Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How could the Vikings get to 12-5? What are the chances of calamity? (A Fans Only Podcast)

Episode Date: June 18, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Vikings fan questions, including what would have to go right in order for the Vikings to go 12-5, whether a complete disaster season is possible, what Kene Nwangwu would have to do in order to make the Pro Bowl and whether the Vikings could have four linebackers make the Pro Bowl. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is a fans-only podcast focusing a lot on your predictions as we've been going through Predictions and Prognostications Week. And if you missed the episode with Mike Clay from ESPN, that was a lot of fun where we went through all of his predictions. And also, Will Raggetts is doing great stuff for us here at Purple Insider. He talked to former Viking Ben Lieber.

If you missed that, make sure you go back and listen to it. It's a really good conversation with the former Viking. And I have to thank all of you for all the predictions that you've sent. And if I don't get to it in this episode, if you sent me one and you don't hear it, then we're going to keep working them in to the fans-only podcasts. you've sent. And if I don't get to it in this episode, if you sent me one and you don't hear it, then we're going to keep working them in to the fans only podcasts and also going to get some other people involved in the fans only podcasts. Paul Hodowanek, Will Raggetts. I think we're going to do maybe a crossover fans only pod. So you guys have really liked these episodes where we get fans involved. And so we're going to keep doing them a lot, I think.

And especially that comes from all the people who reach out with tweets, with DMs, with messages from purpleinsider.com. If you go there, use the contact us. And so since you guys like it, we'll keep doing it. And I really like it too. It's a lot of fun to answer all of your questions. And the predictions have been particularly good.

Everything from people who think the Vikings this year will have one of the best defensive lines in team history to people who think that they're going to have a really tough year to people who want to try to predict their field goal percentage. I mean, everything has been good. So continue to send those. I have a big Google doc that I put them all in and, you know, I'll get to every one that I get. And if I don't read yours, feel free to send me another message and say, Hey, you know, you didn't get to mine or I haven't heard it yet. Because, you know,

it's possible that I could miss it. So anyway, let's get started. Let's get right into it. I've got the diet, Dr. Pepper. Also all of you who tweet at Dr. Pepper saying that I should get a sponsorship from them. You guys are the funniest. I laugh every time I see that. So maybe someday we will peer pressure them into sponsoring the show. But either way, I love you Diet Dr. Pepper and that love will never die. So let's open it up. All right, here we go. So let's jump right into the predictions. We're going to start with Len. And some people send a lot of predictions. And so when you do that, I'll try to just grab onto the ones that kind of stick out the most. This comes from Len via email. Says, 2022 prediction 9 and 8.

Improvement on offense. Jefferson is a year older and better, but decline on offense from Thielen, Cook and cousins who are years older improvements on defense come from Harrison Smith and Daniel Hunter, Cam Dantzler over Breland and, uh, uh, Shannon Sullivan over Alexander, but decline on defense from Eric Hendrrick's patrick peterson who are also a year older and uh is is armin watts starting now he's not going to start but he's going to rotate um intangibles will be their new scheme maybe worth one game and injuries it seems likely that one or both of hunter and smith oh yeah yeah zadarius i might have said harrison

smith on the improvement on defense i meant meant Zedarius of course. Uh, one of those will miss significant time. The injury predictions are always tough because like, what can I tell you? I think that it's a serious risk with Zedarius Smith, maybe more than a, uh, Daniel Hunter about the injuries, because you're talking about someone who missed the entire last season back surgery. And we can't ignore the Baltimore thing that Zedaria Smith signed with the Baltimore Ravens, then mysteriously did not sign with the Baltimore Ravens and shows up here and it's $42 million contract. But then when you look at the real contract, it's not a $42 million contract. It's more like a two-year deal for not that much money, which if he stays healthy will be a great deal if he plays like Z'Darrius Smith of the past. But I think that that tells you what the value was in the league that nobody was looking at Z'Darrius Smith and saying, oh yeah, this guy is the same version as 2019, that there were serious concerns about his health. With Daniil Hunter, it's less so, because he came back from the neck injury, played absolutely terrific, and then had a bad break. So Anthony Barr had the pectoral injury. That wasn't an issue for him at all last year. It was

more of his knees, and I think that's why Anthony Barr currently doesn't have a team is because of knee issues, but his torn pectoral wasn't a problem. They did surgery on it, got back to action. And then, you know, he was fine from that area. And with Daniil Hunter, he was okay with the neck thing. I expect him to be all right with the pectoral. And it also comes down to just luck. If, you know, daniel hunter turns an ankle or something like adam thielen did last year we talk about adam thielen coming off an injury but he turned an ankle and you know it's like what are you gonna do um that happens in the nfl and they pushed him back too soon last year and he tried to play on it when he should have been

