourself a pair of everyday glasses as well that will change your look for the better. When you wear Oakley, there is more than meets the eye. Try it for yourself. I have worn a lot of sunglasses in my life, and I can assure you that Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality out there. Go to Oakley.com for more information today. Yeah, and your projection for Osborne is still a good KJ Osborne season. It kind of

a little bit between his last two years. The one thing that I think might be another factor there with the number two, number three discussion is that Osborne is a free agent after this year and they might not want to pay him. If you look back at what free agent wide receivers made, including Adam Thielen in Carolina, by the way, it's like if you're even a decent player, you're going to get huge money that I doubt the Vikings want to pay KJ Osborne. So he could still end up being their number two this year. And then they just let him go because the price is too high. Now, the depth wide receiver battle is really one we're going to be all about in

training. I mean, this is daily catch counts and stuff going on. Brandon Powell, Jalen Rager, Jalen Naylor, and factoring all of those guys, Brandon Powell averaged like five yards a catch or something last year, which was kind of weird. Jalen Rager, I'm not entirely sure makes the team Naylor showed some stuff in minicamp. But again, I don't want to get too fooled. I do think everything behind those three guys, though, is kind of like it's double digit catches. That's probably a good season for anyone not on the top three here. I don't think that there's another guy who we're going to be like, whoa, this guy kind of emerged and we're all shocked.

I think there's some talk about that being Jalen Naylor, but I'm a little skeptical on whether that actually happens. Yeah. And I think one of those spots certainly could come down to a returner, right? Brandon Powell, ton of experience there. Rager last year, the punt returner. So that's probably one of those remaining spots behind the big three. And then maybe like a, it could be a Naylor, right? Like a depth receiver. I think Powell has done enough as a receiver to be a depth guy that could be a nailer, right, like a depth receiver. I think Powell's done enough as a receiver to be a depth guy that could be a returner slash receiver. Rager, certainly the scholarship's over. No idea if he even makes the team.

And then we'll probably have a surprise in there. So, yeah, they'll probably keep six, I would guess. And maybe they even claim someone off waivers in early September. So I'm with you. I think that's, you know, far from, far from sorted out and special teams will be a big factor there. I love that. I can force you to give takes on the guy who's sixth on your depth chart and who catches in 22 yards. And you've still got, you've still got a very reasonable take, but I think that either Powell or Rager makes the

team as the punt returner and the other guy gets cut and then someone else shows up. They have a guy named Thayer Thomas that I'm calling secondary Slayer Thomas. So I think there's a pretty good chance for him. When it comes to the tight end position, I think that with Hawkinson, we all know that this guy is just going to be a magnet for Kirk Cousins. 75 catches might end up being a little low where you have a projected. Josh Oliver, though, is the source of intrigue here because they paid him actual money. And normally a team that plays three wide receivers and has a star tight end does not pay another tight end actual money. And I think that he is being brought in to be a run blocker, but I'm kind of interested if there is more of this

CJ Hamm and Josh Oliver, and if those guys end up being involved more than we think, because Kevin O'Connell wants to mix it up a little bit more. Yeah, it could be. I mean, this is a guy that's played three years. Remember, Jacksonville gave up on him pretty quickly. He got shipped to Baltimore. I was out 2020. And then Baltimore was pretty much a non-factor as well, at least in the passing game. So, you know, I actually have been projected with a career high in catches, receiving yards, and that's with 16 for 174, right? So not going nuts. I think he'll be the blocking compliment to Hawkinson and maybe that unlocks a few things for Hawkinson to do

in the passing game because he was a he was a big big factor last season as obviously Vikings fans know but he had more double digit target games I believe the stat is he had more double digit target games with Minnesota last year than he had his whole career in Detroit or if not it was very similar so that shows you just the difference in how he was unlocked but you you're right. It is interesting that you take a first-round receiver. You have Osborne there. You're an offense that last year was sixth in three-plus wide receiver sets. But maybe they want to even that out.

