Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Mike Clay projects J.J. McCarthy to have a strong debut season

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

Matthew Coller is joined by ESPN's Mike Clay to annual player projections and how he sees Vikings players performing this season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. It is a yearly tradition for me to get together with ESPN's Mike Clay, who I think that your actual title is NFL Senior Writer, but to me, you are the projection wizard. That is how I look at you. You have your projections out with the Vikings now knowing who their quarterback is going to be. So we always get together around this time in the summer, go through these projections.

I always enjoy this. And what's funny is you're usually more accurate than me when it comes to thinking about how these guys are going to end up producing at the end of the day. So we got a lot to go through. You have a very intriguing target number for the Vikings fullback, CJ Hamm, that we have to break down in depth. I actually really do want to get into the kick returning stats because the kick return is back, baby. But Mike, I mean, this project that you do every year with these projections is absolutely wild to me and how accurate you are with it, how good it is in terms of the depth chart

like even your offensive line I think is correct for the Vikings and who's playing left guard how much time do you put into this man is wild uh all of the time that's how much time it's just not it's non-stop I get us that question a lot and uh you know it's not like there's a day one that I started it's year-round this thing evolves every day of the year and never you know, it's not like there's a day one that I started. It's year round. This thing evolves every day of the year and never, you know, the one season ends. And as soon as, you know, for example, Minnesota is eliminated, whether it's after week 18 or whether it's in the middle of the playoffs, I update everything for next year. I get the IR guys back on the roster. I pull the free agents. I, you know, all those kinds of things are adjusted. It's just constantly a living document.

So, and then of course, there's a hole I go down in the off season where I study league and team trends, coordinator trends, all that stuff, because you have to tweak things, right? To figure out where, what kind of the baseline is for the NFL and for these players. So yeah, it's just a, it's just a long ongoing process. It takes a lot of time just kind of going into the, you know into the cave, if you will, and getting to work on this stuff. But I really enjoyed it. I think it's, especially this day and age, whether it's you play fantasy. Of course, that's where I kind of started in this industry.

Whether you're an NFL fan. And now betting, too. Just making sure that the lines make sense. I mean, I've learned a lot from studying player props over the last few years, which has improved my process because you realize that a lot of people look at these numbers and they say, wow, that's a low number. You're way too conservative. These numbers are too low. And then you compare it to the props that are out there and you're like, actually, you're not low. You're kind of high. This is telling me to go over a little too often. And honestly, season-long player props usually do go under. So I've learned a lot of that, and that's why you'll see a lot of blanket injury rates across the NFL, which we'll talk about here in a little bit.

But, yeah, it's a lot of work, but it's fun. I'm a sports nerd. I'm a football nerd. I love doing it. So I'm just glad I get to share it with everybody. Well, you're the only person in the world that has a sack projection for Jerry Tillery. So I think if anybody's looking for that, this is the place to go, but it's obvious where we have to begin this conversation. Mike, as far as your projections go, you think that it's JJ McCarthy. I mean, you've got him starting 14 games this year, and we're going to ride this roller coaster throughout OTAs,

mini camp and into training camp of the quarterback battle. And I think the Vikings do want to be patient with JJ McCarthy, but I would not count out at all him just straight up winning this job out of training camp beginning the season or Sam Darnold plays a couple of games. It's not that great. They decide it's time for JJ McCarthy, but how did you kind of settle on he's going to be the guy in year one? Yeah, so I do track the status of especially first-round quarterbacks year to year. And I just have an ongoing sheet for going back over a decade just to get an idea of when they start.

Essentially, when is the quarterback room turned over to them? So, you know, there are examples of guys that wait. Trey Lance, you know, behind Jimmy Garoppolo. You know, obviously Jordan Love was one. I think he's the only one that didn't play a snap his rookie season in the last, you know, 12 to 15 years. But for the most part, these guys are under center, especially early first-round quarterbacks,

if not week one by, like, week four. You know, Jared Goff wait until week 10. He's one of the exceptions. He's one of the only early first round quarterbacks that didn't play like right away. So I do expect McCarthy to get, there's a reason they took them. You know,

I expect them to be under center very early. I think that maybe, and I did hedge a little bit here by like one game, I gave Sam Darnold an extra start more so than I did like the backups for you know other teams like Washington and uh and Chicago um but I think it'll be quick you know you might see Sam Darnold maybe they give him week one week two he has a couple good plays couple turnovers and then they're like all right we got it we got to make the change here we want to win some football games so yeah i do think the odds are mccarthy starts 13 to 15

games maybe all of them so the date that i was looking at on the calendar for them if they do want to start sam darnold was after the bye week so the bye week is week six and then they play detroit after that which is not the easiest matchup for detroit's offense but their defense historically has not been super scary maybe a little bit improved this year, but I think that's a position that if they don't start them right away, they might wait. But the beginning of the season also could pressure Kevin O'Connell. I mean, you go from the Giants, a winnable game to San Francisco, Houston, Green Bay, New York Jets. If it doesn't go well in a couple of those early games, then they could end up going to him or he could just win the camp battle. This is what's so difficult. Now, when it comes to projecting