sitting out a little longer and then re-aggravated it and you know that's on it when he should have been sitting out a little longer and then re-aggravated it and you know that's how it goes but i think that your point is that even if things are done better if justin jefferson is used a little better if zadarius smith and daniel hunter using cam dansler having a better nickel corner, like those things can absolutely come true. But if some of the older players like Kendricks, like Patrick Peterson, Adam Thielen, and we have to talk about Delvin Cook, like he's older, if they don't perform up to the same level, then, you know, it's kind of not going to result in more wins. And I think that this is a very reasonable take. Like predictions and projections week is sort of for the unreasonable,

for the crazy take, the big swing at it, the extremes. And then we could talk about those. This guy's going to have a crazy good year or crazy bad year. But this one from Len is just, I think, is very much how I would look at it. That what we usually do in the off season is we go back to the previous season and go, all right, I can spot X, Y, and Z where they were weak last year and they have addressed X, Y, and Z. So for example, Kevin O'Connell is a better offensive mind than Mike Zimmer. I don't think anyone would dispute that. So, all right, you're better there.

Z'Darrius Smith being here, if he could play the whole season, is going to give you more than they got from the defensive line last year. Daniil Hunter being healthy. Okay, that's better. Some of the secondary, you've drafted two players. You've added Shannon Sullivan, who is a really low bar to play worse than Mackenzie Alexander last year. So even if he's average, he's going to be better. So those are the areas where, okay, like if you fix all that and everything else remains

exactly the same, all the things you did really well, then you could be a lot better. But it's this game of whack-a-mole where you fix one thing, but then something else crops up. And so Len is predicting that, you know, Patrick Peterson won't be as good. That may or may not be the case, but if it is, and someone else is playing better, so you're better in the nickel, but Peterson is struggling on the outside with the new system and age. Well, that's going to kind of even itself out and you end up back where you were and so the vikings need a lot of the things that went right last year if not all of them to continue to go right and then the things that they fixed to also hit in order to be a team that wins 11 12 13 games

and i think that's always the magic of the nfl is that almost every team allows you to look at the roster and say, well, if this goes right and that goes right, and this player improves and this player doesn't fall off and this player doesn't get hurt, then we win the Superbowl. Um, and you know, for some, for some team every year, it's going to happen. And in 2017, of course, no Super Bowl, but that was largely the Vikings where outside of Delvin Cook and Sam Bradford, everybody else stayed healthy. Pat Schirmer's offense was fantastic. All the defensive players were peaking at the same time. The schedule had a lot of winnable games on it. They showed up and played an Atlanta team that wasn't as strong as they were before

when they went to the Super Bowl and they beat them with their defense and got some big wins. And then they got a miracle at the end. So you're always looking at how can it all go right? What could possibly go wrong? And I think that Len has identified some of the things that could go wrong that would result in this team being maybe a little over 500, even if O'Connell is a better coach and even if a lot of their offseason moves have hit. And so I think that that's a reasonable way to look at it. OK, let's see here. Can I hold on? Oh, no.

Hold on. Hold on, everyone. I refreshed by accident. That was a mistake on my part. Oh, no. Hold on. Hold on, everyone. I refreshed by accident. That was a mistake on my part. Everyone stay patient. Okay, here's the next one. This comes from Ringo number four on Twitter. Kenny Wong will make the Pro Bowl in some capacity,

either as a kick returner or as a running back. Well, I would say that as a kick returner is obviously way more probable considering what we saw from him last year. And I don't think what we saw from him last year was any kind of mistake. I think that what he showed last year on those kick returns was something really special. I mean, that type of acceleration and vision. And I did a story, if you want to go check it out, I did a story. If you want to go check it out. I did a story with Kenny where we talked about every second of a kick return. So Kenny took me through every second when he catches the ball,

even before and what he's looking for, which was really cool because he talked about how he looks at the kicker and he can read the kicker and studies them before games for where the ball is going to be kicked so he gets a beat on it and then he talked about at full speed being able to spot you know where different guys were going where his blockers are going where the flow of the defenders was headed in order to make his move and so i think he's special with kick returning but you only get like 30 chances in this league to return kicks, which is really unfortunate. I mean, if anybody should be pushing for the NFL to get more kick returns involved, it's the Minnesota Vikings.

I mean, just historically, Percy Harvin. And I mean, even you go back to like Quadra Ismail, Mo Williams. I mean, you've had some great kick returners for this team and Cordero Patterson at the top. And Kenny Wongwu is the next one in line, but he's getting far fewer chances than they used to get back in the day. Even when Cordero Patterson came into the league, he was getting way more chances than kick returners have now.

And everybody knows the deal with Kenny Wongwu, so they're going to kick the ball out of the back of the end zone. That will make life harder for him to get a touchdown. It's such a small sample thing. I think that he can. I think that he can average 30 yards a return. But if you do it with only 30 returns, it's like, well, what are we going to do here? And I asked the Vikingsings new special teams coordinator

matt daniels about that and i mean i think that everybody in the league is on board with that being an exciting play because he he even went through it he was like the crowd's in the stands and the music's playing and here we go you ready for kickoff and okay let's all just watch it fly out of the back of the end zone. And I think that anticlimactic play and keeping the ball out of the hands of someone like Kenny Wongwu is just not good. It's not exciting for the league to have every game start off with nothing happening.

