2026 Minnesota Vikings Preview: Roster, Odds & Win Total

[Music] Welcome to the acclaimed podcast The Deep Died featuring Laura Steam hosts Andy monitor and Drew Dinsick, powered by Betspers. Welcome to The Deep Died. Well, Sportsworld right now is concentrated all of the attention on the great North. We've got amateur golfers doing amazing things, getting to UIs, winning titles. And so it only feels appropriate to stay in North and talk a little Minnesota Vikings on the first pod today. We're then going to talk Bears Wednesday. We will cover Packers and Lions. This is the sequence determined by the market. It's not correct. I know that my ratings are probably pretty close to that being the right order. But the intangibles, the moving parts, the directions in which these teams are all kind of going. To me, it feels very, very likely that we're going to have a scrambling here in the NFC North this year. Because, you know, number one, there's just not a lot of margin between these four teams. They're all in very, very different places in terms of team building. And, you know, I think, you know, as we kind of sit back and you think, look macro, like at the full NFL, right? Like put put the teams in buckets. So you know, like, okay, well, this, this team that we're talking about now, Minnesota Vikings. They've got a high floor, in my opinion, and that high floor is driven by the fact that they have some very, very talented skill position players. And they run one of the defensive schemes that's player agnostic kind of does not matter. Ultimately, who you have in certain positions in this defense. What Flores does to give you a tactical advantage defensively is, you know, it's up there with the big fangeos and the Mike McDonald's of the world in terms of having a high floor. And if you have that high floor, you know, it kind of comes down to, well, what do you get out of your offense and your quarterback between making the playoffs as a 14 win team and struggling mightily as in 98. With some of the worst quarterback play we've seen in a long time. I know. And I think that's what made it a pretty difficult grading this year for us on the Vikings. And we'll get to a little bit last year, we'll get to our grades, we'll get to the changes we saw in the offseason for this team. And then finally the schedule nods later on, but yeah, the. This division feels like. The most likely for me to. Have teams flip flop spots between. Now in the start of the season where it's like, hey, I had, it's like, hey, I had the this team second in this team third. And then by the time we get regular season and some camp battles are sorted out and we've seen what things are going to hash out like to like, no, those two flipped or those two flipped between third and fourth that's going to happen almost certainly with these teams. It was difficult. And as you mentioned, that was one of the biggest issues for me grading this team. I don't know exactly what your processes, we talk about it a lot, but I don't, you know, I don't have it memorized some of what you have to use to grade these teams. Is how did they do in this particular thing last year? How was the run step last year? And then all right, well, which players did they bring back, which players are they replacing with if they didn't. Were there extenuating circumstances for those players? And that third point is the biggest thing here where it's like you look at Jefferson's numbers, you look at it. I mean, Addison, miss some games with suspension, but you look at a lot of things and it was, hey, what's bigger than a grain multiple grains and nugget. A dram of salt, a bunch of salt, a handful of salt you need to change it with because yeah, it was, it was pretty bad quarterback play. It was just an experience with JJ, he also got injured. He had like the same injury list as dark where he had an ankle and a concussion and that I think one other thing he missed some games to that we get some wins who I broke down. Outperform now performed it. Yeah, it went started for his 16 and six years, which is, I'm sure we talked about that last year, but apparently that's like that. It's a dubious record. But just in feels Ian. Yeah, the season was very uneven and it was hard to grade how it's pattern is returning. Yeah, how some of these returning players will perform based on 2025 numbers. You almost got to look back at 2024 or you know, in some cases, you don't have those numbers or they weren't the same player. It makes it a pretty difficult team to grade moving forward. And I don't, I guess I don't blame the market for being down on it because there are some question marks and if they can keep up some of the things that make them successful over the past two years, it did win games last year and they're 14 win season the year prior. But at the same time, big, big question mark, big, big swing, big leverage position with the little guy probably coming in and let's, let's just nip that in the bud from from here on out. When we talk about the Minnesota Vikings, we will be talking about them with Cala Murray under center. I'm, I'm not going to entertain this horror guy competition. I don't understand it. I don't like it. And I will also say that I like the way that you set it up where the chances that my number for the Vikings is the same when we get to week one. This is not not high. It's not likely. There are two really important pieces of context around the quarterback number for this team that we need to kind of sort out this precism. The first is, you know, like think about like week one of training camp first padded practice like Cala Murray just like lights it up and like Justin Jefferson's on the side, like just beaming like we got a quarterback, right? Like, like, if it's like very clear that the team is excited and bought in to Cala Murray taking over as the QB one here, like that's going to put wind in my sales for these teams. For sure, like then now like the chances of high ceiling are more likely in my opinion. Nothing's going to shake my confidence that they're a high floor because again, like, you know, there's some personal questions on this defensive side of the ball. But I have full faith that this point and floor is finding the right, you know, kind of buttons to push to generate the pressure he needs to get the coverage squared and to make life miserable for opposing quarterbacks we can week out. It's really just going to come down to like how quickly does the team buy into Murray because like, you know, you know, can't, can't all suggested that this quarterback competition is going to go the duration of training camp, which is hilariously