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Bucs @ Vikings Week 1: Hello Mediocrity, My Old Friend
Sept 13, 2023 10:30:51 GMT -6
Reignman, Funkytown, and 11 more like this
Post by tfundermann on Sept 13, 2023 10:30:51 GMT -6
Well, that happened. These types of losses shouldn’t shock us anymore, but man they still get to me every single time. Many preventable errors, easily the better team on the field, and yet here we are. The good news, it is only one game, JJ is still the best WR in the league (him and Tyreek are levels above the rest), Addison is fitting in well, and the defense was flying around. If this was a preseason game it would have been the perfect teaching tool for KOC, instead the team starts 0-1 and is staring down the barrel of 1-4 if they don’t turn this around quick.
The plan is to do one of these breakdowns every 3-4 weeks this season. They might be more frequent if the games go sideways like they did against Tampa. We are going to deep dive into some analytics metrics to see what went wrong, and what went well. In the end we will look at the team as a whole for the season so far, and what we should expect over the coming weeks.
EPA – It’s hot, no cold, no hot, annnd it's frozen.
To start, let’s look at the EPA statistics for this first game of the season. EPA stands for Expected Points Added. This is a stat that uses historic NFL game data to calculate how many points the team, on average, will score based on the down, distance, field position and time remaining in the game. In other words, if you have 1st & Goal from the opponents 2-yard line, it is expected you will score roughly 5 points as an average over the course of time in the NFL. Compare this to being 3rd & 10 on your own 25, you are not expected to score anything. Here is a chart that the33rdteam.com put together to show EP based on down and distance to goal. To calculate EPA, you take the difference of the EP on the current play from the previous play. For example, going from your own 25 on 3rd & 10 (EP=~0) to the opponents 45 on 1st & 10 (EP=~2.5), the EPA for that play would be +2.5.
Now that we have a basic understanding of EPA, let’s look at the Bucs game. Below is a table showing every offensive player and their EPA results. The totals do not duplicate the passing and receiving plays. We can see from an EPA standpoint, the Vikings receivers dominated. Addison, Jefferson, Oliver, and Hockenson all were positive in EPA/Play. In-particular, Addison and Jefferson were the #1 pass catchers in the game from an EPA/Play (0.827 Addison) and Total EPA (6.751 JJ) standpoint, respectively.
When narrowing our EPA data to just pass plays, we can see the real impact of the Vikings WRs and TEs. The 8 Vikings that were involved with at least 1 pass play contributed a total EPA of 9.619. That is even with KJ Osborn having a -5.132 Total EPA. This compares to a Total EPA for the Bucs 8 players of just 4.836. The reason for the extremely low EPA for KJ is the interception on the goal line at the end of the first half. That play alone resulted in a -4.443 EPA for KJ and Kirk.
Both teams really struggled with running the ball. They combined for a -14.313 Total EPA on the 47 rushing plays in the game (MIN=-7.861 | TB=-6.452). If you take out the QB runs, things look a little better for the Vikings and even worse for the Bucs. Minnesota went from a -0.462 EPA/play to -0.192, while the Bucs went from -0.215 EPA/play to -0.282. This bodes well for the Minnesota rushing defense in the future, but it is still hard to say for certain with only 1 game in the books.
When looking exclusively at quarterbacks, both Cousins and Mayfield were in the group of 12 quarterbacks that had a positive EPA this week across the NFL (see image below). Kirk came in at 10th overall for Total EPA and EPA/Play, while Baker was 11th for both. Surprisingly, Jordan Love was the #1 QB this week from an EPA/Play standpoint, beating out even Tua who lit it up against the Chargers.
I then wanted to break this down by quarter to see how things changed at halftime. As you can see in the chart below, Kirk and Baker both struggled in the 1st quarter of the game. Kirk had 12 pass plays that averaged -0.534 EPA/play (includes the sack/fumble) while Baker had 9 plays with a -0.673 EPA/play. That means in total each team’s passing offense lost a full touchdown in expected points. There was a massive shift for the better by Kirk and Baker in the 2nd and even 3rd quarters. Between those 2 quarters, Kirk was averaging nearly 0.5 EPA/play from 26 plays. If you look exclusively at those 2 quarters for Kirk, he would have ranked as the 4th best QB in the entire league this week based on EPA/play! He was #1 in total EPA for the 2nd and 3rd quarters this week. The issue for Kirk was just how bad the 1st and 4th quarters went. The -0.484 EPA/play in those quarters would put him as the 6th worst QB in the league this week, among all QBs with at least 10 snaps. We will get into it in the next section, but based on the successful play metric, Kirk only had 1 pass play that was considered a success in the 4th quarter. Compare that to 6 such plays for Baker in the 4th.
