Matthew Coller: Analyzing Mike Clay's Vikings projections
Thanks to ESPN’s Mike Clay’s graciousness with his time, it has become a tradition each year for him to come on the Purple Insider podcast and talk through his projections for every Vikings player. If you are a fantasy football enjoyer, they are an incredible guide to every team’s depth chart and expectations for snap counts, usage and performance. If you are not a big fantasy football lover, it’s still interesting to look at someone else’s objective expectations for your squad.
So here’s a look at the most interesting Clay projections (which you can read here in their entirety) and what Mike had to say about them….
Only four starts for Darnold
ESPN’s fantasy expert is not buying the Sam Darnold reclamation project. He is prediction that Darnold is going to play four games and toss 145 passes with a total stat line of 964 yards, five touchdowns and four interceptions.
Presumably those would be the first four games of the year before JJ McCarthy takes over. For McCarthy, he has fairly high expectations considering his rookie status. Clay projects 3,259 yards on 479 attempts with 18 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and an additional 182 yards rushing.
The logic, despite some comments about slow-playing McCarthy’s development by the Vikings’ brass, is that historically there haven’t been many examples of teams actually letting their first-round pick sit.
Clay quotes:
“For the most part these guys are under center, especially early first-round quarterbacks, if not Week 1 then by like Week 4. Jared Goff waited until Week 10, he’s one of the exceptions. He’s one of the only early first-round quarterbacks that didn’t play right away.”
“His projections are actually high for a rookie quarterback and relative to the other guys — Caleb Williams is ahead but in terms of passing yards he’s ahead of the other guys. Part of that is my optimism for this scheme.”
Analysis:
There’s no arguing with history: Rookie QBs play. In this case, I’m a little less confident than Clay that McCarthy is going to get in the game that quickly. Kevin O’Connell has preached patience with McCarthy and made it clear after minicamp that he won’t play his first-rounder until he’s fully in command of the offense. That combined with the potential for Darnold to be bolstered by Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison could lead to McCarthy watching Darnold lead a competitive team for a while.
An even carry split in the backfield
Aaron Jones was the bell cow running back in Green Bay at the end of last season, carrying the ball more than 20 times in five straight games. However, there was only one other instance of him racking up 20-plus carries in 2023 and he only cleared 20 rushes four times in 2022. That suggests that Ty Chandler is going to be heavily involved in the running portion of the Vikings’ offense as well.
Clay predicts a near 50/50 split of the ground game with 163 carries for 767 yards and five touchdowns for Jones and 155 runs for 680 yards and four touchdowns for Chandler.
On the receiving portion, Jones is much more involved with 43 receptions for 345 yards while Chandler is expected to grab 22 passes for 168 yards.
Clay quotes:
“Definitely more optimistic about the body of work for Aaron Jones, I think you bring him in with the hope of getting one really good full season out of him but Chandler is the clear No. 2, it’s pretty evident that their plan is Jones and Chandler otherwise they would be more aggressive in addressing that position.”
“Pushing age 30 this is an age where we start to see these guys fall off, I think if you’re talking 170, 180 carries and 60 targets, that’s a good season for Aaron Jones. If they get that and the change-of-pace back in Chandler, that’s a serviceable backfield.”
Analysis:
Clay bakes in injuries into his analysis so he’s predicting the rushing/receiving output over 14 games for Jones. That’s fair considering he was banged up last year. Chandler’s workout will be dependent on Jones’ health but his performance last year should warrant a significant role. He showed impressive explosive play ability with five runs of 15-plus yards in 102 carries and was effective as a receiver out of the backfield. With Myles Gaskin, Kene Nwangwu and DeWayne McBride as the other RBs on the roster, it’s going to be all about the Jones-Chandler duo.
No slide for Jefferson, Addison repeats rookie year
The fact that Justin Jefferson continued to annihilate defenses despite playing with Nick Mullens last year was pretty convincing evidence that we should have high expectations for his 2024 season regardless of who’s under center. Clay has Jefferson grabbing 106 passes for 1,360 yards and rating as the fourth best fantasy receiver in the NFL.
The player prognosticating world seems to be skeptical about Jordan Addison overall and that includes Clay. He isn’t predicting a drop in production but isn’t expecting major gains either. He’s expecting 70 receptions for 877 yards and five touchdowns.
As for the WR3 spot, it’s anybody’s guess. Clay has Brandon Powell with 19 receptions, Trent Sherfield with 10 and Jalen Nailor with six.
Clay quote:
“Addison, I’m a little nervous about him. Going into Year 2 he should get better but his numbers were very much inflated by that barrage of touchdowns that he had last season, which was somewhat a product of Kirk Cousins. He didn’t show up in the way that I expected without Justin Jefferson. His target share didn’t move up, we didn’t see as much of a high-end performance. His size coming into last year with his 40 time is concerning so there’s a couple things there that make me wonder just how good he is. Not saying he’s bad but what is his ceiling? Is he going to live up to that first-round pedigree?”
Analysis:
With TJ Hockenson likely on the shelf to start the season and the WR3 spot wide open, it would seem that Addison is in line to get a boat load of targets. Also, while Jefferson’s production was still strong without Cousins, that wasn’t as much the case for Addison. He had one big game with Mullens vs. Cincinnati (111 yards on six catches) but otherwise didn’t get the ball as much from Josh Dobbs and Mullens as he did when Kirk Cousins was under center. At the point Cousins got hurt, Addison had 29 catches for 400 yards and six touchdowns in seven games. It’s not clear how good the quarterback play is going to be in 2024 but the Vikings are hoping it’s better than the Dobbs/Mullens/Hall trio. That should help Addison along with a year under his belt vs. NFL competition. Still, would anyone be unhappy with nearly 900 yards from him? That seems like a fair bar to set.