actual performance, so say that he does win the job pretty quickly and he's out there, your projections, I think are fairly, I mean, of course, you're going to try to kind of play it safe here with a rookie when you have no idea, but you know, 3,500 yards, 19 touchdowns, 13 picks. How do you settle with this? Because with Kirk, it was easy for you. Just pull up pro football reference, look at his page and be like, okay, somewhere in the middle of all that, uh, much more difficult with someone like JJ McCarthy. Yeah. He was one that, uh, I just did a, an article where I was looking at player props for rookies. And then I just filed another one. Uh, that'll be up on the NFL page

at ESPN. Just that goes, I do it every year where I just look at rookie projections, uh, for, for each position, um, offense and defense. And, you know, his came out kind of high, you know, his projections are actually high for a rookie quarterback and relative to the other guys, Caleb Williams is ahead, but, uh, in terms of passing yardage, he's ahead of the other guys. So part of that is my optimism with this scheme. I remember I actually wrote a piece, and look, I don't think anyone's shocked McCarthy went to Minnesota. I actually wrote a piece for our magazine that'll be out in a month or so for Fantasy, where I said something along the lines, will J.J. McCarthy have a big season in the great Kevin O'Connell scheme or something along the lines? I wrote that before the draft. a big season in the great Kevin O'Connell scheme or something

along the lines? I wrote that before the draft. I just expected it to happen, and I was excited for it to happen because I think it's a really good fit. And a part of the reason for that is when Kirk Cousins went out last season, the Vikings were mid-pack in QBR the rest of the season with their backup quarterbacks. And sometimes it's easy for these play callers to put up big numbers with a great quarterback or even a quarterback like Kirk Cousins. But then you see them get tested when a backup comes in and some succeed, some fail. And we've seen, we saw Kevin O'Connell succeed for the most part last season. So I think they'll still lean toward the pass.

It's not like they invested a ton in a great runner or anything. You know, a lot of times Aaron Jones and Green Bay was just used as a pass catcher. So that makes me think they are going to lean a little toward the pass, especially once he's comfortable. And I believe in the efficiency of Kevin O'Connell offense. So those are big variables for me. It gives me optimism that McCarthy could put some decent numbers up. But I know you might see those numbers and think yeah they're kind of low but they're good numbers for a rookie quarterback don't don't get it wrong well I think Kevin

O'Connell is just going to pass the football no matter what I mean he's going to keep pushing the pass button until he's sort of forced to run the football we'll get to Aaron Jones because your projection's interesting there let's say that I, hey, Kevin O'Connell came up to me in OTAs, whispered in my ear, Darnold's going to start the whole season. JJ's not ready. How would you have gone about projecting Darnold knowing his past history,

but also knowing how different his circumstances were in Carolina and with the New York Jets, then they're going to be here? Well, what I would do is ask you if that really happened. I would like to know. It did not. It did not. None of us.

I don't think that they have any idea. Are you breaking news here? No, I'm not. Yeah. I would maybe give Darnold one more start if you told me. Like, I don't. We've heard that before. We've always heard, like, these guys are going to wait.

We're not going to rush them. And then it's like week three. And it's not just, you know, the top quarterback struggling. You know, Sam Darnold's probably not going to rush them. And then it's like week three. And it's not just, you know, the top quarterback struggling. You know, Sam Darnold's probably not going to be great. You know, he bounced around the league for a while. He's been a backup. He's been so up and down. He's had his moments. A lot of these guys that are career backups have had moments. It doesn't mean he's going to be the long term answer. So, you know, and not to mention the pressure from the media, the fans, the other coaches, management, ownership. Like there's gonna be a lot of pressure. You know, we took this guy in the first round. Let's get him on the field. So I think that wouldn't really change much for me.

I somewhat agree with you that maybe week six is interesting if Darnold comes out and has a couple of good games to start the season. He did that in Carolina that one year, came out really strong, looked good, looked like they finally figured something out. And then the wheels kind of fell off. So it's possible, but again, with that schedule, that first month or so of the season, I don't know if there's a lot of wins on that schedule. If they're one and three, one and four, you got to take a look at this guy. He's super young, but as we're going to get to, this is a tough division. I don't know, I don't think they're going to be a playoff team this year unless McCarthy really is the real deal and shows it right out of the gate, which could happen. We saw it with C.J. Stroud last year, but I think it's a rebuild year.

It's a year where you put McCarthy out there, let him learn some things. Yeah, I guess to rephrase, if McCarthy was for sure not going to play and we knew for sure that Darnold was going to play the whole season. I mean, for me, if I was doing that projection, I'd go with something like 4,500 yards, 30 touchdowns and 22 interceptions or something. I mean, because I think that Darnold is super talented, but he's also a wild man when it comes to playing with the football. Yeah, I got you now. Okay. So I misunderstood, but yeah, I agree with you. A lot of turnovers, no doubt. A lot of passing because they're going to be trailing and they're going to have to throw the football if Darnold's your starter and is turning it over that often. But honestly, in terms of overall offensive efficiency, I don't know if it moves the needle a lot because again, you don't expect really above average efficiency from your offense with

a rookie quarterback. So I'm not, it's not like I'm projecting this offense, like, well, if they have McCarthy's first round pick, this is going to be a top 10, top five efficiency offense. It just doesn't happen. It's super rare. I think even Houston last year was like, were they 12th in QBR or 12th in offensive efficiency, something like that. And that's in a, like one of the best rookie seasons we've ever seen from a quarterback. So there's no doubt they're probably going to be outside the top 20 or so maybe 25th or so in offensive efficiency, even if McCarthy plays the whole season, it's just the nature of the beast. It takes these guys a while to get going and be high end players.

