Vikings Crack Top 5 in ESPN's Ranking of Each Team's Skill Position Weapons

Led by Justin Jefferson and Dalvin Cook, the Vikings are stacked at the skill positions.

The Vikings have plenty of areas of concern heading into the 2022 season: the offensive line, the secondary, and whether or not Kirk Cousins can take them to another level, to name a few.

Star power and depth at the skill positions are not on that list.

For the third consecutive year, ESPN's Bill Barnwell has ranked all 32 NFL teams based on their offensive playmakers alone. Here are the rules he went by:

• We're only thinking about performance in 2022
• Injury history, holdouts and suspensions matter
• Wide receivers are more heavily weighted than running backs or tight ends
• Efficiency matters

After ranking 17th in 2020 and jumping to 5th last year thanks to the emergence of Justin Jefferson, the Vikings are up another spot this year, checking it at 4th on the list.

Let's check out what Barnwell had to say about Minnesota's weapons.

One of the great mysteries of the 21st century will be why the Vikings waited until Week 3 of his 2020 rookie season to start Justin Jefferson. Since entering the lineup that week, Jefferson leads all NFL players with 2,946 receiving yards. The only wideouts to average more yards per target over that stretch are Davante Adams and Deebo Samuel. Jefferson combines remarkable efficiency with relentless volume, and if reports are correct, his role in the offense might grow further under new coach Kevin O'Connell in 2022. 

Dalvin Cook is a known quantity as a running back who will miss a handful of games each season and play at a high level otherwise. Alexander Mattison has been a solid backup, although he wasn't as effective in 2021. The Vikings will also get back Irv Smith Jr. after the tight end missed all of 2021 with a torn meniscus, while K.J. Osborn has been a solid third wideout and should feature regularly in 2022. 

For most teams, the biggest question is a young player. Here, it's 31-year-old wideout Adam Thielen, who is now three years removed from his last 1,000-yard campaign and missed time in December with a left high ankle sprain. Thielen returned from the injury and immediately reaggravated the ailment, which is even more worrisome. Similar high ankle sprains have felled in the past veterans such as Michael Thomas, Roddy White and Mohamed Sanu, so while the hope has to be that Thielen returns at his prior level of play in 2022, I'm more than a little concerned.

That's a fair assessment of things, and it doesn't even mention depth pieces like Kene Nwangwu, Johnny Mundt, and Ihmir Smith-Marsette. The key for the Vikings will be having Cook, Thielen, and Smith healthy all year, if possible. As long as those three are available along with Jefferson and Osborn, the Vikings will have all kinds of ways to generate explosive plays.

The only teams above the Vikings are — in order from 1 to 3 — the Bengals, Raiders, and 49ers. Also of note is that the other three teams in the NFC North are all in the bottom half of these rankings. The Lions are at 17, while the Packers (29) and Bears (31) are among the bottom four.

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