FTN’s Mike Randle and Matthew Coller (@MatthewColler) author of “Football Is A Numbers Game” check in with a 2024 Minnesota Vikings team preview. Sam Darnold or J.J. McCarthy? Aaron Jones Impact? Are Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison a Top 3 WR duo in the NFL? How great will this defense be in Brian Flores second season? Tune in to find out!
#minnesotavikings #vikings #fantasyfootball #minnesota #justinjefferson #samdarnold #jjmccarthy #jordanaddison #tjhockenson #nfcnorth #nfl
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welcome back to the ftn NFL team preview series hosted by boom fantasy your top choice for daily fantasy Sports Action boom fantasy Innovative games cater to casual and hardcore fans you can win up to 500 times your entry only at boom fantasy download on the App Store and Google Play use that promo code fdn to get a no sweep bonus up to $100 today we head out to Minnesota only person I talked to Matthew caller on X Matthew caller he’s the author of footballs is a numbers game he’s going to talk to us about the Vikings Matthew appreciate a few minutes let’s start at the big position quarterback here JJ McCarthy Sam darnold what are you hearing how’s it going so far well I I think right now Sam darnold is clearly the Vikings quarterback there really wasn’t any question about that through any point in OTAs in mini camp who was qb1 Sam darnold took every single rep with the starters McCarthy may have mixed in for a couple but not very many they kind of have it spread out so it’s the starters field over here and like your Thanksgiving me where the kitty tables over there for the less experienced players and JJ McCarthy spent the learning period of the off season as they call it at the Kitty table which is totally fine he only threw about 700 passes in college he was the youngest quarterback of the five of the six rather that got drafted in the first round and the Vikings made it really clear by paying Sam darnold 10 million and through everything that they’ve said to us which is we are going to be patient with JJ McCarthy we’re not going to rush this process we are not going to put him out there until he is 100% fully mastered the offense and who knows when that could be it could be three weeks into training camp and they feel like he’s just looking better than Sam darnold it could be 11 weeks into the season we really don’t know if I were to bet right now though I would say that Sam darnold will start week one and it wouldn’t be the biggest shock in the world if he started the entire season and they just let JJ McCarthy develop as much as nobody wants that for a first round draft pick I don’t have to tell you or your audience all the quarterbacks in the past who have sat the bench at first gotten their feet wet uh through preseason and practiced for a year with the team and then taken over as the quarterback but I think they really do believe that Sam darnold could have this mid-career surge as we’ve seen from some other guys like Gino Smith or going back to Jake plumber who struggled so much with the Arizona Cardinals or even if you want to shout out rich scanon you know there’s been a lot of quarterbacks whove done this over the years that struggled at first and then eventually improved and from what we saw in mini camp I thought Sam darnold looked very very comfortable in Kevin OK connell’s offense especially when Justin Jefferson showed up to mini camp then he looked even more comfortable yeah Justin Jefferson makes us all look good let’s go to The Back Field of course you can tie in the offensive line Aaron Jones has come over here from Green Bay obviously versatile passing running game so prolific with the Packers Tai Chandler right now scheduled to be the backup talk about the running back touch aair and offensive line as we head into 2024 yeah Aaron Jones is definitely going to be the guy for this team I mean they brought him in because they’ve been one of the worst running teams over the last two years since Kevin oconnell took over and they experimented with Alexander Madison as RB W last year but he’s more of a backup type of running back and when Tai Chandler got his opportunity he was really terrific at times a very explosive Runner runs a sub four4 but he’s also like 210 215 pounds so he could break tackles and has that big play explosive ability but he really didn’t show much of a capability to be a three down back the pass protection was a real struggle I think he can catch the ball out of the back field to some extent but not in a difference making way so they wanted to go out and get Aaron Jones to be that three down back the question with Aaron Jones is always how much can you put on his plate because he was injured last year for a handful of Games took him until the second half of the season to get healthy and then in the playf he goes completely off and the Vikings would love that version over 17 games but we all know about running backs in the age curve and so forth there’s only a handful of running backs that have even gone for a thousand yards past the age of about 28 in recent years so I expect that there will be a split in the share and also I expect that regardless of who’s playing quarterback Kevin oconnell is gonna pass that football I mean there were times last year where Josh dos was the starting quarterback or Nick Mullins and you would think well all right they’re going to play conservative they’re going to play it safe not really no they just kept throwing the ball because that’s what their offense is built around so Sam darnold’s gonna get his chances to throw for a lot of yards I think and uh the one thing that will benefit him though is better pass protection in the back field and probably a lot of throws toward Aaron Jones and Tai Chandler the last two years the receiving game out of the back field has been pretty miserable but I think Jones is a massive upgrade there I just wouldn’t expect some 12 or 1300 yard season from him yeah and think the offensive line should be better also and if they’re going to pass the ball they certainly have the weapons to do it Justin Jefferson death Taxas best receiver in the game but also Jordan Addison who really pop showed big playability here really shows a chance to get down that field and have a lot of of passes come his way we’ll get into hackinson the tight ends in a minute but specifically talk about that pass protection and about those two gold and wide receivers who are Elite yeah I mean from a fantasy perspective I wouldn’t expect Jordan Edison to score all the touchdowns as he h did last year but there is a lot of attention that goes to Justin Jefferson in the Red Zone you know we review the all 202 tape and everything after every game and every time the Vikings got inside the 20 it was three guys paying attention to Justin Jefferson so when you hear oh well he doesn’t score that many touchdowns it’s similar to the Julio Jones thing where if the opposing team puts every player on him you just throw it to somebody else and that’s what really helped Jordan Addison I think it will