They turn it over more, they're sacked more. They just, you name it, you know, they, they just, the YPA is is lower completion rates lower it's just the nature of the beast with that position it takes a while yeah the nfl is hard it's hard to play football uh and i mean with mccarthy if he does start as much as you think that he might uh then we're talking about a guy who has not thrown this many passes ever in his season uh and that's gonna come along with a lot of pressure i thrown this many passes ever in his season. And that's going to come along with a lot of pressure. I mean, if he had this type of season, 19 touchdowns, 13 picks, I think the Vikings would be thrilled with that because knowing about his age and does that factor

in for you? Because you've got a couple of quarterbacks here. Bo Nix is going to start right away in Denver and he's 24. And then JJ McCarthy is 21. So if he came in and just got to be 21 years old and had this type of season, I think it would really be spectacular for projecting out to the future where if Bo Nix has it, I'm not sure it's the same or do you not care as much about the age thing? I would care more if Minnesota more aggressively addressed the bridge quarterback situation. I know that Darnold got a decent paycheck for a one-year deal, but I don't – the NFL has not given us an indication that they view him as a starting quarterback.

You can't tell me Minnesota – and I think part of why he got paid like that is because, first of all, they didn't know for sure they were going to get McCarthy. That was part of why he got paid like that is because, first of all, they didn't know for sure they were going to get McCarthy. That was part of it. And also there's more investment in backup quarterbacks now in the NFL. We saw the most, I won't say ridiculous at this moment, but you could call it that if you want, the most extreme measure we've probably ever seen a team go to at that, which was Atlanta, spending a top 10 pick on a quarterback after they drafted or acquired Kirk Cousins. So I think that's part of that. But again, I don't think you

bring Darnold in like this is a guy that's going to take us to the playoffs this year. You know, this is a bridge quarterback. So that gives me more optimism that McCarthy's going to be out there and going to play quite a bit. So on the running back position, I am very intrigued to see the split between Aaron Jones and Ty Chandler. At the end of last year, Ty Chandler showed that he's got some special burst. He could be a playmaker in the run game in the past game. It was also pretty clear that they were frustrated with some of the past protection stuff. If you go and look at those PFF grades for the past blocking, not so spectacular. And then with, you know, even just getting some of the details of the offense down,

I think that he's got to make some progress, but has the potential to be a starting caliber running back. Still, I might lean a little more toward Aaron Jones. Then you've got the injury factor. He got banged up last year. How did you weigh? Cause you have close to a 50, 50 split with these guys. So how did you weigh some of the age injury stuff into Aaron Jones's projection? Yeah. So 50, 50 split roughly for carries, which I think is an important distinction here. We've seen Aaron Jones for the most part, splitting carries in green Bay for the last few years. And that was with AJ Dillon, who by all means was not, again, objective measurements, was not an effective rusher. You know, he had his problems.

He scored touchdowns in bunches here or there, but he wasn't super efficient as a runner. You know, I think that last year when they kind of made that switch from Madison to Chandler, we saw a little bit more juice in the running game. And also Aaron Jones turns 30 this year. You know, I think that this is a guy that's going to be limited as a rusher. You know, so I have him at 163 carries. I have Chandler at 155.

You know, there's obviously some injury baked in there for Aaron Jones. I have him at 14 games. So, you know, week to week, maybe the gap's a little wider, not just like 50-50, but I could see like 57-43 with them mixing in Chandler. And that would be, you know, eight to 10 carries a game for Ty Chandler. So I think that makes sense.

Now, where it really gets interesting is like you said, passing situations, pass blocking situations. And as you can see in the projection, big gap there. I have Aaron Jones at 60 targets, 43 catches. I've Ty Chandler down at only 30 targets, which is just normal. One or two a game off the bench makes perfect sense for a guy spelling the starter, not to mention perhaps a couple of starts if Jones misses time. So

definitely more optimistic overall about the body of work for Aaron Jones. I think that you bring him in with the hope of at least getting one really good full season out of him. But I do, you know, Ty Chandler should be the clear number two right now. It's Myles Gaskin. I like, I don't, it could be someone else, of course, but I think it's pretty evident that their plan is Jones and Chandler for the moment. Otherwise, I think you'd be more aggressive in addressing that position. Right.

They didn't go into free agency and look at another running back. I thought that they might, but they decided to bring Gaskin back. He was there with them last year. I don't think he got an actual snap, but he was around. I met him. And behind that, Kenny Wong Wu has pretty much only been a kick returner for his career. They haven't shown any trust in him. And then Dwayne McBride, they draft in the seventh round and he was on the practice squad. Almost impossible to try to project anything there. With Jones, were you influenced at all by how he performed down the stretch? Because this is a trap in football where,

hey man, you look at that guy's last five games from last year, he was amazing. Yeah, right. And I've learned over the years not to do that too much. But his last five games, Mike, they were pretty amazing last year in the playoffs. I don't know if that mattered to you or not. Yeah, I mean, it was I probably would be less optimistic if he didn't come back strong last year.

But also he missed another chunk of the season. So, yeah, he came back with some fresh legs and had a couple of good games. But you're right. I was laughing, though, because I thought it was funny the other day. Someone, you know, of course, I post these projections all the time or, you know, we do pods like this or other blogs pick them up and they write about what's right or wrong about them, you know, these are terrible. All you need to do is look at the last four games of the Raiders last season, extrapolate them, and add 5% better for the next year. That's it. It's easy. I mean, what else is there to do? That's a perfect projection process. Every team gets 5% better every year.