stupid. I mean, hilariously stupid and I have a fast way it goes, but like, hey, if that's the way it goes and if like the teams kind of like, I don't know, man, both these guys kind of suck like that's going to shake my confidence the other way. I didn't want to talk a lot about the competition, but I'm going to anyway, I feel like it's it's lip service for JJ now and then they just quickly pivot to callers the experience quarterback he's looking good we're going to give him more reps because if you have your mind made up or you're already leading one way. I kind of just need him to get more reps he's coming into a different system granted it's it's similar to what he's done he's done a lot of this hey he's under center. Play action I mean anyway he's had a few different coaches he's had a few different things going on down there maybe and maybe that's the biggest takeaway for Kyler Maxis is hey is this is this is best fit ever and you know obviously he has a really good one to three punch there receiver. Things work out on the offense line and you know grandpa Jones does our right in the backfield it's pretty good surrounding cast and system for him so that that is my worry and I think even though I'm kind of high on Kyler because of the fit and the potential. If they make it a true hey these guys need equal reps in the preseason and practice that's going to have me down on this team a little because yeah same like he needs to get all the reps just give him all the reps. And again like there's a there's a definitely there's another organization that's going to be giving us a lot of information about what how to rate Murray and it's the Cardinals this year's Cardinals. There are presumably adults now. Running that team in Michael floor who has like an offensive vision that is like up you know kind of a modern NFL offense right if we are getting signal from like the whole even like something is ludicrous is the hall of faith. Like if the Cardinals offense looks like it's like being well conceived like that's going to make me think wow so Murray wasn't the problem right. And on the flip side, if he can't win this job and win over his teammates convincingly early in the camp cycle, it's going to make me think, man, maybe there was a reason that the car is paid to walk out the door. Right? It is definitely, you know, it's a high, it's a pretty pretty high leverage pivot one way or the other on how the early days of camp go for the Viking steam and it's going to change my opinion of them for the season. The other tough thing about the Vikings is that last year you kind of covered it, I thought, you know, kind of setting the stage, but the kind of like that, what was going on with JJ McCarthy was never really I didn't think clearly aired out. It seemed like, like what was really, you know, kind of giving them issues was ever addressed by the team. His mechanics from Jump Street were completely turbo fucked. And he was using so much of his body to generate the power that he wanted to deliver accurate passes that it just made him kind of a sprayer. And he couldn't just settle into a consistent mechanical, you know, kind of operation of throwing the football that made him an accurate pass or it seemed like all of the effort they went to to tell us about what he's prepping planning and development was was on the mental side of things and just in general kind of trying to get him to mature whatever the hell that means and like just kind of grow into the leadership role in the locker room and be a little bit less of a, you know, kind of a wackado. And, you know, surely like the ACL injury and, you know, kind of missing that first year of growth and development set him back a humongous amount and we'll never really know. But when he was eventually, you know, when he when he was benched for car some months. Yeah. He needed like some time to kind of get his shit together because it was so bad and they didn't really going. Tighten up kind of the scheme when he returned and he didn't look as bad. It was, you know, a simplified get it out quicker kind of. Hey, let's, let's give you the, let's give you something easy to do here so you can. And then we went out there and just ruined your confidence immediately again. It was so any, even that was uneven and I just think back to that one wasn't the bears game right off the bat or whatever. I see player of the week. Yeah, it's like we had one quarter of service of a quarterback play where he was like a 200th ranked quarterback for three quarters. Not just bench like he needs to be in the CFL tomorrow and then he just goes out and I like two really good drives and. Yeah, I like a couple of times. Yeah, but even on those past. No, I don't feel about this. He was winding up like frickin Hideo no mo to get the ball out of his head. It was crazy. What a reference. It was crazy. Anyway, um, it did. It just didn't, you know, he wasn't there physically. Apparently, he wasn't there mentally all they focused on was the mental part and communicating it to us. And, you know, the fact that he was benched a couple times and that he was probably a healthy scratch. Couple times and they never really were honest about it. Always kind of gave me the what the hell's going on here. They did just enough down the stretch last year as far as you know, as we're kind of continuing our autopsy here. They did just enough down the stretch, mostly with the defense to take themselves out of E Lee draft choice status. They won their last five games of the season as other teams had pivoted to tanking. They, uh, they ended the sad sad sad 20 25 campaign for Jane Daniels 31 0 after getting shut out to the see hox 0 to 26. Um, another wild example of getting shut out and shutting out your opponent, which happens, I think. I found I found one other instance or maybe two ever were a team. They were shut out. Then they shut out the next game. They're appointed. Yeah, they. Those wins late in the season, whatever. It made them feel okay, I guess, but at the same time. You weren't making the playoffs like beat the hell out of the lions on, um, on Christmas, which ironically flipped the standing in the NFC North where the Vikings were third and lions are fourth. Which when we get to the lions, kind of the only in my opinion, the only way to hang your hat on this line's team doing anything is the fact that their schedule is supremely easy. Vikings probably could. I would be more. I knew they had that schedule. Anyway, um, yeah, it was, uh, it was ultimately, you know, kind of defensive driven success. I thought down the stretch couple of okay, sure. Yeah, couple of okay