20+ sacks for the edge rushers
Expectations for the Vikings’ edge rushing group should be high considering they spent big in free agency to acquire Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel and then traded serious draft capital to pick Alabama star Dallas Turner. After posting 12.5 sacks last season, Greenard naturally has the highest expected sack total from Clay with 10.2 sacks, then Van Ginkel projects at 5.7 and Turner 4.4. Altogether they would be around the same ballpark as what DJ Wonnum and Danielle Hunter managed last year (22.5).
Clay quote:
“This is a tricky one. It might seem like a low number but the most sacks by a rookie last year was Kobie Turner with nine and that was the seventh most by a rookie in the last decade…I’m not anti-Dallas Turner. I have him playing 40% of the snaps because I love their 1-2 punch. For losing what they did at edge [Danielle Hunter], for them to go get Greenard and Van Ginkel is huge. I thought they got two of the most underrated edge rushers in the league, it was savvy and smart. Then you bring in Turner and suddenly you have a good core. I’m interested to see how they get creative with Van Ginkel because he’s versatile and maybe they get Turner on the field more.”
Analysis:
It is difficult for rookies to step into the NFL and produce big sack numbers right away. Only three rookie edge rushers had 5.0 sacks or more last year so it wouldn’t be shocking if Turner’s total for his first year wasn’t mind blowing. However, ESPN’s analytics expert Seth Walder built a model to project the first three years of sack production from draft picks and Turner’s numbers (19.0 sacks) blew away the field with the next best nearly five sacks behind him.
Brian Flores’ usage of Turner will be very interesting to watch. He may find advantageous pass rushing spots for the rookie that give him a chance to take down quarterbacks more often than you would expect for someone in Year 1.
As far as total sacks, Clay is not that high on the Vikings with only 41. That’s right around the same mark from last year (43) and mostly due to the lack of predicted interior pass rush.
Tons of kick returns for Nwangwu and Reichard solid rookie season
It’s impossible to know what kick returns are going to look like this year with the NFL switching over to a completely new format. If it goes according to plan and the result is way more attempts then it could benefit the Vikings significantly. Clay’s prognostications have Nwangwu racking up 1,665 return yards on 60 returns (27.8 YPR) and one touchdown and Ty Chandler adding 15 more returns for 347 yards (23.1).
As for rookie kicker Will Reichard, there projects to be some rookie bumps along the way but overall a solid season at 28-for-33 (84%).
Clay quotes:
“It’s tough. I find a baseline for rookie kickers and I expect them to be a little below average because that’s what we have seen. The lesson with high pedigree kickers is patience. How many guys have we seen come in and whether it’s nerves or butterflies or getting used to the pros and the longer schedule and they struggle and teams cut them loose and then they always seem to do better in the next place…I don’t think a team knows that better than Minnesota with especially Daniel Carlson.”
“We’re going to learn a lot in the first few months of the season and go from there…I’m very curious to see what it looks like. Are you going to have a primary kick returner or two guys back there that end up splitting them 60/40? I don’t have that answer.”
Analysis:
These are very favorable projections for the Vikings. Basically best-case scenarios for both. And in each case it’s nearly impossible to guess how it’s going to go. If the league plays along with the new rules and allows a bunch of kickoffs the Vikings are in prime position to take advantage with one of the best returners in the league. If it turns into a squib fest or teams kick out of the end zone for touchbacks anyway then 60 returns could quickly become 25 returns and the impact will be mitigated.
Rookie kickers are a roller coaster. The Vikings picked the most proven one you are going to find with over 100 attempts in college and a sample size of success on deep kicks. Still, through the years the bright lights have often turned elite college kickers into mortals at the NFL level.
Vikings favored in only two games, win 7, rank 24th in strength of schedule
While a lot of the predictions that ESPN’s analyst put down on PDF are solid-to-good for the Vikings, Clay’s win total is reflective of many Vegas oddsmakers who have them hovering around the 7-win mark. The only games that he gives the Vikings more than 60% chance to win are against the Giants and Cardinals and 10 times his numbers give the Vikings 40% or lower odds to win.
Clay quote:
“The way I’ll be way wrong is if JJ McCarthy is legit right out of the gate. If he’s CJ Stroud and he’s emerging as top 10 or top five quarterback next year then they’ll be pushing for a playoff spot in the NFC. But especially at this age it’s hard to see that happening and they’re probably understanding that this is a bit of a rebuild. Get McCarthy reps this year and build this team for 2025. Part of the reason for that is the division, it is the best it’s been in quite a while.”
Analysis:
The Vikings’ expectations for themselves are higher than this but it’s understandable that anyone looking objectively at this team would be skeptical that they are going to make the playoffs when they are either going to either start a rookie QB or veteran with a career 21-35 record.
Also we focus on the projections for key pieces like Jefferson/Addison/Jones etc. but the shortcomings aren’t in star talent. On the depth side, they appear to be lacking in secondary stars and key rotational players. That can change during training camp as it did for the Vikings last year when Josh Metellus and Ivan Pace Jr. emerged as key starters but it’s hard to guess when that’s going to happen.
Overall, a 7-win season would be disappointing but not devastating toward the bigger goal. If everything played out the way Clay expects and they get decent-to-strong showings from McCarthy, Addison, Turner and other young players, it could set up for a very competitive future