That's just the – and you only look at a convenient four-game sample. So, anyway, I thought that was funny timing that you brought that up. But, yeah, I mean, I'm looking, of course, at a bigger sample for Aaron Jones. This is a guy that hasn't had more than four rushing touchdowns in several seasons. He's had one full season in the last, what, three of the last four years. He's missed time, usually significant time. Actually, that's a trend for his career and, frankly, a trend for running backs in general. So especially pushing age 30, this is a guy where this is an age where

we start to see these guys fall off I just can't imagine that he's going to be featured a featured running back so I think if you're talking 170 180 carries and then again like 60 targets I think that's a good season for Aaron Jones we get that out of him and then have a good change of pace back and Chandler's fine in that role you know you're that's going to be a serviceable backfield and they've been so bad at throwing to the running backs out of the backfield since O'Connell took over their screen game has been just atrocious and I don't know you know is it was that Delvin Cook falling off was that Madison being ineffective Madison dropped the ball a bunch of times last year he had never done that before it was kind of strange uh but Aaron Jones has been so exceptional through the years that even if he adds something there and then is

an above average runner in 14 games, in 13 games, then you've gotten way more out of that than you expected. I do wonder if they get into camp and start looking at any running backs who are on their couch that are veterans that might want to come in. But I thought that would be the one that Vikings fans I think would read and be like, huh, I think that's a little low. But when you look at his recent history and injuries, totally fair. Now the wide receivers is where it gets kind of interesting for me because obviously you're just a Jefferson projection, very high. He's extremely good at football. Jordan Addison had a very solid rookie year. After that though, Mike, a little more dicey than before. I mean, with KJ Osborne, you could pencil in 45 to 50 catches, solid number three.

We're talking Jalen Naylor, Trent Shurfield here, et cetera. What do we think of this unit as a whole? Like you ranked all of the units as well, of course. I mean, as a whole, you ranked all of the units as well of course I mean as a whole being so top heavy yeah so the way my grades work out is I'm ranking 1 to 32 and then kind of distributing it like a GPA so I have that mad at 3.0 so that would be basically a B right on the money borderline top 10 unit and the reason they're that high is you've an elite number one, maybe the best receiver in the NFL and Justin Jefferson, who had some big games, even with the backup quarterbacks out there

last year. So I was a little bit more worried about him without Kirk Cousins. And then I kind of rebounded him, his projection a little bit going from Darnold to JJ McCarthy. So that helped a little bit, big target share. He's going to have a big season. Jordan Addison, you know, a little nervous about him. I think he's a, you know, he's going into year two. He should theoretically get better. His numbers were very much inflated by that big barrage of touchdowns that he had last season, which was somewhat a product of Kirk Cousins. He didn't really show up in a way that I expected without Justin Jefferson.

You know, his target share didn't really move up. We didn't see as much of a high-end performance. And, you know, at his size, frankly, coming into the last year, his 40 time is a little bit concerning. So there's a couple things there that make me wonder just how good is this guy? I'm not saying he's bad. I'm just saying, like, what is his ceiling? Is he going to live up to that first-round pedigree?

But still gave them a pretty good grade for that one-two punch. After that though, wide open. I don't know. I mean, they don't, I don't know if they have an answer as at the number three spot right now. You mentioned they might go look for another running back. Don't be surprised if they address wide receiver. That wouldn't shock me at all, depending on how these guys show up in camp. Not to mention guys are going to get, you know, it be a a trade or something at cuts where they they claim someone off waivers do they bring in a veteran like a robert woods maybe who who will get uh left go almost inevitably by houston at some point so um i know they have a lot of bodies here but a lot of these guys have been around for years and no one has established himself as a

starter and really your top three receivers are starters now so i'm with you i think depth a major major concern here. They liked what they got from Brandon Powell last year when he had to step up into a bigger role. And he had never done that before. He had essentially just been a punt returner or a screen pass catcher for a little bit for the Los Angeles Rams. Maybe there's something there. And I know that Kevin O'Connell is a fan of Jalen Naylor. It's just that it hasn't worked out last year. He got hurt on the first day of training camp that set him way back. And then he got in the game against the Raiders. He gets hurt again in that game and then doesn't

have much of a chance. Of course, staying on the field is a big deal, but if there's one guy that could surprisingly break out his wide receiver three, it's probably Jalen Naylor who they have liked what they've seen from. And yet he just hasn't had the opportunity to get on the field with Jordan Addison. I think I'm probably a little higher on him than you. I mean, I think that there's an issue there as far as being a, a plus wide receiver in the league because of the size there, it's just going to hold them back a little. It's not like he's 170 pounds and runs a four, two, but the ability to make some high difficulty catches, track the football, route running, getting open.

I think that there's a lot of talent there that he could. I mean, I think your projection is extremely fair. I mean, you've got him still making 70 catches, which I would probably say about the same thing. I just, you've got him still making 70 catches, which I would probably say about the same thing. I just, I think that there's a little more there. If there's 10 more pounds on his body, he fights through some physical contact. There were times last year where I thought corners were able to take him away a little bit, but I might put it a shade higher than you. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, I, you know, I do something I look at with expected catch rate too and this

was pretty low last year just because he had a lot of high difficulty catches and he still was above average in the in catch rate you know again I think just from a statistical standpoint though people might be shocked about the touchdown drop off but again your big big substantial change in quarterback not to mention just it's unsustainable. You know, I do a lot of work on touchdown rates in the league for fantasy purposes. And, you know, he scored on almost 10% of his targets last year, which is not something we see. I would say with, I usually when I project someone's going to drop off in touchdown total, it's like a 90, 95% hit rate. You know, it's almost easy to do when these guys have extreme touchdown rates.