Finally, if we look at the EPA/Play for the QBs by passing down, we can see how much better Baker was than Kirk on 3rd downs. Baker had an EPA/Play of .109 on 3rd downs, while Kirk ended at -0.037. On the flip side, Kirk was much better on 1st downs than Baker (0.129 vs -0.023), but when it was really need to keep the drive alive, Kirk and the passing game did not show up. This needs to be fixed if the team is to improve and improve quickly. Combining the quarter and down EPA metrics, we can see that Kirk had an EPA/Play of -1.063 on 3rd downs in the 4th quarter. He only had 2 such plays, but they did not go well. One was the air mail throws to KJ, and the other was a great pass breakup by Davis on Addison to finish the last chance the team had (https://i.imgur.com/G9Tejuf.gifv).
SUCCESS RATES – What happened in the 4th Quarter?!
Next, we will look at overall success rates for various players on the team. Successful plays are determined using the follow formula. On 1st down the play must gain at least 40% of the needed yards, on 2nd down the play must gain at least 60%, while on 3rd and 4th down the play must gain 100% of the yards needed for a 1st down. With that formula we can look at the QB, WRs, TEs, and RBs to see how often are they successful when they touch the ball. For reference, in 2022, the average run play success rate was 51.3% and 45.6% for pass plays for the entire league.
With this shift to success rates, we can see some things line up with the EPA we just discussed. For running plays, the only RB on either team to surpass the average run play success rate (51.3%) from 2022 was Chase Edmonds. He had a 100% success rate, but he only ran the ball twice. Mattison recorded the highest run play success rate, after Edmonds, at 45.5%. This is still behind the 2022 average for all run plays, but not so far behind that it should be worrisome, especially considering Vita Vea was on the other side of the ball. This also shows that outside the QB runs, the Vikings defense did a pretty good job stopping the run on Sunday. If you remove the Mayfield runs, Tampa Bay was only successful on 40% of their runs. To put that into perspective, the 2022 Vikings defense gave up a 49.7% success rate to all runs last year.
Moving over to the passing game, and we see massive improvement across the board. Of the 16 players with at least 1 pass play to their name, 8 of them had a success rate of 50% and higher. Ty Chandler only had 1 play in the passing game, but it did result in a successful outcome. If you take away Chandler the top 3 players for success rate in the passing game were Godwin (83.3%), Jefferson (66.7%), and Oliver (66.7%). Jefferson led the entire game with 8 successful plays in the passing game. Next closest was Mike Evans with 6. A big standout on the bad side of this statistic is once again KJ Osborn. He was involved in 6 pass plays, and only 1 of them is considered a success.
To finish this discussion up, lets look at the QBs. Overall, Baker and Kirk were within 0.06% of each other in success rates with Baker ending at 45.71% and Kirk at 45.65%. However, when you look at this by quarter like we did with EPA, Baker dominated in the 4th quarter. Baker finished the 4th quarter with a 66.67% success rate compared to just 12.5% for Kirk. Kirk only had 1 successful play in the entire 4th quarter, and only 6 total in the 2nd half (37.5%), compared to 15 in the first half (50%). Baker improved his success rate each quarter, starting at just 22.2% in the 1st and ending at the 66.67% in the 4th.
This all tells me what we were expecting from the Vikings defense. It will be really good from time to time, but eventually they just don’t have the players needed, at the CB spot specifically, to maintain. This is a big reason why if the team wants to be successful this year, the offense needs to start out FAST. They need to put the pedal down in the first half and never let off. We should expect some good from the defense in the first quarter or two, but by the second half they will be giving up bigger and bigger plays.
WPA – JJ and Addison for Co-MVPs!
Finally, I want to talk about WPA or Win Probability Added. This is normally not a stat that is tied to a specific player, but I wanted to take a closer look at it in this context to see what could be gleaned. WPA is calculated in a similar way as EPA. It is the difference of the team’s win probability from one play to the next. If a team has the ball, is up 3 with only 2 minutes left in the game, their WP might be 90%. Then if they hit a 10-yard pass to convert another 1st down, their WP probably spikes to 98%. That would mean the WPA for that 10-yard play is +.08 or +8%.