Maybe they want to use more 12 personnel. It's possible. And certainly that would make sense when they're running the football. So we'll see how that shakes out. But from a box score standpoint, I don't think it matters much. I think Oliver will have one target here or there, maybe the occasional two target game, but I don't think it's really going to, you know, threaten Hawkinson or anyone else. Oh, and yeah, I, I totally agree with you. I,

it just sort of raises an eyebrow when a guy gets a $21 million contract, even if that's a bogus number but still what uh with tj hockinson i i i want to know how rare it is of what he does in the receiving game because i feel like as his contract is coming up here that it is not easy to find someone who even when you make a fairly conservative projection on him still ranks as the third best tight end fantasy wise. I mean, how few of these guys are there that can do what he does, including lining up all over the field? I mean, he was playing like 50% of his snaps, not in line at tight end last year. And it seems to me like that's a guy that you would want to pay because of his uniqueness. Yeah. I mean, I raised my eyebrow in Detroit, traded him away. And I know that they had

major defensive issues and, you know, had wanted to spend that money elsewhere. I suppose I get that, but it also felt like the kind of player you want to build around, right? That could be a core offensive player, but as we saw, he was underutilized, right? He just wasn't, as I just pointed out, that the usage was not comparable in Detroit to what it is, what it has been in Minnesota so far. So I don't know. I think that he's a good fit with Kirk Cousins. And if the plan is to keep Cousins around a few more years, that's a really good connection between those two players. And it makes sense to extend Hawkinson, especially considering that they traded pretty decent assets for him. Right. So that's my expectation. And yet. By the way, you're right. He's projected this high for a reason, and that's because his usage was massive last year, not just for a tight end,

but for a player. He had 86 targets when he joined the Vikings for the rest of the season, almost 10 per game. Those 86 targets were fifth in the NFL, fifth in the whole league, not just tight ends, the whole league. Think about all the superstar receivers out there. He was absolutely featured, just a massive, massive usage. So I expect him to, even if that drops like nine and a half targets per game, even if that drops by two per game, that's still massive usage for a tight end. Yeah. And then in the playoff game, he had 10 targets as well and uh you know i think that teams and i guess we should actually circle back because i was going to go to the defense but

that's such a horror show that we can wait um but when it comes to justin jefferson in the second half of the season teams went absolutely nuts trying to stop justin jefferson i mean shell coverages all the time doubling him pressing, doing anything that they could possibly do. And I would have suggested that for defenses in the first half of the season, but it was not the same in the second half as it was the first half. And there were some games where he was taken out. Now, I don't think that he's going to be taken out, not unless they do the old Megatron, two guys pressing him at the line of scrimmage, which may happen at some point. But I think it also is fair that when you have a historically great season that lands you in the MVP conversation. I think that's right. I looked back at Megatron, Julio Jones, everybody, even guys that continue to lead the league in receiving year after year did not have their

peak season all the time. So I think that there will be a very concerted effort from day one that that is going to be the only goal of opposing defenses, especially when they're not scared of the running game, to try to stop Justin Jefferson, which probably won't stop him entirely, but may regress his numbers a little. Yeah, and I actually have him with more touchdowns than last year. He was a little unlucky in that department. So it's kind of funny how that works out. Fewer targets, catches, and yards, but more touchdowns. But I'm glad you presented it the way you just did, because this is an argument I have to have all the time when people are like, why is the projection lower? This guy just had an elite season, which is exactly that. You look at the greatest player at any position in NFL history and look at their season by season production. It's not the peak season every year, right? They spike and then they come back to earth a little and maybe they spike again and come back down. And I think the most, you know, the busiest I've been making that argument was after Patrick Mahomes,

50 touchdown season, right? His breakout year, his MVP year, the first one anyway, which was like, yes, the projection is lower pretty significantly. He's going to come back to earth a little bit. He's not going to put up this peak sort of production every year. Things go wrong. Players get hurt. He maybe misses a game or two, which he actually did that year. That sort of stuff happens. So, you know, it's just the nature of the beast in the NFL. And it doesn't mean he's not still the best quarterback or that Jefferson's not the best receiver in the NFL. It's just the way these things kind of work out in the NFL. It's just, it's just the nature of the beast, but again, still have them not only

the number one receiver from a fantasy perspective and a box score stuffing perspective, but the number one overall fantasy player, I think Justin Jefferson is he's very well positioned for another huge year. Yeah. How funny is that? He's the number one player and his numbers are lower than they were last year. That speaks to how good he is. And I also think the team would prefer that he is less the entire offense as he was last year. Of course, I won't go through every single defensive player, but I mean, Asasia Tomowo, Zachary. No, I'm just kidding. But if the Vikings end up moving on from Daniil Hunter, you're projecting them at under 30 sacks.