And usually it's by, you know, four or five touchdowns about cut in half when they're at the extremes like him so don't be surprised if the touchdowns fall off but catches and yardage wise i'm almost identical to where i was last year's or where he was last year so uh by the way they didn't again they didn't really address receiver so they're committed to him as their two he's going to be their clear uh And frankly, you might see even more targets early in the year as TJ Hawkinson gets back to full health. Oh yeah, no, for sure. Because it looks as of right now, like at the very beginning of the season, we're going to see Johnny months, Josh Oliver, Robert, Robert Tunyon is here apparently. And so I think that's pretty clear sign that TJ Hawkinson is going to need more time to recover

from his ACL, which of course could mean more targets for Jordan Addison if you don't have KJ Osborne here. So I want to go over to the defensive side. There's really only one player I want to talk about. Then we got to get into kicker, kick returner, fullback, and et cetera. The really important stuff here on the show, but Dallas, exactly. Dallas Turner projecting a rookie sack production. I saw that your teammate at ESPN, Seth Walder and his projections really love Dallas Turner versus some of the other, uh, young pass rushers that were drafted this year. I think this one's a little tricky to figure out because they got Van Ginkle. So how are they going to, and Grenard, how are they going to rotate those guys?

How many snaps should we really expect? But I mean, you look, he comes from Alabama. They have a program there that's as close to the NFL as you can get on defense. And he was extremely productive there. How do we figure out an edge rusher and how many times they're going to take down the quarterback in a rookie season? Yeah, this is a tricky one. This is going to be covered in that piece I just mentioned earlier, where I look at rookie projections. Turner is actually fifth among all rookies in sack projection at 4.2. And that might seem like a low number, but

I mean, as I write in this piece, a little foreshadowing to this piece, a little preview, the most sacks by a rookie last year was Kobe Turner. He had nine. That was the seventh most by a rookie over the past decade. Byron Young at eight, Diaby in Tampa Bay at seven and a half, Will Anderson had seven, Jalen Carter had six. They were the only ones to clear four and a half last year. The only rookies. That shows you the bar that you have to get to. And some of these guys were just forced into massive roles I mean Byron Young played like 85 percent of the Rams snaps last year they had I mean I wrote about this last year how worried I was about that Rams defense luckily their plan was essentially we have our starters and no depth we're just gonna put them out there and let them play like every down and hope we stay healthy and

they did for the most part and it worked out so and let them play like every down and hope we stay healthy. And they did for the most part. And it worked out. So and they still were like bottom third of the league and an EPA with the exception of that one big game they had. So that's it. I mean, again, I'm not really I'm not anti Dallas Turner. I've been playing 40 percent of the snaps. And the reason for that is I love their one to punch, you know,, for losing what they lost at edge this year. And to go ahead and get Renard and Van Ginkle is huge. I thought they got two of the most underrated edge rushers in the league. I thought it was a really savvy and smart way to address it that's not costing them a lot. And then you bring in Turner.

Suddenly you have a good core. So I'm curious to see how they get creative there with Van Ginkle. He's very versatile. Maybe that gets Turner onto the field more. But sometimes it takes these guys a little while to get going as I just pointed out with those stats. So again, and by the way, you mentioned McCarthy's age, Dallas Turner, you know, a couple months past 21, he's super young as well. Just don't be shocked if it takes a little time. Yeah. And I think that he's in a situation where they're not going to have to say,

hey, Dallas Turner, you play edge rusher for 875 snaps and get us 12 sacks, or this didn't work out. They can mix and match him, move him around, put him in pass rush situations and packages and give him a chance to have favorable situations before he's taking on a bigger load into the future as he grows and develops. And just my observation from seeing him up close

is that he doesn't look to me yet physically, like he's at his peak physically. Like I think he's going to get bigger, faster, stronger, uh, all that sort of stuff. So you could tell from talking with you that you get a lot from fans where they think that you're too down on their team for just being realistic. Uh, that is a, that is a theme, but I will say the one place I would be more optimistic than you is the overall Vikings defensive ranking. And this is because of Brian Flores and really Brian Flores only, because if you look at the roster, you go, you know, I don't see a whole lot of all-star talent here, a couple of good players, but the combination of Flores and mixing and matching players, I think can result in a little better. You have them in the low twenties as a final

ranking, but talk me out of thinking that. Yeah. So I'm actually looking at right now at their defensive EPA last year was 1.1. The year before is 3.5. So 1.1 means they were a little bit better last year. The year before that, they were 1.7. So it's kind of been a bit of a roller coaster for them. Remember four years ago, they had that really atrocious year. They were near 10, just to give you some perspective. So I've been at two and a half.