For this game, there were 3 pass catchers that added more than 10% to their team’s win probability (WP). They were Jefferson (16.1%), Addison (12.6%), and Godwin (11.3%). When your top 2 receivers are making plays that increase your WP by nearly 30%, you now you have a pretty good WR room. That is, if we ignore the fact that KJ Osborn’s plays caused a loss of 21.9% in WP. The big reason for this is the INT play (a -15.7% play), but he still was part of 5 other plays that resulted in a loss of over 6% in WP.
On the running side of things, only 2 players had a positive WPA for the entire game. Those players were Baker Mayfield (4.9% added) and Rakim Jarrett (0.1% added on 1 play). Every other player was a negative on their teams WP when running the ball.
This will be an interesting stat to track throughout the season. It is not typically a stat attributed to a specific player, but it is fairly telling, in my opinion. Considering every play Addison or Jefferson was thrown the ball, the Vikings probability of winning the game went up 1.6%, I want to see how this continues.
Don’t panic, save that for 2 or 3 weeks from now.
After all of this, the main conclusions you can take are Justin Jefferson is still really good, Addison could be a great addition to the team, the defense is going to be very hit or miss, and most importantly this team lives and dies by Kirk and his up and down play. This is not to say all the bad stats for Kirk are his fault. The INT is also partially on KJ, the play calling (TE screens can be taken out of the playbook please!) was not great, and as was and ever shall be the iOL is not great. However, if this team is going to compete for a division title and in the playoffs, Kirk needs to be more consistent throughout the game.
I don’t want to make a lot of conclusions from 1 game, especially when the Vikings easily outgained and overall outperformed the Bucs. You take away even just that INT at the goal line, this is a Vikings win and we feel a lot different today. That being said, this team needs to put lesser teams away. They cannot let teams keep it close. Considering all the offensive weapons at its disposal, this team should be putting up 24 points or more every single week. When you only score 17 total points (against a team that gave up 21/game in 2022), and only 7 in the 2nd half, you cannot expect to win many games in the NFL in 2023. Especially if you are going to turn the ball over 3 times and have stupid untimely penalties. There are some easy things for this team to clean up, and they can turn this around and be competing for the division title with Detroit and Green Bay (sorry Bears, not you). However, if the offense continues to have these long stretches of ineptitude, they are in for a very long season and staring at a sub .500 record.
What’s next?
At Philadelphia on TNF | 09/14/2023 | 7:15pm
This game could be bad and bad early. I don’t anticipate it will be as bad as last year in Philly, but I still do not think they win this game. The Philly defense is still pretty dang good, and they have just the right players to attack the Vikings weaknesses. A very aggressive DLine that will punish Ed Ingram and whoever plays at center is likely to spell doom. The best way for this team to pull off the upset is to run tempo and have Kirk get the ball out quick. Target Addison and TJ all day while they are worried about stopping JJ. Force them to rethink the plan of heavy pressure on Kirk and drop people into coverage to try and control JJ, Addison and TJ. When that happens, they can let those 3 do what they do and find the openings.
Bold prediction: Jalen Carter has 2+ sacks on Kirk.
LOSS PHI 24 – MIN 16
Home Against Los Angeles (Chargers) | 09/24/2023 | 12:00pm
This one will be a shoot out! I will be a bit shocked if the total points in this game doesn’t exceed 60. As we saw with the Dolphins on Sunday, this Chargers defense just cannot matchup with top flight WRs. JJ and Addison should feast if the OL can give Kirk even a little bit of time. The thing that will decide who wins, is can the Vikings defense get a crucial stop late in the game. If they can force a big turnover or a stop on 3rd down late in the 4th, then the Vikings can win this game.
Bold prediction: JJ and Addison combine for 300+ receiving yards.
WIN MIN 34 – LAC 27
At Carolina | 10/01/2023 | 12:00pm
If the Vikings can’t win this game, this season will not be continued on in the postseason. These are the games they have to win and win easily. Historically, this is exactly the type of trap game the Vikings will lose. That cannot be the case this year with the 1st place schedule they have. There are only 3 or 4 games on the schedule that they should be considered the easy favorite, this is one of them. Carolina’s defense is pretty dang good, but that offense is going to continue to struggle. Don’t let your team be the one that Bryce Young starts to figure it out against.