If you're going to do that, then just ban kickoffs altogether. The one thing I will be interested in, though, is clearly Ryan Ficken knew what he was doing. I mean, we can criticize some other members of the Viking staff and how they handled certain strategies from last year, but Ryan Ficken, their special teams coordinator, dialed up those two kick returns for touchdown and they had very good overall special teams last season. So how Matt Daniels moves into that role will make a difference. Now, if you told me, hey, I'm a soothsayer.

I could see into the future. I'm a palm reader. And I look at your palm and I see Kenny Wongwu in the Pro Bowl not as a kick returner. Then I would say, give me my hand back. No. Then I would say that Delvin Cook got hurt in week one. And then it becomes possible. Now, Kenny Wong was chops as a running back are going to be, I think, questioned because of his lack of carries in college. He would not be the first guy to have not gotten a ton of carries

in college who became a very good running back though. I mean, I think of Alvin Kamara first as somebody who I think he didn't even have a thousand yards rushing in college as you know, for a single season and then became a star in the NFL. And I just feel like there's a lot of players who are like that, that his circumstances at Iowa state were that he was more of the change of pace back. But then when you see him on the field, that his natural ability to explode, his vision is cutting. I mean, there's a chance for him if Delvin Cook's not playing, but I don't know what coach

would ever not play Delvin Cook. And this was one thing that, you know, you can't criticize Mike Zimmer for thinking Delvin Cook was really good at football. You can't criticize Mike Zimmer for using him too often, but you can't criticize him for

evaluating Delvin Cook wrong I mean he's been one of the best running backs in the league he's still got an argument as a top three to top five running back if he doesn't fall off because of age but if he were to have a season-ending injury in camp or in week one hey it's the Alexander Madison and Kenny Wong Wu show and Wong Wu is the guy who's most likely to break big runs and kind of take over that job. So I think that your prediction has some chance of hitting. Maybe I should put percentage chances of hitting. Maybe we give it a 25% chance that he gets enough returns

to end up in the Pro Bowl as the kick returner, or there's that very small chance that Cook gets hurt, he comes in and then shines in this system and with his explosive ability. So that's a good one. That's a fun one. All right, let's get to our next prediction. I'm trying to delete these as I go, so I don't read the same prediction twice. But if that happens, I apologize. Go to SodaStick.com. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K, our loyal sponsor. Check out all of their great Minnesota themed gear for your playoff run in hockey or for baseball season. If you're headed out in the nice weather to a baseball game, that is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K,

sodastick.com. Hats, t-shirts, hoodies if you need them for a cool evening in the summer. SodaStick.com has you covered. Okay, this is from at DisDatSpla on Twitter. S-P-L-A-H-H-H-H, if you were wondering how SPLA is spelled. Team record prediction, 12-5. Booth Jr. rises to his expectations. Scene shows why trading back in the first was worth it.

Kirk makes a case for MVP. Defense resurfaces as top five with new additions. Now, there is something to be said here for this. What's to be said is that all those things probably have to happen to go 12-5. And I don't know that those things sound like they're possible. It is possible that Andrew Booth and Louis Scene could be good. Louis Scene is playing next to Harrison Smith. If you or I are playing next to Harrison Smith,

we've got a chance to look halfway next to Harrison Smith, we've got a chance to look halfway decent. I mean, we've just seen it, right? We've seen, and I'm sorry for the pun there, but we have seen Anderson Dayhoe play very well next to Harrison Smith. Anthony Harris was a downright star playing next to him for a year that earned him a franchise tag. I mean, when we go back and look at the Rick Spielman moves that were puzzling or baffling along the way, I mean, certainly that one is one of them, the Anthony Harris franchise tag.

That one I still can't wrap my head around, how you franchise tag someone who plays next to Harrison Smith when you could have signed somebody for $3 million. But anyway, that's, uh, you know, he can address that in one of his 700 interviews that he continues to do. Um, but rookie defensive backs, it's a tough ride for rookie defensive backs. And I can pull this up, uh, real quick on PFF to maybe demonstrate how difficult it is for rookie corners, especially. And I think that Andrew Booth has a special ability to cover. But I also think that it's just the history of the game that shows us it's really, really tough to be a rookie and shine in the NFL at that cornerback position because it's so different from in college. So if I pull up 2021 rookies, there is one guy who is graded above a 70 and only two guys who are graded above 70 coverage. Now, 70 would be like above average.