Well, I mean, somebody might fill in those snaps and get a couple of sacks, but like 30 sacks. I think that is exactly where I would put them. And I think when you lay it out on paper like this, it really shows you if Daniil Hunter isn't here, this team is not rushing the passer. Even if they're blitz happy and blitz crazy, which I think I might factor a little more than you did with the linebackers and the corners and safeties. Like I might give Harrison Smith maybe two

or something like that that's nitpicking. I do think Josh Metellus is going to play more than you're projecting him. And maybe, you know, we're going to see some corner blitzes and stuff like that. But I think it really shows where this defense is at, that when you look at Hunter's projection, he's just carrying pretty much the entire pass rush. Yeah, there's no doubt about that. In fact, I made some waves when I posted edge rusher rankings a month or so ago and had Minnesota number one, but that's when they had Hunter as an area Smith and then Davenport as the three, right? That looks, that's a really good one, two, three punch. You know, having, I know there's mixed feelings on Davenport, but him as your three is a, is a pretty darn good situation

to be in, not to mention the two stars at the top. So if Hunter's gone, then suddenly it's looking, it's going from one of the best in the NFL to one of the worst in the NFL. So if Hunter's gone, then suddenly it's looking, it's going from one of the best in the NFL to one of the worst in the NFL. So I'm curious to see how that works out. We've been through this before with, with Daniil Hunter. Hopefully they work it out. You know, you got to take care of that guy. He's one of the best in the business, but you're right. It's this defense is, is going the wrong direction. I mean, it is kind of unbelievable. I know we didn't get to corner yet, but you think about all of the Zimmer era investment in the cornerback position and for them to be in the situation they're in, in the secondary right now, it's concerning. Yeah,

it's definitely going the wrong direction, but I guess we love it from a fantasy perspective because the worse the defense is, the more they're going to be chucking the ball around an offense trying to score. We saw that a little bit last year. That could be fun, but not too pumped about the way the D is going. Yeah. I mean, when everyone talks about how they were a top 10 offense, it's like, okay, let's make sure we remember that they were playing in these shootouts all the time. And their scoring percentage on offense wasn't really that shiny. And yet their totals were pretty good, which kind of tells you something that maybe,

maybe it was a little bit inflated, but you know, at the cornerback position, it's really interesting because I would have had it exactly this way. And then we watch mini camp and Mackay Blackman is up playing above Andrew Booth jr, which is really interesting because Booth j. is a high pick for them, but has never been able to stay healthy, even going back to college. And then the hard thing

for us to factor here, and of course, again, minicamp disclaimer, so that could change as soon as they put pads on. But the hard thing to factor here for where these guys are going to fit in, and this sort of speaks to Louis Seen and Josh Metellus, Brian Flores. Like he's used three safeties before, and that might happen. And Louis seen was playing as the fourth safety in mini camp, but he might accelerate past someone like Cam Bynum once he starts to get the defense a little more and he's coming off of this injury. But I do think that as bad as this projects, which is actually quite bad outside of Byron Murphy, there's so many young players here that there's also a world where we go, oh man, I never saw this Caleb Evans thing happening,

or I never saw this, you know, Josh Metellus becoming a key part of this. There's just a lot of players who are fairly recent draft picks who we don't have sample sizes on. You're exactly right. And oftentimes I'll hedge a bit on that. It is tough with someone like Blackman, who's a third round rookie. I mean, we see, you know, first round corner struggle a lot. It's really tough. I mean, you could point to Sauce Gardner, that's fine, but I can give you a list of 20 first round corners who really struggled in their first year. And it took some time to develop, you know, just off the top of my head, Jeff Okuda being an example of a guy who was, I believe he was in the top five that year for Detroit and never really came around and ended up getting

traded to Atlanta this offseason so a lot of examples of that but you're right it behind Murphy who I like by the way I thought that was a nice little kind of under the radar signing by Minnesota you know Evans Booth Blackman those sort of guys are just going to have to battle it out and we'll see who comes out on top and wins that the two job as well as you know we'll see how they we'll see what they do in the nickel there I don't know who's going to land the slot job Murphy has experience there as well so we'll keep an eye on that and then same thing you know it's safety you know when you whenever you have a first round pick like that I'm generally going to defer to them you know I know that that Lewis missed most of last season all but a couple of snaps,

but, um, you know, he's still a first round pick for a reason. And I would suspect they're going to give him an opportunity to win a major job. So for now I do have Bynum as, as pretty clearly the starter opposite Smith, but, um, I think that that will be a battle off the monitor. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Keep an eye on my tweets. But by the way, when you, and throw it, throw a like my way every once in a while. So it ends up in, in Elon Musk's for you category. I mean, we need to help each other here. But it was funny just that just popped into my head about when you tweeted about the edge rushing rankings. And I think I quote tweeted you and was like, not for long. I mean, because that's what ended up playing out.