So I'm kind of mixing the bag between this year and last year. I think that on paper, maybe not quite as good as, as I thought they were last year. And, and certainly you have some roster voyage. You have some, it's kind of top heavy, I would say,

you know, you have some, some parts of this defense that are very good and others that are concern areas. Obviously the strength is, is safety, obviously with Harrison Smith and combine and what a find he was. So they need some of these young guys that these early high pedigree day one,

day two draft picks at corner to come around. I mean, they have the raw talent there. I mean, I love Shaq Griffin, but I don't know why that guy can't sustain a starting job. I feel like he's been so good at times and he's, he might be there for right now. They're, they're number three on the perimeter for this year. So I think they have some talent at some places we'll see off ball linebacker. I'm not sure if, like Ivan Pace last year, he actually let all rookies in tackles. Like, is that real? Is this guy going to be a clear number one top-end off-ball linebacker? Or was that just out of necessity last year? So we'll see how that pans out. And then, you know, I talked

about the edge rusher. Upfront, defensive tackle, definitely a concern area for me. If they're right, kind of low, their depth, obviously a concern. You mentioned, joked about Jerry Tillery earlier. That's a guy that's has high pedigree, but has struggled to, you know, to maintain a starting job in the league for a long time. So there's like you said, there's some talent in some spots, but it's all relative to the other defenses in the NFL. I think they still have some, some guys that they need to really develop. Well, and I think that the cornerback position specifically would be the one that

concerns me the most because they didn't go out and get some sort of big game changer at corner. And I think that Shaq Griffin maybe gives them an opportunity to play him at outside, move Byron Murphy inside a little bit more where he's been better historically by his PFF numbers and so forth. But still, I mean, if you're talking about going through this and you got, you know, Debo Samuel, Nico Collins, Green Bay throws the ball pretty well. A couple of matchups with

Detroit, Puka Nakua and Cooper Cup. There's a lot of good receivers on this schedule that I think they could struggle against if, you know, they don't get improved cornerback play from where they were last year. Now let me switch over though. Well, do you have more on that? Oh, I, I, I mean, the one thing I would say in their defense is they do have some, you know, again, a lot of day one and two picks that if they could develop, you know, just a couple of these guys, because the depth is there in that department as well.

You also have Josh at safety who can play the slot as as well he's like they're you know their third safety you move him into the slot and you have uh you know even more depth at the cornerback position you did a nice job for them as i mean they had three safety play over a thousand snaps last year which you just don't see just because uh he was so uh versatile so they they do have options there you just need to make sure some of them pan out that's all i was laughing a little bit because of course your projection naturally for harrison smith in snap count is extremely high because for his career he always plays every snap of every game and kevin o'connell had mentioned maybe wanting to lower that a little bit but i've also heard that from every coach for the vikings for about four years yeah we want to reduce harrison

smith's snap count a little bit and then they start playing the games they go no no no uh he's still one of our best players let's keep him out there the metellus thing was a revelation though last year i wasn't even sure at this point in the year whether he was going to be on the team and then he ends up being or if he was going to see the field at all uh and then he ends up being, or if he was going to see the field at all. And then he ends up being a huge player for them. But the most important thing to discuss here is kick returning and the rookie kicker. Vikings fans, extremely nervous about a rookie kicker, their history. You can imagine why. You've got Will Reichert hitting 84%, having a good season.

I do think that this is probably the safest kicker pick that anyone could have made because he has this enormous sample at playing at Alabama under a lot of pressure, but rookie kickers have to be almost impossible to predict. Yeah, it's tough. I, you know, I just find a baseline for rookie kickers. I expect them to be a little below average because that is what we have seen. The only thing I would say here is the lesson I think we've learned with a lot of these, we'll call them high pedigree kickers,

the guys that are drafted basically, is just some patience. How many guys have we seen just come in, whether it's nerves, butterflies, just get used to the pros, the regimen, the longer schedule, and they struggle, and then teams cut them loose,

and they always seem to do better in the next place they go. It just seems to always be – it just happens so often, I feel like. So I haven't done a lot of work on that, but it just feels like it continues to happen, and I don't think a team knows that better than Minnesota, obviously, with what has happened to them at that position as of late, especially Daniel Carlson. So, you know,

hopefully he comes out and plays well right away. But again, don't be shocked if there's a slow start here. Hopefully they're just patient and they don't give him the hook after 10 games and sign a vet and move on because that doesn't always seem to work out. But we'll see. I'm with you. I have some confidence in him. Still have him, you know, attempting 33 kicks, making 28. That'll be a pretty good rookie season. You come out hitting 84% and most of your extra points, you're fine for year one. Yeah. And I think that, you know, I looked at kickers who had more than a hundred kicks in college and how they turned out. And a lot of them did turn out to be pretty good kickers who were drafted that had over a hundred kicks. And I think that, you know, if you have a kicker in college who has one big season,

that can throw you off a little bit, but this guy had numerous, very good seasons. So again, it probably as safe as you can get, but here's what I love looking at the projections. I call this up and I went, my eyeballs didn't go to JJ McCarthy first. They went to the kick return. This is something you follow me on Twitter. I've been tweeting about for years, this UFL currently exit while they're not doing it. The UFL, the XFL kickoff just loved it when they did it. Nobody saw it because it was the XFL and the NFL finally decides to adopt it, which is going to result in the Mel Gray's, the Dante halls, the Tameric van overs, the Josh cribs returning to our game. And I think that Kenny wong who can be

one of those guys in a very small sample one of the best kick returners in the league you've got them returning it's just spectacular 60 kicks this year let's go mike this is great yeah so this was tough and i did put some time into this but there's some unknowns with figuring out how many total kick returns uh teams are going to have in like the last couple of years i haven't had to put much time into this because you knew that the balls are just going to sail out of the end zone most of the time like i tweeted about that months before they made this rule change like we got it we got to scrap this thing you're kind of like you like we have to change this this is dumb like it's what are we doing we're just sitting we're allowing teams to score and then just kick the ball into the end zone.