performances by McCarthy, but certainly you had enough data, I think, um, to understand that it was just the snuck going to happen. Yes. His, uh, EPA per play numbers were like appallingly low. Let me see if was he last or was it a cam ward? You would say, it depends. I wouldn't that far down there. I guess. Yeah, good. I guess I sort of, but if you take out the end of the season stuff, it was, it was like dead last kind of thing. So, um, yeah, I don't have a lot else to say the quarterback chaos, kind of sank the year. I think he was, he was pretty rough. It was, uh, I pulled this from the FTN guide the worst TV away of a non-Browns quarterback. It's like a mean way to say that. Against the grounds. When's I think played. I can't remember how many games he was, but again, it was, it was a marginal upgrade at times. Uh, you know, he was kind of banged up Kelly, banged up the offensive line injuries and fact that I don't know that some of those kids were 100% that stuff didn't help. Defense carried it. I mean, it was a top three DVO defense again, blitzing half the time 51% I think it was. It's, and then, and then they just kind of do it. However, we want to do it on the back end. It's going to work out. We'll place them zone. I don't care. Um, good kicker. I think we should say that you have a good kicker. If you want to say something nice. And then the into the offseason stuff was the Quessie Adolfo Mensa firing January 30th. Um, they did it kind of in a weird spot where they said we're not going to hire a new GM until after the draft, which is tough, I guess, but at the same time they committed to it right away said the people that are in the building. Brzezinski and those guys were going to put together a draft plan. We're going to figure it out. And then as you mentioned the, you know, the offseason stuff, the Grinard trade. It's kind of the like you said about Flores like, hey, this guy's expensive. He's very, very good. But are we again, you know, is it the, is he a 20, 30 million dollar a year guy, or are we going to go pick up some other pieces and make them just as good. Dallas Turner takes another step forward, get more out of Van Ginkels. So that was the big trade to Philadelphia. It was on like right around the draft, maybe during the draft. I'm trying to think on that. Obviously the big addition, Calibur, Juan Jennings. I'm kind of excited about Juan Jennings, right? Of course. Because Smith retired to you. You say that. I think you might come back. He's, he's had a couple of quotes where he's doing the Aaron Donald thing where it's like, I don't know me, but I'm, I'm assuming he is not playing. So I have Jennings and Murray. As the big addition. And then they did lose some other pieces up front. Jonathan Allen, John to find our grave. And then they did the last, that was kind of a, hey, let's save 18, 18, 18, 19 million dollars and bringing some younger guys. Alan can still, you know, the hard grave was pretty bad. You want to mention the center. This is the theme in the division here. A lot of bad centers. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Ryan Kelly, no more after you're so excited about that is retired. They got Kelly and freeze. Well, they turns out they only got lost. Jonathan Allen, Jonathan, a juvenile grave up front. The defensive tackles lost Ryan Kelly. You're starting center to retirement slash concussions. Harrison Smith, sort of pretty much retired. Jalen Nailer, Ty Chandler, you know, Dapset White receiver and running back, which isn't great because you're not super deep there, but those are guys that you always have churn on the back end of your composition players. And then Justin school. Yeah. He was a guy who played like 600 damn snaps as a swing tackle because of the injuries, Fabian Marogon, CJ Ham gone. And I didn't have a lot for other additions outside of the bread and a new punter with Johnny, Johnny Hacker is not a new punter. He's old to sell. So we have a punger swap. They brought in Eric Johnson, the free agent defensive tackle from Indy for some depth there and then James peer corner back. He has some ties to Flores and then the previously mentioned the other week. Ryan Van Damarck is here. because this is a team that needs some swing tackle help. And he's kind of a insurance policy there as well. - What time you're sending one? - One big one. The GM. - LICO. - Oh yeah, good question. - Good question. - Quessi, can you give me a temperature check on that decision? Like is this as straight forward as you decide? You made it sound a quarter back stuff. You made a quarter back on a bed on a quarter back that lost. - Three times. - And then the guy that moved on just won the zero ball. - Well, not only that, but I'd throw Daniel Jones into that conversation. - Okay, sure. - I don't know how much of this was Kevin O'Connell's input as well, but yeah, you. - His team has done a lot of back peddling and that it wasn't his call. - Who got drafted first? - The Carthier Bonnicks. - I'm McCarthy. - The Carthier Over Bonnicks. And Daniel Jones was on this roster and he was quickly like an MVP candidate as he, I mean, obviously, he got injured and finished the season, but he had been leaving and then, you know, the, the, the, the Darnell thing. It's just really bad optics. Three times at the most important position. And I think they just kind of said, ah, like, you took your swings at quarterback, you missed, sorry, we're moving on, shaking hands, get out of the building, give me your keys. - We have two really interesting things going on with the quarterback ratings and perception right now. Like the two most consequential drafts of our NFL betting lifetimes were the 2018 NFL draft, the 2024 NFL draft. - Yeah. - 2018, we're all, we've already cycled through how many guys were the world decided this is the best quarterback. I mean, Baker Mayfield obviously was taken first. There was a world very early in Lamar Jackson's career where he was clearly the best of those guys. Josh Allen, I think, currently holds the clearly the best of those guys. But, you know, it's Sam Darnell, the one, the first Super Bowl guys, which is incredible. The, the other kind of, you know, kind of parallels to 2024 we're doing the same thing where we've already cycled through Caleb Williams is clearly the best. No, Jayden Daniels is the best. No Drake May is the best. There's scope for Bo Nick's to win the first Super Bowl out of these guys. Caleb Williams could go back to number one after this year, no one would be shocked. But it is pretty obvious that JJ McCarthy is, is occupying the, the base, the Josh Rose, the Josh Rose and, - Playing the part of