And I think that there is a cumulative effect on defense where if you can't rush the passer with using four guys, then it can be a real struggle if you don't have great secondary players or inexperienced secondary players. And I was kind of joking that the defense, Brian Flores' defense, is very complicated for the Vikings offense to practice against, but it also might be very complicated for the defensive players if they can't get it right away. The last thing, though, I wanted to ask, Mike, unless you want to project Luigi Villain's snap count, is 54, probably. Sure, yeah, he'll mix in if they trade Hunter. But eight and a half wins is the projection. And what stuck out to me though, is, you know, I've been looking at this schedule as

it could be pretty hellacious for them. A lot of really good quarterbacks that they're going to face, but your, your strength of schedule ranking is 15th, which I think maybe is not where I would have thought. I would have thought maybe it would have cracked the top 10 based on their playing the four teams that were on championship weekend. Can you kind of explain, I guess, the win total and the strength of schedule and kind of how you see those things? Yeah, I think part of it's the division. And part of it is that the schedule is kind of boom bust, right?

There are some, you're right. They play a couple top end teams, but also a lot of teams you're not afraid of. For example, opening up against Tampa Bay, that's the team that you would have been a lot more afraid of last season. Actually, I have them. That's their highest winning probability projection of the entire season is in week one against the Bucs. But, you know, the Chargers are an unknown. They're such an underachieving team based on the talent they have. Not to worry about Carolina. Two against Chicago, Detroit, Aaron Rodgers, LaScreen Bay. I'm probably not as high as most on – I know I'm not as high as most on San Francisco.

You think about that quarterback situation on pretty much any other team, we're in panic mode, and this is trouble. There's a lot of concern here. I mean, Brock Purdy looked good for a little there but uh that's a very small sample he's a seventh round pick limited arm strength you know we'd be picking that apart but just because it's kyle shanahan we're like yeah it's fine you know they'll be they'll be great they'll get good quarterback play which is probably true but um i think that's more of a concern that's being discussed but you know atlanta new orleans even denver the Raiders. There's a lot of winnable games on this schedule,

and I certainly think they can get to 10 wins. In fact, this is a controversial take. This might be one of my most controversial takes of the offseason. I think on paper, the Vikings may be a little better than Detroit, and everyone is just anointing Detroit as the Northern Division champs already. All right, we might as well not even play the games. They're going to win it. I don't necessarily think that's the case.

I still think Minnesota is right there, if not the better roster. Yeah, the Detroit thing is interesting because what we keep saying is like, they're still Detroit, right? So, I mean, that matters. How their secondary was rebuilt, I think, is probably the biggest factor there. They went out to free agency, tried to stack it up. But if that doesn't work, then they kind of might be a little bit same old lions. Although if they have Aiden Hutchinson and the Vikings don't have Daniel Hunter, which is very 50 50 at this point, there might be a slight edge there.

Usually, though, what we can count on with the Vikings in Detroit when they play each other is just sheer insanity is the only thing we can ever predict. But I think that you're being reasonable in not over exaggerating kind of the Detroit thing, because there were some regressible things that were part of their success for last year and part of that top five offense that, you know, could drop back a little bit yards after catch doesn't always repeat itself, you know, things like that. Um, I am disappointed that you didn't project punter net yards. Uh, the Vikings have a heck of a punter. So that was disappointing. Um, but everything else here is, uh, is a remarkable work and people, I just, just Google it. Mike Clay Projections. It'll pop right up. Every single team for your fantasy drafts.