If you're grading above 70, even Patrick Sertain II graded a 66 in coverage and 66 overall. And when we look at even the quarterback ratings allowed, there's only a handful of rookies from last year who did not allow more than like a 90 quarterback rating, only a couple of them. If we look at guys who played as starters, there's only three corners out of 11 that were starters who allowed less than a 95 quarterback rating into

their coverage and the ones that played a lot there's only two above 70 coverage grade and there's more than half are below 60 which makes you know for a below average performance. So the odds kind of go against rookie corners, but I also think that we could look at Booth and say, this was a guy who could be, you know, a steal. And the safety position is a little different. I mean, we've seen more success with the safety position as far as rookies go, but there's also fewer safeties that started last year. Javon Holland though, for Miami, instant superstar.

Trayvon Mourig for Las Vegas was pretty good overall in his coverage last year. So I think if we're talking about which one of those guys has a better chance to impact right away and walk away saying, wow, okay, that guy was a big difference maker, the circumstances allow for Lewis Seen to be that guy. But as far as what it would take to get them to a 12-5 record, making the case for MVP, when I say it's unlikely, think about how unlikely Las Vegas believes it is.

Plus 5,000 on DraftKings for Kirk Cousins to win MVP, which is worse odds than Tua, and worse odds than Jalen Hurts, and the same odds as receivers and running backs. Vegas does not think Kirk Cousins has much of a chance at the MVP. If they were to win 12 games, if that's at the top of the NFC, if they have a defense, if he's putting up 5 000 yards uh yes there's maybe some conversation there but normally you have to put up preposterous

numbers to be the mvp you've got to approach 50 touchdowns 5 000 yards and i know that uh aaron rogers did not have a huge yardage total last year but his quarterback rating was like 112 they won 13 games those are the things that are normally required to win the MVP so even in a great Kirk Cousins season I'm not sure he gets into that ballpark because he hasn't come anywhere close in his career plus people still look at touchdown totals, which is silly. A lot of times touchdown pass totals, the Vikings will hand the ball to Delvin cook enough times to get him 10 or 12 touchdowns. If he's healthy in the red zone, they're still going to do that, which would take away from Kirk cousins touchdowns. The other thing is you probably

have to leave the number one or number two offense in the league to win the MVP normally. Now that wasn't the case for the Packers last year, but usually you got to be way up there in terms of your offensive production. And if the Vikings improve pretty, pretty well on offense, maybe you're talking about getting to eighth, which is the highest that cousins has ever been get back to where they were with Kevin Stefanski. Getting up to the number one offense in the NFL when you have Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, Josh Allen, sort of these big, big-time quarterbacks, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers coming back. It's pretty tough for him to be in that MVP conversation. Top five defense is pretty tough too,

because I think that requires everybody to stay healthy and also adjust to a new system with Ed Donatel. If we're talking about percentages on 12 and five, MVP conversation and top five defense, you're talking about like a 3%, but could one of these things happen? Could they be much better on offense? Could they be much better on defense? Could they be much better on defense?

12 games is a little bit of a stretch to me. I don't think it's completely impossible because they won 13 once with Case Keenum and things can go right and the schedule of quarterbacks is not that hard, but I think it's just telling of the other things you had to include to be able to say,

yes, they would win 12 games under that situation. But I also, like, I don't want to go spla on your, on your excitement there because it does seem that there's a bit of like 10% of the fans think that this team will be phenomenal and 10% of the fans think this team will be terrible and 80 no wait math yeah 80 think that they'll be in the middle is kind of my feeling based on a lot of these predictions so i thank you for that one all right let's go to the next one uh from cj mickle cj listens to all the shows and uh he's gonna be so mad at me for not knowing how this is pronounced. McAulay, I think it is.

M-C-A-U-L-A-Y. So CJ, I appreciate you, but I don't know how to pronounce your last name. I'm sure when you were in grade school and teachers tried to pronounce it, they got it wrong. And that happened to me too. So respect. Eight and nine, Kirk Cousins, neither appreciably better or worse. Cook Thielen combined to miss

five to eight games zadaria smith underwhelms daniel hunter shines harrison smith eric kendricks uh are a year older and it wasn't just zimmer as the narrative kicks off next season into the rebuild side of competitive rebuild okay so yeah i think that this right here is in that 80% we were talking about of where you're just not sold on everything going right. And I think that that is fair. And when it comes to hot predictions, this isn't one of them. This is not your blazing hot 12 and five Kirk Cousins is in the MVP conversation type of big swing prediction. It's the much more, Hey, some things will go right. Some things will go wrong. Nobody thinks Kirk Cousins is a bad quarterback who can't win any games, but the idea that Kirk Cousins is going to become a new human

being with Kevin O'Connell is just unlikely at age 34. And the idea that some players who are older could be injured or could fall off is the history of the league. So you're looking around and going, well, we've got a lot of these players, probably too many that are in that red area. If you were going like a code yellow, code orange orange code red for injury possibilities i mean you probably put delvin cook and adam thielen in the code orange because of their age and recent injury history and then you would put someone like zadarius smith in the code red that you're very concerned of the possibility that he can't play the entire season because of his back surgery,

like we talked about. And if those things don't hit, if there isn't one thing that's much better, then you're ending up very similarly to last year. Now the schedule last year might've been a little harder when we look back at it than what we're projecting for this year. But at the same time, if you play some good defenses, we know what tends to happen with this offense, even with all the talent that they have, that we see these long periods of time where they struggle. And so I guess when you look at the big question about this is how can you be different than what CJ is projecting? And what I think is very reasonable to project.