Josh Rose and in this parallel. Right way, or is it Michael Penix? Which of those guys is playing the Josh Rose and, it's McCarty? - Well, you have a Tim McCarty. - It's McCarty. - Penix, Penix is still an incomplete. I did a good call out because I have this written out as well, but Bernie talking about the, the offensive line coach change as well. Cooper, as we mentioned the other day, Keith Carter promoted from within to be the offensive line coach here in Minnesota. So you do have a new, old line coach. He's an experienced guy. He's been coaching college in Pro for about 20 years. And he's gonna work along Derek Warheim and assistant head coach Frank Smith, who I think is also new. He was here Miami Dolphins Offensive Coordinator. One of those names that you don't hear because of the situation where the head coach called the place. Nobody talks about the OC, but he was down there in Miami. He is your new assistant head coach. I didn't have a lot else for coaching changes. They elevated like other guys to fill in the offensive line. - Okay. Well, we didn't give no one teased leave in a cup of coffee. - Well, it's because he doesn't matter. I don't give a shit. He is not going to a fucking pot. - He didn't get to do the draft. He's not. - So what? - You don't think he's gonna make any interesting moves here? You don't think he's gonna influence any of the way? - It's not the NBA where we're gonna make such a big difference. - Cool girl. - Oh, everybody's over here. - He came over from Seattle. Seattle was, once Seattle hired Mike McDonald, they were very, very aggressive in terms of turning over that roster in kind of building. - I think that was the stuff. - I don't think that was the GM. - I think that was the coach. - You don't? - You think Schneider was entirely along for the ride and McDonald, he gave McDonald the keys? - I think on the defensive side of the ball for certain, because that was the biggest part of, hey, he needs the guys to fit a system. And I think obviously you gotta get signed off. You're not just being like, hey buddy, I cut some players, signed some other ones. - Yeah. - You can't do who keeps. - You're on hooker 20 million in dead cap. Sorry about that. - No, but I think that was heavily on McDonald. I don't know. - Maybe I'm incorrect, but it easily came in after the draft. I'm interested in finding out more about him, but he's not affecting my weak one power number. - I'm curious to see if he does any moves to, kind of, if he does any moves to bolster up the talent on the defensive side of the ball. I mean, it's one thing to lean on scheme, but I think this is pretty clearly the sixth best defense. And unless they make a move in the preseason or early in the season to bring in some star power, I don't think you're moving. I don't think you're cracking the top five, even with as high of a floor as you have. - It's good. Yeah, there's a few weaknesses that, which leads to the draft, which is, we mentioned they lost some defensive tackles. They drafted a defensive tackle immediately in the first round, but he's got a bum foot. He's got some, said some surgeries on said foot. And he's 327 pounds. It's a lot of weight to put on a foot too. So he missed, missed some spring work. Caleb Banks from Florida looks like an absolute bruiser in the middle, but we'll see what the health brings come camp time here. And then they went pretty heavy defensively in the draft. The second rounder was a linebacker from Sinci. I don't know. People always like, oh, you could fit perfectly with Flores. Like, okay, like a lot of guys would, almost any linebacker would, 'cause it's Flores. He can make stuff work like that. So it'd be interesting how he fits in because they did re-sign Eric Wilson. And I think they're pretty set in that, as far as who's playing, they drafted another defensive tackle. I don't know if his name is just orange. If that's how you say it, I feel like it'd be funner. If it were a. - Oranjay. - Oranjay or something. I would say big old defensive tackle, no stackle guy, another one that's, just as big as banks and then. - Dominique. - Oranjay. - Dominique, oranjay. We're gonna, even if that's not how we say it, we're gonna say it that way. Big citrus. - Big citrus. - His nickname is big citrus. Are you serious? - I don't know if he's making this up. Or if. - Big citrus. - If you just made that up, I'm giving you credit for that, but. And then another offensive tackle from Northwestern in Caleb Tiernan. As they said, we need some more insurance policies there. A safety in the third round from Miami, kind of a deep safety, which is a spot you need help with with Harrison Smith off the roster. And then a bunch of depth guys, although they did draft their, we were a little worried. Hey, CJ Ham, not on the roster. What are we doing at fullback in the big two's six? So they did draft a fullback from Michigan. - Okay. Let's pivot to Raina, Ray Green's here. Before we do, thank you to our sponsor for the previews. One circus sports who puts on the best contests in the entire universe for National Football League, both picking and surviving. You can sign up at circus sports in person in Nevada during Bet Bash will be there. 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Only 15 men were able to take me down. - I think a bunch of them are probably teams too. - I'm gonna lean on that. - I haven't really-- - I haven't really-- - I haven't really-- - I haven't really-- - Teams. - Yeah, there probably were some teams. Honestly, I don't wanna do a team with you this year. That's like our worst performing one every year. I don't know that, maybe Teams is good. We need to just get strategy if we do a combined one. 