Bold prediction: Vikings defense has 4+ sacks on Bryce Young
WIN MIN 24 – CAR 13
My best guess is the Vikings are 2-2 after 4 weeks when I come back to you with updates on all the stats we discussed above. I hope you enjoyed this primer for the season, and some key statistics we will be tracking. Let me know if you have any questions or ideas on data we can look at this season. TF
All data exported from the NFLVerse in RStudio.
The plan is to do one of these breakdowns every 3-4 weeks this season. They might be more frequent if the games go sideways like they did against Tampa. We are going to deep dive into some analytics metrics to see what went wrong, and what went well. In the end we will look at the team as a whole for the season so far, and what we should expect over the coming weeks.
EPA – It’s hot, no cold, no hot, annnd it's frozen.
To start, let’s look at the EPA statistics for this first game of the season. EPA stands for Expected Points Added. This is a stat that uses historic NFL game data to calculate how many points the team, on average, will score based on the down, distance, field position and time remaining in the game. In other words, if you have 1st & Goal from the opponents 2-yard line, it is expected you will score roughly 5 points as an average over the course of time in the NFL. Compare this to being 3rd & 10 on your own 25, you are not expected to score anything. Here is a chart that the33rdteam.com put together to show EP based on down and distance to goal. To calculate EPA, you take the difference of the EP on the current play from the previous play. For example, going from your own 25 on 3rd & 10 (EP=~0) to the opponents 45 on 1st & 10 (EP=~2.5), the EPA for that play would be +2.5.
Now that we have a basic understanding of EPA, let’s look at the Bucs game. Below is a table showing every offensive player and their EPA results. The totals do not duplicate the passing and receiving plays. We can see from an EPA standpoint, the Vikings receivers dominated. Addison, Jefferson, Oliver, and Hockenson all were positive in EPA/Play. In-particular, Addison and Jefferson were the #1 pass catchers in the game from an EPA/Play (0.827 Addison) and Total EPA (6.751 JJ) standpoint, respectively.
When narrowing our EPA data to just pass plays, we can see the real impact of the Vikings WRs and TEs. The 8 Vikings that were involved with at least 1 pass play contributed a total EPA of 9.619. That is even with KJ Osborn having a -5.132 Total EPA. This compares to a Total EPA for the Bucs 8 players of just 4.836. The reason for the extremely low EPA for KJ is the interception on the goal line at the end of the first half. That play alone resulted in a -4.443 EPA for KJ and Kirk.
Both teams really struggled with running the ball. They combined for a -14.313 Total EPA on the 47 rushing plays in the game (MIN=-7.861 | TB=-6.452). If you take out the QB runs, things look a little better for the Vikings and even worse for the Bucs. Minnesota went from a -0.462 EPA/play to -0.192, while the Bucs went from -0.215 EPA/play to -0.282. This bodes well for the Minnesota rushing defense in the future, but it is still hard to say for certain with only 1 game in the books.
When looking exclusively at quarterbacks, both Cousins and Mayfield were in the group of 12 quarterbacks that had a positive EPA this week across the NFL (see image below). Kirk came in at 10th overall for Total EPA and EPA/Play, while Baker was 11th for both. Surprisingly, Jordan Love was the #1 QB this week from an EPA/Play standpoint, beating out even Tua who lit it up against the Chargers.
I then wanted to break this down by quarter to see how things changed at halftime. As you can see in the chart below, Kirk and Baker both struggled in the 1st quarter of the game. Kirk had 12 pass plays that averaged -0.534 EPA/play (includes the sack/fumble) while Baker had 9 plays with a -0.673 EPA/play. That means in total each team’s passing offense lost a full touchdown in expected points. There was a massive shift for the better by Kirk and Baker in the 2nd and even 3rd quarters. Between those 2 quarters, Kirk was averaging nearly 0.5 EPA/play from 26 plays. If you look exclusively at those 2 quarters for Kirk, he would have ranked as the 4th best QB in the entire league this week based on EPA/play! He was #1 in total EPA for the 2nd and 3rd quarters this week. The issue for Kirk was just how bad the 1st and 4th quarters went. The -0.484 EPA/play in those quarters would put him as the 6th worst QB in the league this week, among all QBs with at least 10 snaps. We will get into it in the next section, but based on the successful play metric, Kirk only had 1 pass play that was considered a success in the 4th quarter. Compare that to 6 such plays for Baker in the 4th.