I picked them at nine and eight. I've seen other people go seven. I've seen other people go 10, but it's all in that kind of ballpark. So we have to ask which one of these things that CJ names, Cook and Thielen combining to miss games, Z'Darrius Smith not being better,

some of the older players slipping, and it being not just Zimmer. Which one of those things would CJ have to be wrong about in order for this team to compete to win the division, for this team to compete for the 12 games that our last person wanted them to win or predicted them to win? And I think that the thing is that it wasn't just Zimmer now I've been skeptical of that narrative myself that it was all Zimmer that it was his culture that it was his offensive philosophy because their offense was not bad and Kirk Cousins did not play awful under Mike Zimmer he played really well under Mike Zimmer overall but if we're talking about the difference, let's just say between

4,000 yards for Kirk Cousins and 4,700 yards for Kirk Cousins at a similar efficiency. Let's just say, I mean, I think it's harder, the more throws to continue to have the efficiency of eight yards per pass and things like that. I think that's hard to do. But let's say if they continue the efficiency with more volume on the passing game and it's early in games that they go after Justin Jefferson, go after Adam Thielen and get leads and could play from ahead like that and run the ball and play better defense, which I think is almost impossible not to be better against the run.

Specifically, the pass was rough at times, but in terms of expected points added allowed through the air, they were more of an average defense. So there's that. But because of the splash plays, they had a lot of picks. They had a lot of sacks. But I think that that's the one that the culture the game management I mean if it's worth a game then it's a big big gain for Kevin O'Connell and I don't think the

guy he was coming from is magical at game management if maybe not even that great which is Sean McVay he uses bad timeouts he doesn't go fourth downs, maybe even as often as he should considering the talent on his team. But if Kevin O'Connell is saying, you know what? I don't think Mr. McVay went all in enough on that. And they've hired somebody who's really mathematical to help Kevin O'Connell with his decisions. And they hit on a bunch of fourth downs. Those things coming together that were Zimmer's weaknesses could it make for a couple of wins like I think it has to because it's just too reasonable to say that some players will meet expectations and some won't who are on the older side because that's football like that's

guaranteed to happen that when we get to the end of the season, like Sheldon Richardson last year, when he got signed, it was like, whoa, Sheldon Richardson, that guy was great in 2018. But it was three years later and he wasn't the same Sheldon Richardson. Some players will always come short of our expectations, especially after a certain age. but can you even that out with game management, with aggressiveness, with a efficient passing game where the whole offense starts with that passing game to get to 10, 11, 12 wins. That's the area.

I think that most needs to be that CJ most needs to be wrong about in order for them to not go eight and nine. All right, next one. This This from a at Worley owl, another regular listen, a listener and tweeter. Appreciate you talk me out of an NFC North finishing order of Packers, lions, Vikings, bears. I mean, okay. So I got a tweet the other day from somebody. I made a bunch of bold predictions for the site. Maybe I should just read them one by one for another podcast. But I made a bunch of bold predictions for predictions and projections week as one does. And one of the predictions was that Dan Campbell will be coach of the year and that the Detroit Lions will win.

I think I said something like nine games or 10 games. This I'm sure is met with a lot of people going, Oh, come on, man. Come on now. It's a bold prediction. So like put the pitchforks down, bold predictions are not supposed to be the most reasonable. That's why I love that. A lot of your guys are bold however i can't help but look at detroit and see the improvements that they've made and look at where they were last year compared to where they are now with their offensive weapons with their offensive line which gets frank ragnall back penne sewell goes into his second year he was very good in his first year for a lot of it after a little bit of a rough start,

Taylor Decker, they have there on the offensive line. It's a very, very good O-line. And look at their defense and say, it's got to improve. It's got to be better than it was last year. They've added Aiden Hutchinson. They've got some players there now. Can they be a 500 team?

I don't think it's ludicrous at all to think that they could be a 500 team. I mean, this happens all the time. Now, it doesn't happen necessarily to the Texans, for example, but it happens all the time that teams go from being the worst team in the league to being an average team and a fairly competitive team in a year span. So think about even Cleveland. Is there a huge difference between jared goff

and baker mayfield i mean i don't think so in terms of their talent what they can do as a quarterback both number one overall picks who have flaws and in the right circumstances can be very competitive but if anything goes wrong they're're not that great. Right. We agree with that with Jared Goff and Baker Mayfield. Well, with Baker Mayfield's Cleveland team, they went from being a, an atrocious team. And then they fired their coach. They bring in Kevin Stefanski. They make improvements on the roster.