'Cause it feels like the wisdom of the crowd one is just like, it's always gonna finish middle of the pack. - Yeah, you're-- - I don't know. - You're like just outside of the hundred, I think. - You gotta get hot. You gotta get hot, I don't know. We'll figure out strategy for that. We have a monk, but-- - Yeah. - Yes. Thank you, Circus Sports, Circus Sports Contest. Sign up and Nevada Play from anywhere. And the collab that we do in the Discord, we have a Discord one that we vote on by eliminating Teams in every year. It's just-- - Mm. - It's more fun than, I think, this is actually going to win. - Okay, let's talk about ratings and start with quarterback and let's spend a decent amount of time here. because as you mentioned in the first half hour of this podcast, we are going to operate under the assumption that Kyler Murray wins this job. And I'm going to for the purposes of being an opt-in, of Vikings, Optimist, a Vikings permable that Kyler Murray does it in style. I think he wins this competition in style and that he has buy-in from these teammates and that they have a renewed sense of we got something. We've got a chance this year because the vibes in Vikings camp last year. I didn't think we're good. I think Justin Jefferson was kind of telegraphing that J.J. McCarthy wasn't ready to play. If you really read between the lines on a lot of stuff, he said. So I'm hopeful, basically, I'm hopeful Jefferson tells us that Kyler Murray's got it. Kyler Murray's been in the NFL since 2019, so we have a relatively decent sample size. The problem is he has not put together a full week one into the postseason campaign to convince us that he's a long-term answer for the Vikings at quarterback. He's got something to prove. He is 29th in EPA per dropback since 2019. So this is again taking all quarterbacks who have snapped the ball at least 300 times in that sample. He's kind of right there. What's your example size on that? How many were there? Just giving a sense for 29th. 182. And his EPA per play, the number itself is positive. He is a plus 0.11 EPA per play. That is good enough for 55% time. So he's better than your average quarterback who's dropping back. The stretches of his career where he flashed and he showed you something special. Were fueled by really, really accurate passing and good decision-making, elite scrambling. When he was running down the sidelines with his little legs running, it was awesome to see. The problem is he had a little bit of a difficulty staying on the field and the drop off when he was not a threat to run and defenses could key a little bit more on the pass when he was in an obvious dropback situation. His performance declined. That's kind of consistent with the 55th percentile quarterback. There's a lot of players that kind of happens too. The bigger issue for Kyle Emery's Cardinals 10 year Andy is that the Cardinals are a dysfunctional organization from the top down. It didn't seem like the last few years were ever headed for a happy final chapter in the desert. It felt like we were always headed for a kind of uncomfortable divorce. You have to take his performance number in the last couple of years with a healthy pinch of salt and wonder if his talent and skill set in a system that is more professionally driven. If there's a Renaissance form here, the fact that the Donald did what he did after how poorly things started out for him I think is good signal. I think the fact that Wens could play as well as he did last year under this system is good signal. I think the dobs playing as well as he did when he came in. It didn't know a single thing in the playbook. The past or not? Yeah, the past or not. Oh god, awful to make them. But yeah, the fact that dobs did it, Wens did it fine and that Sam Donald resurrected his career with KOC should I think portend to there being upside in this marriage. Now whether he's consistently able to deliver on that through a regular season of success and into the playoffs is probably, you know, that's the information we'll get this year. That's the million dollar question. It's tough because if you, like you said, you're looking at a decent sample size of him playing. You certainly can't rate him as like some top 10 quarterback. That's where his ceiling is. That's where his ceiling is assisted by a good OC. It's funny that you mentioned like a 55% yeah, even I'm giving him a bump because of Kevin O'Connell and we rate offensive coordinators parts of this, but you got to give him a little bit of a dimaret coming into a new system and how he's looked over the past year or two. So I went with 5.4. Okay, so I actually gave him more of a dimaret because I upweight recently. Sorry, I met 4.9 for Kyler because again, like what we've seen recently also suggests that maybe he just never was able to develop the skill that he needed to move beyond a guy who had like elite scrambling paired with awesome arm, right? Yeah. Did you like look at 2024 a little? It was like the, you know, I tried to anchor onto that a little. There were there were flashes of hey, the SKC top 10 top 12 DVOA. Some of the EPA numbers don't look too bad. There are a lot of play action dropbacks. It was like the scheme fit kind of looks like what we probably see here. The system was, you know, system is what the system is up here and like you mentioned we've seen them bring bigger restoration projects than this back to life. So yeah, I think without looking it up, I think I went into last season with the Cardinals rated as an above average team. And I think I had Kyler Murray in like the 5.5, you know, 5.5 type of range. Yeah. I'm nervous about whatever happened last year. I just, you know, I kind of want to blame the, you know, the fish route from the head decay of the organization more than I want to blame Kyler Murray, but Kyler Murray, maybe a bigger part of the problem than we know and we'll find out. I would also say that like, yeah, sometimes there's a lot of examples of a guys who have elite athleticism and wiggle and speed and, you know, kind of have that in their bag when they start, they get a little bit beat up. They never really kind of figure out how to move on to phase two of, you know, using that bag of tricks to succeed at the NFL level. Sometimes it's because they can't because they're not big enough. Sometimes it's they can't because they don't have the arm or the vision. And you know, Kyler's a little guy. He is, he's definitely potentially fragile based on how often he's gotten injured in his tenure. So, yeah, that fragility should be noted. But yeah, I'm starting out just a hair below a hair below average and I don't know any knock on K.O.C. in your mind or is he kind of clearly at worst an average system? He's above average. It's hard to, it's another one where it was probably drugged down by the fact that he had to try to do it with a new rookie, basically a rookie quarterback who struggled at times with mechanics and probably confidence and then had to go with Carson Wentz for part of the season. So I'll give Kyler's see a pass on last year and we'll move on to skill, which is top heavy. Is it? Yeah, I mean, go look at the names for WiderC for 456 or tied into running back one. That's fair. I'm at a 5.3. I think, depending on how Jennings look and how if we get a Hawkinson bounce back, this can go quite a bit higher because Addison Jefferson is a very, very admirable one to do. Possibly, you know, top three if things pan out well, the quarter of X-Spot and Jennings can help bunch in the run game, big physical guy. Yeah, Hawkinson has shown that he can do it. How do