again for this year but one thing that I noticed from Addison and spoke with him about was just improving from year one to year two because he came into the league on the lighter side and what we’ve seen from him put on a little bit of weight not too much to the where he’s slowing down but just that natural rookie to sophomore year what he said he really worked on and the cornerbacks were were commenting on this as well is his releases off the line of scrimmage when you’re in college yeah you’re working on some details but in the NFL you better have a strong game plan off the line of scrimmage so he’s been work working quite a bit on that in the off season he is a total football junkie so I’m not surprised that he would have a main focus to try to get better even if he has a similar season to last year that would be still very solid but with the fact that KJ Osborne left for the New England Patriots and Brandon Powell right now is wide receiver three and TJ hackinson is probably not going to start the season the target share for Jordan Addison could be extremely high and you know it’s going to go toward Justin Jefferson I I’ve seen some people wondering well if it’s not Kurt Cousins is is he G to get yeah he’s going to get his catches because even when Nick Mullins was playing he threw for 400 yards in two separate games or 395 or something like that it was like 800 yards in two games mostly just targeting Justin Jefferson the whole offensive scheme is built to get Jefferson open so I promise everyone that Sam darnold or JJ McCarthy will be throwing the football in his Direction I know that’s GNA happen well any you mentioned hackinson any up update any idea when he will be back because obviously when he’s on the field short to intermediate routes open things deep and the sidelines as well for your ex- receivers update on TJ hackinson health and and a projection of when you think he gets back on the field yeah as far as what we saw in ota’s in mini camp he was just working out on a side field as all players recovering from injuries do and was not doing a whole heck of a lot there might have been some jogging mixed in but that was about it with hackinson it was really unfortunate because he hurt the ACL and the MCL so they had to let the MCL heal before they could do the ACL surgery pushing it back on his timeline so I think it was maybe January or even into February when they ended up doing that surgery that makes the extended time for him to come back uh a lot more than it would have been if they could have done the surgery a day or two after he got hurt I wouldn’t expect to see him for a I don’t know four to six weeks into the season I mean we have seen ACLS get a lot easier for people to recover from that surgery than in the past but normally it takes a while before somebody is fully ramped up even if you have just a knee cleanup or a little ankle something surgery wise in Mis training camp it it doesn’t just like oh throw them out this isn’t Madden like oh he’s he’s ready to go just popping back out there and I think they signed Robert tanion in part because of that he looked really good in mini camp by the way but I don’t have high expectations in the first quarter of the season of seeing much from TJ hackinson and it would be uh thrilling for them if they could get him back anytime sooner than that but I think they’re going to be patient with that one and listen let’s turn to the defense here last question then I’ll get you out of here the defense dramatically improved per Aaron shots here at ftn Fantasy dvoa went from 24th to 11th overall defensively and then you look at the draft here Matthew all of a sudden the way things fell in the first round there’s Dallas Turner sitting at pick 17 so thoughts here on the defense because this is a fairly decent schedule that you have you have some at at non-conference games not too difficult and then you have some Road matchups Giants Titans I mean winnable games here so talk about the defense which had a huge Improvement last year and I think can really fortify depending on the quarterback situation a schedule that I think is is somewhat reasonable for the Vikings this year yeah I mean what Brian Flores did for this defense cannot be understated because uh Aaron shot’s ranking is pretty solid I think from what I saw last year and if they had had a couple injuries at the end of the year which the Lions kind of beat their faces in on defense when they were playing with kind of half the squad but if they had had a full defense maybe they even sneak into shots as top 10 there and that was entirely just scheme I mean the the talent on that defense last year outside of denil Hunter uh was not reflective of a top 15 defense and yet he blitzed the ton used guys in a lot of different ways discovered Ivan Pace Jr and Josh matelis who were not on our Radar really at all and those guys ended up playing a ton of snaps really valuable roles and then they go out this year and they make two day one free agency signings and Jonathan grenard and Andrew van gingle which are big uh two you know players that could be versatile for them especially van gingle does a lot of different things well and then in the draft getting Dallas Turner so what Brian Flores is now doing is getting those chess pieces that he likes to use in a lot of different ways and then maybe a couple of quiet signings that could be improvements even if they’re not star players like Jerry Tillery who was a first round bust but actually had some moments last year for the Raiders and then sha Griffin who’s bounced around but as a veteran player that’s better than having someone who’s a replacement level player so I think they’re a much deeper defense and a more developed defense from last year um and that they’ve made up pretty well for losing denal Hunter it’s really when you talk about that schedule it’s really the start of the schedule okay they open with the Giants but after that you got you know CJ stra Jordan love you’re not too far away from that Lions offense so they will be really tested early on but I think overall the expectation is this defense could hover around the top 10 again yeah great Point as always folks that’s as about as robust as you’re going to get a breakdown the Vikings in 10 minutes got to follow Matthew caller on X at Matthew ker author of football is a numbers game covers of Vikings does a great job Matthew thank you so much for a few minutes here looking forward to coming back together with you in August as we get closer to the season exciting times who’s going to be quarterback Justin Jefferson is signed looking for the Vikings to have a big big season especially with that defensive Improvement sounds good Mike thanks for having me on man the NFL team preview series is sponsored by boom fantasy your top choice for daily fantasy Sports Action boom fantasy has the most Innovative games that cater to both casual and hardcore fans win up to 500 times your entry only at boom fantasy download now on the App Store and Google Play use promo code ftn to get a no sweat bonus of up to $100