And all of a sudden they win 11 games and win a playoff game and came very close. Stopping Chad Henney on a run close away from going to the AFC championship going into that season. I don't think many people would have said, oh, Cleveland, they're going to make this big jump from being a team that was awful to an 11 win, very competitive team. So I think that Detroit is following that track a bit. And with Jared Goff, even when things were tough for Jared Goff in Los Angeles,

their supporting cast fell off a little bit. Teams may have figured out some of the McVay stuff, which is why he wanted to, and I mean the motions, the play actions, which is why he wanted to get Matt Stafford. Jared Goff still led them to nine wins. If Detroit wins nine games and the Vikings win eight, like CJ projected, yeah, this could happen. The Packers are winning this division unless Aaron Rodgers gets hurt. That's very tough to argue any other way. Back-to-back MVP, three straight years of 13 wins, even if they slide a little bit because of Devontae Adams,

they have a good defense. It's just tough to argue against the Packers at this moment. Things can change, but at this moment, Detroit and Minnesota are closer than any Viking fan would want to say, I think, because of trajectories, because the Vikings have not so significantly jumped in terms of roster talent. They're better than they were last year, but maybe not much better than they were in June last year or July last year when we were looking at what they could be. And Detroit is way better for their roster than they were last year.

It might be more even. I would still pick myself, Packers, then Vikings, then Detroit to win eight games and have the Vikings beat them by a game or two. But I don't think that you are being crazy at all to look at Detroit, and a lot of the gambling world is looking at Detroit, saying this has the earmarks of a team

that can make that jump. So, you know, there's always, there's a reason why every off season we have that worst to first conversation because it happens. Now they won't be first, but because it always happens every year that some team that nobody thought was going to be good or was really bad the last year took big gains. Anybody who watches NFL films from back in the day would remember this.

The Tampa Bay Bucs are on the rise. After they won two games, they jumped to a seven-win season. I'm right. Everybody remembers that. Don't they? Isn't everyone old? All right. Let's see.

Let me get a sip of Diet Dr. Pepper in here and we will go to the next one. Okay. This is one of my favorites. This is from because I was just talking about being old. This is from Ray Stocks. S Ray Stocks for on Twitter. All four linebackers get picked to the Pro Bowl. The Dome Patrol, my friend.

This is not the dome patrol so if you're not familiar if you're under a hundred you might not remember that the new orleans saints back in the day had a 3-4 defense and they had four linebackers ricky jackson pat swilling vaughn Johnson Sam Mills and they were coached by Steve Sidwell and they had this unbelievable defense that they all made Pro Bowls in the same year so Ricky Jackson Vaughn Johnson Sam Mills Pat Swilling 3-4 defense and there might have been a time where Pittsburgh did something similar where the Steelers had three of their linebackers, like let's see, Kevin Green and Greg Lloyd. Uh, maybe you had a LaVon Kirkland mixed in the old three, four with all these linebackers running around was just something to be seen.

Uh, the Minnesota Vikings this year will not be playing that version of the three, four defense. I guarantee you, they will not be playing that version of the 3-4 defense. I guarantee you they will not be playing that version of the 3-4 defense. Now, they are technically... Here's where maybe you're not the craziest person of all time. If they are technically calling, which they are, Daniil Hunter and Z'Darrius Smith outside linebackers, you could get two there and Eric Hendricks and get to three. If you're talking about the traditional linebackers, you could get two there and Eric Hendricks and get to three. If you're talking about the traditional linebackers, the Troy dies and such the Chaz

Surratt's being the third and fourth linebackers, then no, that's not going to happen. They're not going to play for linebackers. However, I, you know, I initially read this and just laughed thought like, well, you know, that's back and just laughed thought like well you know that's back in the day that was always possible but if those guys even if they never go back in coverage and they're just edge rushers they're just defensive ends but they're called outside linebackers you know what mr stocks like you you got a chance man like that could be right that could be right three of them fourth i don't know who that would be uh jordan hicks probably won't be a pro bowler but eric hendricks could bounce back from last year if the run defense is a little better in front of him

and zadarius and daniel hunter very possible to make pro bowls they've done it before so i love that one i love that one because we got to talk about the dome patrol and even the Carolina Panthers when they got Kevin Green and it was what Lamar Lathan was part of that Sam Mills so they had three of them that were absolutely fantastic I love that that's a good one so I'm gonna say that at three of them making the Pro Bowl it's like maybe a maybe a 15 chance that all three of those guys end up as pro bowlers and have great seasons all right next one uh comes from at a sadiki 15 on twitter 10 and 7 record wild card birth defenses top 15 this right here aligns the most or the closest with how I've predicted them. I think I had nine wins wildcard birth in the NFC is very possible. I would put it at about 50%. Even when you look at Vegas,