you envision they'll deploy these guys XYZ? Because Jennings doesn't feel like the right Z. It does Z? No, I'm expecting like, hey, you're unblocking here. Hey, you're in the slot here. Hey, you're off the field here. Okay, okay. Hawkinson still has festival in your opinion. He graded less well than I expected. Yeah, it wasn't a great campaign and that's where I said bounce back. Like, if you get the bounce back from Han, and I think it's a contract here. So Hawkinson bounce back, Jennings, please, well, in the slot, slash close to the offensive line. I have Jefferson X, Addison, Z. I mean, that's kind of where I would slot that. Okay. Slot that, this funny with John Jennings and Slot. Aaron Jones, senior as the lead back in your small-ish committee. Okay. Probably he gets the lion's share, but it's not. It's a majority, but not by a ton. I think you do see a bunch of Mason was kind of efficient, man. So he gets like 40% of the snaps. Wouldn't hurt my feelings either. That's another, you know, the skill position stuff probably leans on was Mason actually efficient or was he doing it in a small sample, smaller sample, and then how does Hawkinson bounce back? How does Jennings look on this team? All right. Would you say you were 5.1? 5.3. I'm a 5.5, and I felt kind of dirty and low. I know what you're saying. Justin Jefferson. Justin Jefferson. I know. It feels bad. Oh, okay. All right. Well, I hope I hope he I can. If Jennings looks good and Justin Justin Justin is one of the most available players as far as giving the media honest answers, which I really like. So I'm very hopeful we get some honesty at a Justin Jefferson. This was a good comment from Patrick. He does. He's so right. He's so right. He's so right. We had we had Moss and Diggs and we we had some characters. Yes, he is he is grounded. He is he is thoughtful. Great player offensive line. Really? Really? Ready to pretty high. I think you have an elite quality, elite set of tackles. So basically, I'm giving higher weight to pass blocking and run blocking. I'm giving a higher weight to tackles than interior. It is a weakling system. I recognize that. And there's a couple of weaklings across this line. But Brian O'Neill and Christian Derrissah are among the better tackled duos across football. And I think fries to me is a neutral to plus Blake Brandell grades a graded as a plus for me. Donovan Jackson was the minus. So I ended up in total just a hair under seven for this unit. And I'm expecting big things. But depth is an issue. Where's your where's your head out on the so one? I was quite a bit lower than you. I think this was just disagreement on this one. And now I lost my notes. I know I'm lower. What were you for an offensive line here? 6.9. We got to pull up the chart. See if I wrote this down wrong. O line. I see I had you as a 5.1 on this one. And that's you updated your numbers. Oh, I forgot I did this two ways. Yeah, 5 points. Then we'll way off. Yeah. Okay. So you have this as blow average or 5 point 5 point. Sorry. I have it. Yeah. I have it basically is you have two pretty good tackles. One's coming off a pretty lingering knee injury. The other one is possibly holding in during camp. So that stinks because those are your two strengths. And then basically everything else is not exciting for me in the offensive line. I don't love the you know, I don't love when you're starting center. Isn't with the team anymore because got both started like he values his health, which is probably the right call there. But most of my debt, my depth stuff was obviously pretty bad too. They brought in multiple swing tackles to try to fill out the spots there. It's a battle between Brandell and Jurgen's at center and then good, good, good enough right guard. I don't know what was your down of injection number. I have done in Jackson is a minus. This was another tough one too with some of the injuries taking in and and this is probably where I'm wrong. This is probably where my number is fucked. I think the quarterback play played too much into some of the 25 numbers because outside of the center, it's like it's a lot of the same and I should be able to use some of the stuff and I tried to use some of the stuff and the pressure rate was bad. The you know, especially even when they had their most common five man combo and those guys only played like 20, 30% of the snaps. Sac rate wasn't great and then your replacement battle, which is brandell and Jurgen's for center. Neither of those guys had very good 20, 25 results. Like you know, Neil Holden. I'm going to have like 79. Really? I had I had him blow average in his when he did have to play last year. Okay. Daris saw you and the Daris saw thing too. I have him a little lower just because he's getting hurt and he's not ever going to be those big offensive lineman. Once they get an injury, it feels like you're just never ever 100% where it's always just lingering like the guy wears an e-bress for the next eight years, even though he's a starting top top tier off tackle in the league. So I'm I'm probably off on some of this using some of my 20, 25 numbers because I think the quarterback played drawing this down quite a bit. Yeah, I do need to revisit this number once I looked at how bad I was compared to yours. But for now, I'm sticking with it. It was the run blocking was really good. I think I think 5.1 is as low as I'm going to ever be on these guys. I think this has scope to go up for me. So does the so does the quarterback has scope to go up? Skill position group has scope to go up. I think everything we've said so far has scope to go up. Yeah. And as we sit here right now numerically, I'm at a 0.51 percentile overall for the offense that is 20th best in the NFL for me. Yeah. And I think I will go up. I need to see Darisaw practicing and healthy. I need to see O'Neill saying, Hey, I'm going to practice. I'm not going to sit out camp. I need to see the center battle, you know, taking care of and we're happy with the play of who's taking this spot. So I'll go up on that. You know, coaching real quick or defense. Good. Where are you on defense? Pass rush. I'm at a 5.7. Okay. I'm at a 7.1. I saw that. I needed to take a big chunk out for the grenade thing and giving still giving Flores his flowers for being able to plug and play. But I don't know. We'll see because I'm not like a big ballast turner guy yet. Wait, what was your name again? What was your question? 