Finally, if we look at the EPA/Play for the QBs by passing down, we can see how much better Baker was than Kirk on 3rd downs. Baker had an EPA/Play of .109 on 3rd downs, while Kirk ended at -0.037. On the flip side, Kirk was much better on 1st downs than Baker (0.129 vs -0.023), but when it was really need to keep the drive alive, Kirk and the passing game did not show up. This needs to be fixed if the team is to improve and improve quickly. Combining the quarter and down EPA metrics, we can see that Kirk had an EPA/Play of -1.063 on 3rd downs in the 4th quarter. He only had 2 such plays, but they did not go well. One was the air mail throws to KJ, and the other was a great pass breakup by Davis on Addison to finish the last chance the team had (https://i.imgur.com/G9Tejuf.gifv).
SUCCESS RATES – What happened in the 4th Quarter?!
Next, we will look at overall success rates for various players on the team. Successful plays are determined using the follow formula. On 1st down the play must gain at least 40% of the needed yards, on 2nd down the play must gain at least 60%, while on 3rd and 4th down the play must gain 100% of the yards needed for a 1st down. With that formula we can look at the QB, WRs, TEs, and RBs to see how often are they successful when they touch the ball. For reference, in 2022, the average run play success rate was 51.3% and 45.6% for pass plays for the entire league.
With this shift to success rates, we can see some things line up with the EPA we just discussed. For running plays, the only RB on either team to surpass the average run play success rate (51.3%) from 2022 was Chase Edmonds. He had a 100% success rate, but he only ran the ball twice. Mattison recorded the highest run play success rate, after Edmonds, at 45.5%. This is still behind the 2022 average for all run plays, but not so far behind that it should be worrisome, especially considering Vita Vea was on the other side of the ball. This also shows that outside the QB runs, the Vikings defense did a pretty good job stopping the run on Sunday. If you remove the Mayfield runs, Tampa Bay was only successful on 40% of their runs. To put that into perspective, the 2022 Vikings defense gave up a 49.7% success rate to all runs last year.
Moving over to the passing game, and we see massive improvement across the board. Of the 16 players with at least 1 pass play to their name, 8 of them had a success rate of 50% and higher. Ty Chandler only had 1 play in the passing game, but it did result in a successful outcome. If you take away Chandler the top 3 players for success rate in the passing game were Godwin (83.3%), Jefferson (66.7%), and Oliver (66.7%). Jefferson led the entire game with 8 successful plays in the passing game. Next closest was Mike Evans with 6. A big standout on the bad side of this statistic is once again KJ Osborn. He was involved in 6 pass plays, and only 1 of them is considered a success.
To finish this discussion up, lets look at the QBs. Overall, Baker and Kirk were within 0.06% of each other in success rates with Baker ending at 45.71% and Kirk at 45.65%. However, when you look at this by quarter like we did with EPA, Baker dominated in the 4th quarter. Baker finished the 4th quarter with a 66.67% success rate compared to just 12.5% for Kirk. Kirk only had 1 successful play in the entire 4th quarter, and only 6 total in the 2nd half (37.5%), compared to 15 in the first half (50%). Baker improved his success rate each quarter, starting at just 22.2% in the 1st and ending at the 66.67% in the 4th.
This all tells me what we were expecting from the Vikings defense. It will be really good from time to time, but eventually they just don’t have the players needed, at the CB spot specifically, to maintain. This is a big reason why if the team wants to be successful this year, the offense needs to start out FAST. They need to put the pedal down in the first half and never let off. We should expect some good from the defense in the first quarter or two, but by the second half they will be giving up bigger and bigger plays.
WPA – JJ and Addison for Co-MVPs!
Finally, I want to talk about WPA or Win Probability Added. This is normally not a stat that is tied to a specific player, but I wanted to take a closer look at it in this context to see what could be gleaned. WPA is calculated in a similar way as EPA. It is the difference of the team’s win probability from one play to the next. If a team has the ball, is up 3 with only 2 minutes left in the game, their WP might be 90%. Then if they hit a 10-yard pass to convert another 1st down, their WP probably spikes to 98%. That would mean the WPA for that 10-yard play is +.08 or +8%.
For this game, there were 3 pass catchers that added more than 10% to their team’s win probability (WP). They were Jefferson (16.1%), Addison (12.6%), and Godwin (11.3%). When your top 2 receivers are making plays that increase your WP by nearly 30%, you now you have a pretty good WR room. That is, if we ignore the fact that KJ Osborn’s plays caused a loss of 21.9% in WP. The big reason for this is the INT play (a -15.7% play), but he still was part of 5 other plays that resulted in a loss of over 6% in WP.