you guys know that I like to use that as a, when we talk about expectations, this will bring us back to earth. A lot of times is what Vegas thinks and where the sharp people are putting their money. But if you look at Vikings odds to make the playoffs, it is ever so slightly toward no, but only so slight. I think that when I, when I looked at draft Kings, it was minus one 15 to miss and minus one Oh five to make. And, uh, there are better math people that could tell you exactly what the percentages on

that are but that seems to me that that's close to a 50 50 split and that's how i would look at it too so you have one more win and you have them in the wild card i could totally see that top 15 defense but but shaded a lot toward 15 and not a lot toward one. So top 15 being 15th, 14th, 13th. That's where I would project them if things go right on defense and if those pass rushers stay healthy. The problem is if they don't, and this is going to be a thing that we're watching every day, is Zedarius Smith out there?

Is he fully participating? How's this going? Because if they are not healthy, the Patrick Joneses, Janarius Robinsons, there is nothing proven behind those guys for us to say, oh yeah, you could weather a storm of six weeks where you miss this player or that player. That's where the defense hinges. And also on Patrick Peterson, because he's going to be asked to do a lot and also is another player over 30 if those players are healthy and playing at even their average

type of level that we expect then I think you have a chance to be between 10 and 15 if they don't you're probably closer to between 15 and 20 even if the system works better for some players. But that's one where I've always been hesitant on to talk about the system being way better because I don't think Zimmer's system was a huge issue. I think it was really just a roster that fell apart after 2019. All right, this comes from Jeff. I predict six wins this year, and I think four is more likely than nine. It's likely that multiple key defensive players will miss considerable time with injuries. Some of the key young players on both sides of the ball, like Irv Smith, Derrissaw, Dantzler, Osborne, Smith-Marset, Wongwu, and Watts, will take the next step, and some won't, which is, yeah, I can't disagree with that. Any chance of reaching nine wins depends on the offense being improved from last year. That means interior offensive line is much better and zero injuries to quarterbacks, receivers, or offensive tackles. Well, they do have a fine swing tackle in Ole Udo.

I'll say that. So I don't mean to start the prediction analysis with the swing tackle, but only Udo taking over for Rashad Hill is probably fine. If Christian Derrissaw goes down for the whole season, of course, that's a big problem. But a few weeks here or there, I don't think it is. Only Udo should be all right. But when you talk about being closer to four than nine or four being more likely than nine, I can't get on board with that.

I think that four wins would take complete calamity. It would take everything going wrong. It would take the quarterback getting hurt when Kirk Cousins has never been hurt in his career. Kevin O'Connell would have to have no idea what he's doing. I mean, think about this last year and how bad Detroit was. And they got to three. I mean, a few years ago when Miami's owner was trying to pay their head coach to lose, I think they got to five wins.

I mean, these are professional players. They're going to get wins. But if the quarterback goes down and it has to be Sean Mannion starting, or I guess Kellen Mond, yeah, you're not winning very many games. But if Kirk Cousins is in, you will win, I think at least seven becomes the baseline if Kirk Cousins is starting. It's hard to see someone as good as Cousins unless he has this crazy unforeseen fall off. It's hard to see someone like C like cousins with such a proven consistent track record

suddenly dropping off to the point where they're winning four games um cousins is a nine win type of quarterback when you talk about like if you were just categorizing them you know what's what's their baseline and then how can they be better it's like peyton manning's baseline is 12 to 14 wins because he's one of the great quarterbacks of all time. If you have him, that's what you expect with cousins. If you have him with an average roster, you're an eight to nine win team with an amazing roster. It might be more than that. I don't know that he's ever had an amazing roster here.

It's been good for sure, but not like this incredible offensive line that they still have not built. I think in the interior, the offensive line is a good reason to be concerned. Is that Chris Reed and Jesse Davis and Garrett Bradbury and Ezra Cleveland, we've just written in as a good player, but Ezra Cleveland, let me pull up what he did last year as far as pass blocking, I think was okay. Now there's an argument that he'll get better because he's more comfortable at that guard position, but everybody just doesn't get better because it's a year later. Like the old Madden, uh, last year, Ezra Cleveland. I mean, we don't talk about him a lot cause you know, he's a guard,

but 55 grade for pass blocking. That's below average. If that happens again and Cleveland is below average and Bradbury is not improved and Jesse Davis is kind of Jesse Davis, you're still giving up a lot of sacks of pressures up the middle, which will derail the idea that cousins can be way different. And I definitely agree that key young players, some are going to hit and some are not. And I definitely agree that key young players, some are going to hit and some are not. I think if we were making bets, Irv Smith, Christian Derrissaw will both be very good.