5.7. Did Andrew Van Ginkel die and I didn't hear about it? Andrew Van Ginkel still here. But I think her artist tougher to replace in the bank. Although, okay, okay. Turner Turner took a step forward. I thought he played pretty well. Yeah. He needs to do it in a big key. He only started 10 games. Yeah. He had like 288 brush snaps. He's 22. No, if he takes the next step up, this is like a top. This could be a top 5 top 10 pass. Or sure. Van Ginkel 25 pressure is 8 sacks. He doesn't. He's really really well for me. And this is a weird one because I didn't know idea that this guy was going to play well at the NFL level at all. He was a was he on was he on track? Ray Crowder. Yes. No, Jalen Redmond. Jalen Redmond was very good for these guys last year. 26 year old, one year of experience. 305 pound 63 guy out of Oklahoma. I don't really get it. He only has one year of experience. He's 26. What's with like he kind of came out of nowhere and I he graded for me as extremely reliable. Yeah. High guy. Redmond. Honestly, I feel like you can make you can do things like let's get rid of hard ribs and let's let Jonathan Alan walk out that door. Let's trade Gernard. When you have a guy like Redmond do perform as well as you don't fit them. I'm going to skip run step and I want to this is actually my my defense for giving this a lower grading because some of it was the adjusted the the adjusted sac rate. You know, a lot of it didn't come from the ad ruchers. It came from you know, other places and obviously that's a that's a flora stamp. But some of what you saw from the blitzing, especially the early down blitzing, it wasn't like, hey, we got a sack and that's great for this pass rush. It was some of the confusion it caused in the coverage and we're flipped on this. I have coverage higher than your your pass or share the meat. Yeah, my coverage number is only 5.5. Yeah. And how those two things mesh in a flora defense. I think we came up with like the same numbers. Yeah, it compensating effects. No question. What was your run stop number? My run step is 5.6. So I'm at six for run stop on a 5.5 for coverage and my biggest number was the pass rush. And it's funny. I had Jalen breadman written down in my run stop stuff because he was okay. Pretty high up on the like it's a stat. I don't know if that I get this from F T. Anderson, but it's called blown blocks forced on. Yeah, that's a fun one. And he would second in the league apparently on blown blocks forced. Wilson and Cashman. Good good tackling. Obviously losing Alan and Hardgrave hurts, but you did a lot of backfilling at defensive tackle. So I'm fine putting it out there. And then yeah, your coverage is 5.5 and mine 7.6. So we're basically flipped our our coverage and pass rush numbers because of you know that just this the high pressure rate we get on some of this is helping the coverage out and despite losing hit man Harry, I kind of like what they have back there outside of maybe maybe I do worry a little bit about Mattelis having to play another 500 coverage stamps. I had Levi Dre crowd, you guys as a very good run defensive rating week pass rush rating. I had Jalen Redman as good good. Good. So I think I'm excited to see what banks. I'm excited to see those three guys together. I'm excited just in general like this is Brian for his defense. Sign me up. Six best defense for me and a rate at the 60 second percent tile. I will say some some of the linebacker play and coverage wasn't good, but they're not always asked to do the same kind of things in this type of defense. And then just opinion on James Pierre. Uh, like I have a pretty good rating on him. I was seeing it's coming into a new system, but I think he's I think he's one and I don't mind having I say a roud justice to let me say here. He is my CB. He's like in the 30s for me. So he's fine. He's like a borderline CB one CB two. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Just good. Coaching was where I'm at I'm a little higher than here. And tangibles for me four and a half. I thought that uh, uh, in general, KOC was pussy last year. That did knock my number down. I'm gonna five point. I've got a five point two. I did want to give him a little bit benefit of the doubt being a pussy is it's more defensible when your quarterbacks are who they were. Maybe it's like, ah, what am I going to do here? There were some specific times though where I thought it was real cons, Quenchil. The positive, yeah, this is a real pro con. The pro is continuity. Uh, basically almost everywhere. I said the offensive line coach, which may be an upgrade. And then the con is, yeah, he wasn't super aggressive at times when we need him to be. Special teams number. I'd again just kind of take what you have. My members probably pretty low. I'd said two and a half for some reason, but he said they have good kicker. What is the right special teams number for these? I went I went with five and a half on special. Five and a half. Okay. The biggest T. Yeah, good kicker. Five and a half. Probably. I do want to mention, probably a downgrade at, at, uh, punter. So the hacker, but uh, the second team all pro long snapper, Andrew D. Payel, Payel, nobody mentions long snapper until you lose him. So in totality, you are a plus point eight six. I'm a plus 2.07, which for me is, yes, right around the 13th best team in the NFL. And is substantially higher than market. Actually, this is my biggest difference in my rating to market rating for any team in the NFL market has these guys as minus 0.11. So they have them as a negative right now. Sheesh. Uh, what the fuck? Why is the market successful? And we said a lot of these ratings are primed to go up. If things, things work out offensive line, Kyler and Sean Jennings, if those things work out, I think we can safely say the defense will be good enough to, you know, even if Flores's defense isn't top five, top eight, if it, if it flounders and it's only top 10, it's good enough. If we get the right things happening on the offensive side of the ball. Yeah. When, when I'm looking at a team and I see a lot of opportunity to upgrade them and I'm already over market, that's team I want exposure to. I think this is a playoff team with the potential to be better than that. If the offense clicks, uh, the schedule's tough. They play a lot of really good teams. They're not going to be there's no, there's no slam dunk wins on the schedule outside of the dolphins potentially week four. Um, a lot of, a lot of dog fights, uh, just being in the NFC North means you got six tough games on your schedule. Um, you do get to play the NFC South, uh, which should be some nice way to pad your win loss. Um, I think the uh, stretch in the middle. Well, real quick. Best quarterback in the end best quarterback in the NFC South right now. Rapid fight. Let's shut it. It might be, man. I think it is. I like them. Um, all right. Uh, in Texas, Mexico, Mexico City off of the green Bay. I know it's not really aren't a green Bay, but that's a tough place to play. Um, and then you turn around and go to altitude. I don't know if you knew this Minnesota is not an altitude. We sit around 800 feet, man. It's not. That's that Mexico City trips can be tough after playing Buffalo green Bay Detroit in the three weeks before that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's right. Um, good point. Yeah. Yeah. You play passes off. Okay. Great point. Without Michael Parsons, me. