Our 2023 NFL Preview travels from South Beach to the Twin Cities, where the Vikings look to take care of unfinished business after being upset in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs. Indeed, last season was an entertaining one for Minnesota, who in their first season under (Head Coach) Kevin O’Connell improved by five games en route to claiming the NFC North for the first time since 2017. However, while the offense took flight under O’Connell’s watch, the defense was one of the league’s worst, ultimately proving to be their fatal flaw as they fell to the Giants in a 31-24 postseason affair. In an attempt to fix the problem, O’Connell, alongside (General Manager) Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, lured Brian Flores to Minneapolis to be the Defensive Coordinator. Will the venerable tactician solve their woes on that side of the football? Can (veteran Quarterback) Kirk Cousins reach another level under O’Connell’s watch? How will the club replace (Pro-Bowl Tailback) Dalvin Cook? Let’s walk through U.S. Bank Stadium for a look into these Northmen, shall we?
The Cousins Conundrum
On the surface, Kirk Cousins appears to be one of the better Quarterbacks in the National Football League. Over the course of his career, he has completed an efficient 66.8% of his passes for an average of 261.5 yards per game on 6.80 net yards per attempt, with 252 touchdowns in comparison to just 105 interceptions, while totaling twenty-two fourth quarter comebacks and twenty-eight game-winning drives since 2012. Furthermore, he has posted a record of 72-63-2 (.525) as the starter and has earned four Pro-Bowl nods while being named the league’s Most Improved Player in 2015. However, in an age in which a plethora of Quarterbacks are producing prolific numbers, those of Cousins (pictured above) aren’t quite as impressive, while his penchant for fumbling the football (84, 35 lost) reveals him to be less efficient than he initially appears to be. Oh, and then there is his mercurial history of underperforming in big games; the 34-year-old is 10-18 in primetime, including a dismal 2-10 ledger on Monday Night Football, while his brief postseason CV isn’t particularly sterling either. In five playoff appearances, Cousins is just 1-3 as a starter, completing 66.5% of his passes for an average of 209.4 yards on just 5.51 net yards per attempt, with five touchdowns, one interception and a lost fumble. In his first season under O’Connell’s watch, he threw the most passes of his career (643) for 4,547 yards, but also tossed a career-high fourteen interceptions, while averaging 6.12 net yards per attempt and logging a QBR of 49.9, both of which serving as his lowest since becoming a full-time starter back in 2015. With that being said, the Pro-Bowler was instrumental to their success, totaling EIGHT fourth quarter comebacks, the most in the NFL last season, serving as further proof of the weaknesses of this team. Basically, this is the guy that you are thankful of having in house, though are nonetheless annually looking for an upgrade, which brings us to the events of this offseason. Hell, Mensah himself admitted that he has a “good QB” but lamented that he didn’t have Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes, while talks of a new deal have effectively stopped as the veteran looks set to play out the final year of his contract. Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that Cousins has entered a prove-it campaign in which his contract was set to expire, and at his age he is looking for one last lucrative deal. And honestly, barring a faceplant he should have all the bargaining power moving forward, for Minnesota doesn’t have a viable alternative on their roster at the moment, though things could change if they find themselves drafting early next Spring…
Jefferson’s Purple Reign
One of the reasons that Cousins has been a prolific passer over the last few seasons has been the presence of (All-Pro Receiver) Justin Jefferson, who in just three years’ time has established himself as arguably the top pass-catcher in the NFL. Selected twenty-second overall in the 2020 NFL Draft, Jefferson (pictured right) has hauled in 324 receptions for 4,825 yards and twenty-five touchdowns, breaking a number of (former Viking) Randy Moss’s records in the process. Last season, he led the league in catches (128) and receiving yards (1,809) along with eight touchdowns, racking up TEN 100-yard games, a franchise record for a single season. Named to his third consecutive Pro-Bowl and his first as an All-Pro, the 24-year-old is currently negotiating a lucrative long-term deal that will see his services remain in Minneapolis for the foreseeable future. And from the looks of things, Mensah and O’Connell will need him to continue this level of play, for the Northmen parted ways with a pair of notable playmakers to create the cap space necessary to put together an offer worthy of his talents. First, Minnesota parted ways with (veteran Receiver) Adam Thielen before doing the same with (veteran Tailback) Dalvin Cook, with the two former pillars of the team combining for six Pro-Bowl selections over the last five seasons. In regard to the former, Thielen played the perfect opposite to Jefferson, particularly in the red zone where he became a fixture in reeling in thirty touchdowns over the previous three seasons, despite his yardage dipping below 1,000 yards in each year. As for Cook, he surpassed 1,100 rushing yards in each of the last four campaigns despite missing at least two games every season with a variety of injuries. In an attempt to keep opposing defenses from completely ganging up on Jefferson, the club will expect more out of (Tight End) T.J. Hockenson, whom they acquired via trade with division rival Detroit last season in exchange for a 2023 second round pick and a 2024 third rounder. In ten games after his acquisition, the 26-year-old settled in nicely with sixty receptions for 519 yards and three touchdowns. (Backup Tailback) Alexander Mattison could also be primed for a greater role within the attack after showing flashes behind Cook, rushing for 1,670 yards and eleven scores over the last four seasons. The Vikings also selected (USC product) Jordan Addison with the twenty-third overall pick in last April’s NFL Draft, while adding (UAB Tailback) DeWayne McBride six rounds later. A Biletnikoff winner in 2021, Addison totaled fifty-nine catches for 875 yards and eight touchdowns in his lone season with the Trojans, with his vertical speed expected to bring another dimension to the offense. As for McBride, the reigning Conference USA Player of the Year could prove to be a real find in the later rounds, rushing for 3,523 yards and thirty-six touchdowns in three seasons in Birmingham.