Cam Dantzler, I'm not as sure about. Armand Watts probably will be what he's going to be. Kene Wongwu is only going to really get a chance if Delvin Cook ends up being out. So yeah, I think this is on the most harsh side of things to say four wins. I can't really get around to that being more likely than nine, but I also think that all the reasons you're giving are not crazy at all to think that sometimes seasons just go wrong and we've definitely seen it in the past and it could

definitely happen again. It's the NFL. Like this could happen to anybody, but, um, four wins, I would say the percentage of that is maybe like 5% that they would win, uh, only four games. Okay. One more, uh, Kellen Mond will get a chance to play the last game of the season, either because we are a shoe in or not. That's a fun one. Yeah. I don't know if Kellen Mond's ever going to play for this team. I mean, we'll see. It was still Sean Mannion is QB two and mini camp. And from the, the reps that I saw of Kellen Mond, I thought that was deserved. Like Sean Mannion in practice is much better. And I know that, you know, you could say, well, Kellen Mond's physically better than Mannion.

But look at those preseason games from last year. Just not good. There was no point where you went, oh, well, he's way better in those games. Like people used to argue about Kyle Slaughter. You know, Slaughter couldn't get people lined up correctly, but at least he made some plays when it came to those preseason games. That didn't even really happen for Mond. So he's going to have to be much better in that case if though they were in the playoffs all set won the division or their place was set in in the final week of the season it would make much more sense to play Kellen Mond than it would Sean Mannion. And if they're already out of the playoffs,

it makes more sense to play Kellen Mond than Sean Mannion. In fact, last year in Week 18, it made way more sense to play Kellen Mond than it did Kirk Cousins. And yet Mike Zimmer said he wanted to win that game. I guess he knew he was getting fired, so he didn't want to go out on an l i don't entirely blame him for that but it should have been a game where kellen mon got some experience and the fact that there is no pressure on kevin o'connell job wise that would say to me yes this one is very possible i would only go like a 30 chance because i do think they're going to be playing at the end this is one of% chance because I do think they're going to be playing at the end.

This is one of my bold predictions. I do think they're going to play at the end of the year for getting in the playoffs that they're going to. It's Chicago, right? They're going to go to Chicago and need a win in order to get into the postseason because races will be very tight in the NFC. There's a lot of teams that you could see as NFC bubble teams. So that's a prediction that I would make is that they're going to need that win to go to the playoffs. But also, you know, if you, let's say you're the seventh seed and you can't improve with

a win, you should play Kellen Mond just to get the guy some experience, just to treat him as a developmental quarterback. You have him for four years on a rookie deal there's no reason not to see what he looks like in a game environment he'll also probably not play the entire year very very likely not play the entire year see if there's progress made there i'm not really confident that there's going to be progress on somebody who played a ton of college football and then didn't look at all the part in their first year, but you might as well. So yeah, I think that's a fine prediction. I'll go 30% that that happens, that there's an opportunity. All right. One more, one more, one more.

Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. Let me get a good one for the last one. Okay. Here's a good one from at D Karen or Karen C-A-R-O-N 28 on Twitter. The snap percentage increase for KJ Osborne and three, the snap percentage increases for KJ Osborne and three wide receiver sets. Yes. I think that is a guarantee to happen that's i'd go 90 percent that kj osborne uh will see more well wait a minute now let's see wait a minute now because last year they had to play a lot of three wide receiver sets because they really only had one

tight end so this is a little different but now that I'm thinking about it, how many snaps did he play? Let's see. He got 74 targets. Let me see if I can get a snap count on KJ Osborne. The other thing is, does, uh, yeah, no, I actually don't think there will be an increase here. KJ Osborne played 774 snaps last season. I don't think there's going to be an increase in snaps for KJ Osborne. The question actually would be, does KJ Osborne lose some snaps to anybody else behind him? I think would be the maybe more interesting prediction is, does Amir Smith-Marset emerge enough to the point where they want to play him? And you know kj osborne loses some snaps or doesn't quite play the same because my immediate snap reaction was well yeah the vikings play two

tight ends so now they're playing three receivers but last year they played a lot of 11 personnel in comparison to where they were in previous years but jaylen nailer can he show something to get himself in the game i mean we've we've only seen many camp reps out there, and I can't tell you what a guy's going to look like with pads on and if he's going to perform. But if he performs in training camp, he might have a chance. Their rotations might get B.C. Johnson back in the mix, who's going to be competing with K.J. Osborne

for some of these possibilities to get on the field. So, um, but yeah, I didn't realize myself that KJ Osborne had played 774 snaps last season, basically in every down wide receiver. So great stuff from everybody. Again, this was another super fun episode. I have not run through all the predictions, but, uh, I will continue to go through them. We've got a lot of fans only questions still to get to. There'll be more of those episodes this week, and I'm really glad you guys are having fun with this and enjoying them. So I will carry on with these episodes. Again, you can send emails to purple insider.com at the contact us and Twitter DMS, Twitter messages, always very welcome. Thanks everybody for listening and we'll catch you next time.