On the running side of things, only 2 players had a positive WPA for the entire game. Those players were Baker Mayfield (4.9% added) and Rakim Jarrett (0.1% added on 1 play). Every other player was a negative on their teams WP when running the ball.
This will be an interesting stat to track throughout the season. It is not typically a stat attributed to a specific player, but it is fairly telling, in my opinion. Considering every play Addison or Jefferson was thrown the ball, the Vikings probability of winning the game went up 1.6%, I want to see how this continues.
Don’t panic, save that for 2 or 3 weeks from now.
After all of this, the main conclusions you can take are Justin Jefferson is still really good, Addison could be a great addition to the team, the defense is going to be very hit or miss, and most importantly this team lives and dies by Kirk and his up and down play. This is not to say all the bad stats for Kirk are his fault. The INT is also partially on KJ, the play calling (TE screens can be taken out of the playbook please!) was not great, and as was and ever shall be the iOL is not great. However, if this team is going to compete for a division title and in the playoffs, Kirk needs to be more consistent throughout the game.
I don’t want to make a lot of conclusions from 1 game, especially when the Vikings easily outgained and overall outperformed the Bucs. You take away even just that INT at the goal line, this is a Vikings win and we feel a lot different today. That being said, this team needs to put lesser teams away. They cannot let teams keep it close. Considering all the offensive weapons at its disposal, this team should be putting up 24 points or more every single week. When you only score 17 total points (against a team that gave up 21/game in 2022), and only 7 in the 2nd half, you cannot expect to win many games in the NFL in 2023. Especially if you are going to turn the ball over 3 times and have stupid untimely penalties. There are some easy things for this team to clean up, and they can turn this around and be competing for the division title with Detroit and Green Bay (sorry Bears, not you). However, if the offense continues to have these long stretches of ineptitude, they are in for a very long season and staring at a sub .500 record.
What’s next?
At Philadelphia on TNF | 09/14/2023 | 7:15pm
This game could be bad and bad early. I don’t anticipate it will be as bad as last year in Philly, but I still do not think they win this game. The Philly defense is still pretty dang good, and they have just the right players to attack the Vikings weaknesses. A very aggressive DLine that will punish Ed Ingram and whoever plays at center is likely to spell doom. The best way for this team to pull off the upset is to run tempo and have Kirk get the ball out quick. Target Addison and TJ all day while they are worried about stopping JJ. Force them to rethink the plan of heavy pressure on Kirk and drop people into coverage to try and control JJ, Addison and TJ. When that happens, they can let those 3 do what they do and find the openings.
Bold prediction: Jalen Carter has 2+ sacks on Kirk.
LOSS PHI 24 – MIN 16
Home Against Los Angeles (Chargers) | 09/24/2023 | 12:00pm
This one will be a shoot out! I will be a bit shocked if the total points in this game doesn’t exceed 60. As we saw with the Dolphins on Sunday, this Chargers defense just cannot matchup with top flight WRs. JJ and Addison should feast if the OL can give Kirk even a little bit of time. The thing that will decide who wins, is can the Vikings defense get a crucial stop late in the game. If they can force a big turnover or a stop on 3rd down late in the 4th, then the Vikings can win this game.
Bold prediction: JJ and Addison combine for 300+ receiving yards.
WIN MIN 34 – LAC 27
At Carolina | 10/01/2023 | 12:00pm
If the Vikings can’t win this game, this season will not be continued on in the postseason. These are the games they have to win and win easily. Historically, this is exactly the type of trap game the Vikings will lose. That cannot be the case this year with the 1st place schedule they have. There are only 3 or 4 games on the schedule that they should be considered the easy favorite, this is one of them. Carolina’s defense is pretty dang good, but that offense is going to continue to struggle. Don’t let your team be the one that Bryce Young starts to figure it out against.
Bold prediction: Vikings defense has 4+ sacks on Bryce Young
WIN MIN 24 – CAR 13
My best guess is the Vikings are 2-2 after 4 weeks when I come back to you with updates on all the stats we discussed above. I hope you enjoyed this primer for the season, and some key statistics we will be tracking. Let me know if you have any questions or ideas on data we can look at this season. TF
All data exported from the NFLVerse in RStudio.
WOW 
They had a +180 point differential and beat the Dolphins 62-7 in the wildcard round.