And it's just, I mean, I cover this team every day and I pull up your projections. I'm like, these are really strong and you have to do that for every team. So I'm always impressed. Always love getting together with you, Mike. And thanks for doing this, man. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, I will, but you can't let me go. I have to ask you one thing. I have to ask you a question. Is that all right? Oh, okay. Do you have a couple minutes? Yeah. So I want to, I want to backtrack to, again, one of my more, it seems like my most controversial takes around the Vikings this year. I don't know what it is, but for some reason, I like their O-line and no one, even Vikings fans are like, what are you doing, man? Like, we don't have a good O-line. And I, you know, admittedly my ratings of O-lines, which by the way, I have them just inside the top 10 relative to the rest of the league, is, you know, I lean on the tackles mostly, right? I think the

tackles are more important than the interior. So that's part of this, but, you know, I think you have, you know, first of all, like Ezra Cleveland, probably coming off a bit of an, a little bit of an underrated season. Garrett Bradbury, solid. We won't say spectacular at center. And again, I'm using kind of objective measurements here. I'm looking at PFF grades, pass block win rate, run block win rate, those kind of things. But the tackles have been really good.

You know, Dyrus saw broke out last year. Brian O'Neill on the right side has developed into one of the better right tackles, one of the best right tackles by all objective measures. So I think you add that together and you say, all right, even with some concerns at right guard, maybe some suspects, you can ask some questions about the interior. Overall, relative to the other 31 lines, I feel like this is an above average line and I get a lot of heat for that. So I'm wondering kind of what your perspective is on that O-line. Okay, first of all, you have to understand these people have been hurt by their offensive line. I thought you might say that. So I'm wondering kind of what your perspective is on that O-line. Okay. First of all, you have to understand these people have been hurt by their offensive line. So I went through this and this is

the first year since 2012 to 2013, where an entire Vikings five offensive linemen have returned. And almost every single year it's the guards being swapped out. And so the fact that they do have the same interior can be helpful. The thing about the offensive line is this tackle combination could not be more incredible with Dersaw and O'Neal. I mean, these are two proven to me like superstar players in the league. They're not considered superstars because they're linemen. But if you watch them every game, you see that. But the interior is just so questionable. I mean, Ed Ingram allowed more sacks than anyone in the league last year at guard. Garrett Bradbury had an improved season, but we've also seen him really struggle against

good defensive tackles, which they're going to face a lot this year. And Ezra Cleveland still doesn't really understand how to pick up blitzes. So, I mean, there is like that element of, if you make a mistake on the interior as an offensive lineman with Kirk Cousins as your quarterback, he will get sacked and he will get pressured a lot. And those pressure and sack numbers for guards and interior linemen for the Vikings, I think have always been inflated because the quarterback is, you know, kind of a very much a pocket quarterback and he's not going to escape or scramble uh or or even really you know do a whole lot to shuffle away he's kind

of like he finds his spot and i think that's hard for them and but i do think it all kind of rests on ed ingram at right guard because last year teams just hunted him like like how nba teams try to find the weakest of the five and put LeBron on them or something, try to get switches and all that. That's what they did. They kind of stopped doing anything with Derrissaw and O'Neal outside of sending their edge rushers at them. And they were doing all sorts of stunts, twists and blitzes at Ingram because he was struggling so much. So it really depends. If he takes a big step forward and he is a second round pick, then they could have a really good offensive line. I think they could be a top 10 offensive line for the first time. And I don't even know when, um, but if that doesn't happen,

then you're probably talking about the same sort of story where they're great at one spot and bad at the others. That makes sense. Yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. I thought that was interesting, but again, I do lean towards the tackles over the interior when I'm looking at these lines objectively, just because they're inherently more positions. There's a reason they get paid the big bucks. So maybe that's why I'm, I'm feeling pretty good about it for pretty optimistic. And you do have some pedigree inside, right? There's reasons to think a guy like Ingram in year two would make a leap, right? It was the second round pick last year. It's it's that's reasonable. You expect these guys to make a leap.

So I'm with you. We'll have to see how it plays out, but I'm on the optimistic side. So I'm with you Vikings fans, hopefully. Well, maybe I'm not with you Vikings fans because again, I think most of the feedback has been like, no, you're way too high. And that's rare, by the way.

That's when I worry that I'm wrong, right? It's always like, you're way too low on this, or you're way too low on this, or you don't know what you're talking about. How could you have this so low? That's 97% of it. So if I get one and it's like, whoa, you're too high on this. I'm a Vikings fan. You're too high on this unit. That's what gets me to raise my eyebrow and look a little closer at it. Right. Maybe if they're too happy with you then you've got something wrong but that happens with us as well so

great stuff again Mike really appreciate all the time and as always if you have any questions about what's going on in camp or whatever else shoot me a message and we'll talk it's amazing how little of my help you seem to need in doing these so you're always doing a great job and I will continue to follow along closely.

Thanks again for doing this. All right. Anytime you got it.