And then what a waste. What a waste of time. So I'm glad they changed this. You know, step one was kind of just looking at how many return, like, actual kickoffs there will be. You know, obviously, we know each team is going to kick it off at least once per game. But then, you know, the way I did it with projections is look at all of the, you know, after, after a touchdown, uh, field goal after the half or at the beginning, add them all up. How many kickoffs will there be? Uh, and then come up with a rate for how many of those will be returned. Um, and I did turn to some of that XFL data to, uh, kind of figure out how

many were returned. And then I just had to hedge a little bit on that because I don't have much more information. We're going to learn a lot from the first few months of the season and go from there. So I have them with 75 kickoff returns, which, of course, there's going to be more kickoffs. Some of them will be touchbacks, probably a low rate of them. And then split it up with Nwongu and Ty Chandler as the primary kick returners, because I'm very curious to see what that looks like as well. Are you going to have a primary kick returner? Are you going to have two guys back there that end up splitting them?

Or it's 60-40? I don't have that answer. I don't know what that answer is right now. So that's why I have it for now. But, you know, I also like doing this show because, you know, you give me some good information. So you can tell me what you think it's going to look like. I think as long as – so Kenny Wong does get banged up sometimes.

And he was hurt at the beginning of last year. If he's healthy, I think he'll be their main guy by far. I think I totally agreed with what you were doing, but when they did use Ty Chandler last year, he had, he had actually a kick return return for a touchdown that got taken back by a holding that was nowhere near the play. He's got the talent. He's got the explosiveness.

And I don't know the strategy yet. We're actually going to talk this week to Matt Daniels, the special teams coordinator. But what we did see in the XFL was they started running some real plays there by the end, whether it was like different blocking schemes or reverses or different stuff. So I think teams are going to get pretty creative with this. And I wouldn't be surprised if they do use multiple people back there somehow, but I'm fascinated to see how this turns out. So before we get to the last thing, the big picture on this, I do have to ask about the fullback projections here. I mean, CJ ham, two attempts, eight yards, five catches for 30 total yards receiving. I'm going to throw one thing at you. I'm going to predict one big play for CJ Hamm this season.

I'll tell you why. I did an article. I did an article on this last year, a very large article in which I interviewed multiple fullbacks for that. Kevin O'Connell started on third down and longs using CJ Hamm as a blocking specialist. And one of these times he's going to sneak out and everyone's going to forget about him. And he's going to get 25 yards on a catch. That's my big projection. But I also think it's very fair to not have him as a centerpiece of the offense. It's just usually once a year, the guy catches somebody by surprise and

has a big game. Yeah. My only pushback to that would be you said 25 yard play. He had 25 yards all of last season as a, as a pass catcher. So, uh, yeah, I was probably too high on him last year. I have him, uh, he had one carry last year. I have him with two carries this year. He had nine targets last year. I have him with six targets, uh, this year. So, uh, and those were lows for him. Big step back in his usage. One carry is a career low. Nine targets was his fewest since his rookie season when he was 24 years old.

That was a long time ago. So I'm disappointed in you. I mean, I'm disappointed in his usage. That was – it's very disappointing. But how about that receiving line for his career? I'm just looking at it right now. 77 catches in his career, 635 yards, two touchdowns, also 104 rushing yards and three touchdowns.

But his receiving line for the whole year is not a bad career for a fullback, honestly. No, it's true. And where the big difference is the last two years is that Kevin O'Connell just never used a fullback before. And they love CJ Ham super high intelligence player. He was great in that role of filling in as a blocker special team or leader captain, all those things. They want them on the team, but I don't think that O'Connell until last year had a plan for him. Whereas when Gary Kubiak or Clint Kubiubiak we know their history they love the heck out of fullbacks but uh o'connell is probably not gonna use him as much of a weapon so it's it's

fair it's fine um i love that that's my favorite part though of bringing this up to you is you actually give a legitimate breakdown of that like you i mean actually thought about every player it's incredible i joke about that all the time. Yeah. Third string tight ends, punters, fullbacks. It's all part of the package. I mean, if he gets 1% of the carries and 2% of the targets, those don't go to other players. So it matters in the big picture. Well, speaking of the big picture you've got, this is being a little bit of a rough season for the Minnesota Vikings. Your win projection is around a seven win football team, which is not super far away from where I had them in picking the W's and L's. I felt like

I had to stretch a little bit to get it to nine, considering how difficult this schedule is. Do you see a world where you are surprised where you, you, at the end of the year, we have another conversation you say all right man i was wrong this team turned out to be way better than i thought or uh are you you feeling pretty solid about this one yeah i mean the the way i'll be way wrong is if jj mccarthy is just legit right out of the gate like if he if he's cj stroud and you're you know the version of cj stroud 2024 and he's just the real deal and he's clearly emerging as a top 10, you know, we're talking about him as a top 10,

maybe top five quarterback next season. Then of course I'll be wrong. You know, they should be pushing for a playoff spot in the NFC. No doubt about it. But especially at his age, it's hard to imagine that happening. You just have to think that they're understanding that this is going to be a little bit of a rebuild. We're going to put McCarthy out there. We're going to get him reps this year. We're going to continue to build this team up around him and play for 2025.