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. It's good. You could not have asked for a better time to, uh, to have green Bay come to town. You go to green Bay in the middle of the season, not in the frozen tender part of the season. The, you're not playing Seattle. You're not playing the Rams. That's good news. Um, you are, uh, you are generally, uh, landing soft, I think with Washington jets and then a mashup against Chicago at home. And finally, can do the season that has, in my opinion, whiffs of, uh, your week 18 Sunday night football game that decides the division. That'd be very fun. Don't you think that there's a real world where that decides the North? Well, even, even if it doesn't, if there's a chance that there's, if there's an out of division to clinching game, that might be one of these teams is in one of these teams is out. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Um, I don't actually hate the schedule at all. I think it's sequenced well. It's not easy, but it's not the, you know, the, the widowmaker that we see, uh, some of these teams have gone over so far. There's, there's nine, 10, 11 wins here if things hash out right. There's a lot of young and inexperienced quarterbacks who I feel like brand floors is going to have a nice time preparing for. Yeah. So that'll be fun. Um, all right. The kind of final thoughts here. Uh, Gaja will over again with San Arnold and the Vikings. This is 2024. Right. Right. Like you're, you're really good. You're winning a lot of games, but so is Chicago. And you get to the end of the season. You're in prime time. Kyler doesn't play great. You go into the playoffs as the wild card instead of as the one seed and things go pear-shaped for Kyler. Is he, you know, another round of like, well, do they make the wrong decision again? They bring him on. Like, yeah, I like, there's, there's, there's time as a flat circle. I gotta say, they are getting Kyler Murray for an absolute song. If he plays at even the 50th percentile, I think, what you're paying him is an extreme team value. I think that gives them latitude to make another move to bring in another defender, so help kind of help elevate things. Um, I don't know, Andy. What's the right amount of enthusiasm? And when I guess how are you going to keep yourself cool throughout the preseason as you get some of the information we were talking about? I mean, it's going to be real cool real quick if Kyler just isn't. And it's going, okay, well, let's back to the drawing board. I guess we're bears, Max. He's now, which is, I gotta tell you, people who had boots on the ground for OTA said Kyler has a, that's kind of in the back of my head while I'm up to Mr. Puth, these guys. Did you hear any of that? A little bit, but again, I live in Minnesota, so all this news I get from like the local new, it's all rainbow's, lollipops unicorns and going to the Super Bowl again. Like it's very hard. It's not the same kind of media that you have on the East Coast. It's very homeristic. It wasn't last year with Jay. It still was. No, not the people I was talking to. No, but the local, I'm talking about Minnesota. It's always like, it's always like, no, he's about to turn a corner. You ride with nine. It sucks. The people that I kind of, the Cloak and Dagger society last year was basically saying this, abort this fetus. I get so over before it started. It was, it was, it was very, very, very pessimistic. And then this year, and maybe it's just because of the contrast of seeing what it looks like. There's a lot of, oh, hell yeah, we got a Sam Darnold, but the kind of, potential for greatness this year. So I think, I don't know, I think the Vikings are a bet on. How you want to attack them? Yeah, what's the, what's the long shot? What's the take? And SC. And then you hope they get a top top two seed. Hope they win the division and then extract some value. I don't think they're beating the Rams of the Siocs and playoffs. Yeah, the long shot is the DNFC or the ones. I think you're trying to, I think you're trying to extract. Yeah, once, oh, that's actually probably one seed is good because your true competition is also in a dog fight with each other. Yes, yes, yes, it may, it may be like a 12 win one seed this year, you know, that's not crazy at all. We're, we're there some sort of tiebreaker. or to a bunch of 12 or 13 win teams, it doesn't feel like there's some 15 win team because the good teams are in divisions with good teams. - You're absolutely right Andy. - And the win- - And Tyler's probably the win- - Tyler's come back in the year odds are, he's like third. I'm trying to think who's second. That's good. Daniel Jones second and Kansas City's quarterback, name is escaping me, he had a knee injury. He's like plus 150. - Travis Kelsey? - No. - Mom, this is like plus 150 and come back. - Sheesh, holy smokes. - Well, it's like, hey, he was hurt. Andy's, my home, so obviously just now win it. So. - Okay. Number one seed price for the Vikings and then we walk out of here and do the bears. You got a number? You wanna, I guess I'm looking at it. - 14? - 22. - 22 is good. - Yeah, we can get some. - Yeah, equity out of that. - All right, I'm gonna rip that. - They beat Green Bay week one. You got equity out of that, I think. - And they're favorite. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So they got that going form. All right, man, let's call this one and let's go talk. Dub bears. - Sounds good. (upbeat music) - Mmm. This is Justin Edwards, co-host of The Most Accurate Podcast. Join me and my team of Jennifer Aikens, John Paulson, and more from forforforfor.com as we go over a litany of fantasy football conversations focused squarely on helping you win your league. Looking for Start, Sit, Advice, the best weekly streaming options and must add waiver wire pickups for your fantasy team. Check out the most accurate podcast for all of that and everything in between with data driven analysis to help you get into the fantasy football promise land. Find 4-for-4s the most accurate podcast on all streaming platforms.