In Flores They Trust
Earlier, we mentioned that Kirk Cousins had led all passers with eight fourth quarter comebacks last season, which means that he was frequently forced to guide his team back from a deficit, which is a telltale sign that his defense was bad. Like REALLY F@#$%^& BAD. Indeed, the Vikings ranked twenty-eighth in points allowed (25.1), thirty-first in both total defense (388.7) and against the pass (265.6), thirtieth in net yards per attempt (6.9), twentieth versus the run (123.1), and twenty-second in yards per carry (4.5), while also finishing twenty-first in red zone efficiency (57.1%). There only saving grace was their twenty-five takeaways (9th Overall), which wasn’t enough to make up for their shortcomings in other areas. However, the most ridiculous stat was easily this: despite posting a stellar 13-4 record, Minnesota was actually OUTSCORED over the course of the campaign by three points. With eight victories by way of fourth quarter comebacks, most of their win total was by a small margin, while their four losses came by a whopping EIGHTY-NINE points equating to an average differential of 22.2 points apiece. And it’s with that said that O’Connell fired the venerable Ed Donatell and replaced him with Brian Flores to coordinate the defense, which has been viewed by many as a masterstroke for the franchise. By now, we should be well-acquainted with the story of Flores (pictured above), who became a hot commodity in coaching circles as a promising assistant under Bill Belichick in New England, before eventually becoming the Dolphins Head Coach in 2019. After a disappointing first season in which the roster was purged of many talents, he overcame another slow start to finish 10-6, their best record since 2016, though ultimately missed the playoffs, doing the same in 2021, which led to his ousting at the hands of (Miami Owner) Stephen Ross. Now this is where things get a little crazy. Getting fired is one thing, but after being passed over for multiple jobs in the summer of 2022, Flores filed a class-action lawsuit against the NFL, along with the Dolphins, Giants, and Broncos organizations citing racial discrimination in the workplace. He also claimed that the aforementioned Ross incentivized losing games in 2019 (allegedly $100,000 per loss) so that the club could be in a better position to draft a franchise Quarterback in the 2020 NFL Draft. Furthermore, he pressured the Brooklyn native to tamper with Deshaun Watson, who was under contract with Cleveland at the time, crediting his refusal to comply with those mandates as reason for his termination. Long story short, Ross was fined $1.5 million and suspended six games last season, while Miami forfeited a 2023 first-round pick and a third-rounder next year. As for Flores, he spent last season as Linebackers Coach/Senior Defensive Assistant for the Steelers, though seems keen on getting his coaching career back on track. If he can get the Vikings to turn the proverbial corner after last season’s disaster, then he may be able to name his head coaching job come February.
Projected Finish: 9-8
In the NFL, it has been stated that you are what your record indicates. However, that was NOT the case for the Vikings last season, who despite winning thirteen games, their most in six years, proved to be a quick out in the playoffs. Indeed, those victories were the equivalent to empty calories, as Cousins was frequently put in a position where he needed to guide them back from sizeable deficits that a woeful defense consistently placed him in. There is reason to believe that the veteran Quarterback will continue to play at reasonably high level, particularly in a contract year, though it remains to be seen how potent the attack will be after parting ways with veteran playmakers such as Thielen and Cook. However, it’s nigh impossible to envision this team winning as many games again if the defense doesn’t improve considerably, which is where Flores will earn his money. While we are convinced that their 13-4 finish was an anomaly, Minnesota still appears to be the most formidable team in what looks to be a wide-open NFC North. They should be a playoff team come January, but anything more than that is a reach at this point…