So that should be their plan, I think. And part of the reason for that is the division. The division is probably the best it's been in quite a while. The Lions are suddenly one of the better teams in the league. You mentioned their defense being a pushover. I think those days are over. They've been trending up, honestly, for a while in terms of run defense, but their pass defense, it should be much, much better. A lot of investment in that

secondary over the last year or so. Chicago, of course, the supporting cast around Caleb Williams is terrific, kind of quietly. We talk about the big skill position guys offensively, but the defense is better there. The offensive line is better. The schedule, I think, is the easiest in the division for the Bears. And then, of course, the Packers were already, you know, they should have beaten the 49ers last year. They had that game in their hand. They just blew it. They just blew that game. So, and they're still really good or solid on paper, we'll say. So that's the main issue here. Had they brought, had Minnesota brought Kirk Cousins back, this would be a even more exciting division. I think any team could have won. Now I think it's probably a three-team race, at least just for this year.

Yeah. The Chicago thing is a tough one to figure out because it's a rookie quarterback, but the rest of that team, especially the way Matt Ibraflues has built up the defense, the Montez Sweat trade alone just seemed to be this big momentum swing where when we saw them at US Bank Stadium with Montez Sweat, I mean, he was dominating Brian O'Neill in that game, which usually does not happen. This guy is a complete difference maker for that defense. And then they were able to bring back Jalen Johnson. They didn't have to trade him because of contract issues.

They've got a lot. And it's almost like the keenan allen trade has not been discussed at all but the vikings gave up 18 catches to keenan allen last year it is it's a very difficult division and even the games outside of the division usually if you got the afc self you held the party yes you got the afc south but now it's anthony richardson year two it's you know, Trevor Lawrence. There is, there's really no easy breaks on the schedule outside of week one and anything can kind of happen in week one. I think it's going to be tough. Yeah. I have them with one of the 10

toughest schedules in the league. Part of that is, you know, if you are a team I'm projecting on the low end, you're playing, you know, within this division, three teams better than you, that's six of your 17 games are against, you know, teams that are clearly, three teams better than you. That's six of your 17 games are against teams that are clearly, I think, better than them. So that's part of it. And you mentioned some of the other opponents on that schedule, especially early on. It's going to be tough right out of the gate. But yeah, I'm with you. I think that this is just a year.

And look, I'm not a hater. You know I'm not biased against Minnesota. I have honestly been probably more optimistic. I spent a lot of last offseason defending their offensive line, and I think I was kind of on the right track with that. I just thought in general people thought they were terrible, and they had a lot of talent. So, you know, at times I've been optimistic about them,

maybe too optimistic about Minnesota, but I think this is one of those years, maybe a little bit of a step back, and then we get it going again in 2025. Well, no, from my perspective i think that everything here is more realistic than people want it to be uh but at the same time i think vikings fans understand where they are as a team it's a team in transition it's a team with a lot of really good players and a lot of holes that they're going to need to improve and when you have a rookie quarterback uh you just don't know i give the coaching staff some credit that this team will be in the playoff hunt, but

much more than that would be, I think, overly optimistic. But I mean, look, we just believe in Minnesota sports teams now with the Timberwolves. That's a good point there. So it's just there's reason to believe in everybody. Just Google Mike Clay projections. That's how I always find them. And Mike Clay NFL on Twitter. Although it seems that everyone already follows you anyway.

So there shouldn't be anybody who that's a pretty big Twitter following. Well, I don't know how many people are on that platform anymore these days. You know, the engagement isn't the same as it used to be, but yeah, we'll do, we'll do our best.

It's still, it's still where I pump out the most content. So yeah, it's going to be fun. It's going to be an interesting season for sure. I already put my eggs in the New York Jets basket this year. I think they're going to be a powerhouse. So that's going to be something that's going to really drive my mentions this year.

If the Jets are doing well, it's going to look good. If not, I'm going to be hearing about it for a long time. I did notice you didn't give the Vikings a very high chance to win that game in London against the jets, but, uh, we'll, we'll see, we'll see about all the things that Aaron Rogers has done to his body. And if he, if you know, he can hold up there. So, uh, but my X factor, it's, it's always great to get together with you. It's one of my favorite times of the year is breaking down these projections. So we will definitely do it again soon. We'll hook up, uh, maybe before the season and, uh, see where we're at and see how different things are at that point. So I really appreciate the time, man. Thanks a lot. Yeah, it's always fun and love doing this again, because I love that

constructive feedback as opposed to, again, social where it's just like, is this guy mostly asking me if I'm doing the same medications that Aaron Rodgers is doing? Something along those lines. Am I high? That's mostly what social is, but I love the constructive feedback. So if you're listening as well and you're like, man, I'm surprised this guy's not projected for more snaps or stuff, I love that. Give me some actual perspective. That's why I feel like these are good because I'm constantly reading reports from you or talking to you or beat writers that I trust from other teams and learning things and constantly adjusting these things to make sure that they're a good resource for everyone. I'm not trying to be bold with these. I'm trying to be realistic.

So stuff like this is a huge help. Just take a little sip of that ayahuasca and open the PDF. That's what you do here. I really appreciate it, Mike. Thanks for the time, man. You got it. Anytime. Take care. Sorry, this program always.