NFC North Over/Unders 2024

Bryan Knowles: Welcome back to our preseason series of over/under reviews! If you missed the surprisingly contentious return of our dueling picks, starting with the NFC East, there’s still time to catch up before we move on to our second division of the year, the high-potential, unproven NFC North.

Cale Clinton: We kicked off on what we considered the most frustrating division to try and predict. I think that’s what led to some of that divisiveness. Now, I won’t call the NFC North the easiest division to predict, but I’m going to go out on a limb and argue we’re about to cover the most fun division in football this season. Two of the biggest stories of last year’s season were the meteoric rise of Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love and the arrival of the Detroit Lions to the contender conversation. I don’t know if I’ve seen a more electric playoff atmosphere than what Ford Field gave us during the divisional round last year. Now, you’ve got a Chicago Bears team that has completely overhauled its offense and a Minnesota Vikings team that can make any game interesting with Justin Jefferson and the blitz-happy Brian Flores defense. That’s about as much fun as you can ask for from one division.

Bryan: It also feels like a division where, in 2026 or so, we’re going to be able to say “Team X has become the dominant force in the conference, and it all started in late 2023 when…”. I don’t know how you fill in the rest of that sentence though. Is it Love taking the leap? Is it the Lions finding a pass defense to go with their explosive offense? Was it the Bears finally, finally hitting on a quarterback and placing him with a deep skill position group? Was it the decision to move on from Kirk Cousins and roll the dice on a rookie? I don’t know, and I’m fairly sure at least two of those decisions will end up backfiring and be good material for jokes in the not-too-distant future. But something here is going to work, and that makes for excitement in the now. 

Cale: This division has all the makings of the NFL equivalent to the “NBA League Pass Team.” Throwing on Sunday Ticket on a Sunday, having one of these four teams in your quad-box display guarantees you a good time. Now, how these teams shake out in the standings is a whole other story. Let’s dive into this division, kicking things off by drinking some Honolulu Blue Kool-Aid.

Detroit Lions (10.5)

Bryan: Our projections have the San Francisco 49ers as prohibitive favorites in the NFC because there isn’t another established top dog in the conference. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be one, it means that we’re all waiting to see which team takes that step forward and becomes a regular, year-in and year-out contender. The odds are that one of the four or five teams in that second tier in the conference will take that next step forward; there’s just no way to predict ahead of time with any degree of certainty which one that will be. The Lions haven’t been regular top contenders since, well, the 1950s, but the sense of optimism in Detroit is both real and justified. Probably. And not just in a “oh, they made the NFC Championship last season, so they’re the obvious contenders-in-waiting” sense, but in an actual sense of building something special.

Cale: They legitimately feel like the real deal. We see teams make the playoffs all the time that are just happy to be there. Either they are too early to really compete, or too late in their cycle to still be a threat. Bad divisional play, an easy schedule, a lop-sided skillset, there are so many red flags for teams that are just there to serve as highlights for another team’s Super Bowl DVD. The Detroit Lions, on the other hand, just feel like a team that is legitimately well-constructed across the board. A great coach, solid quarterback, diverse skill position players, quality offensive line, guys at every layer of the defense. Are they perfect? Not by any stretch, but these Lions belonged in the NFC Championship just as much as the San Francisco 49ers. Now, the Lions have their test run under their belt and spent the offseason plugging holes and gearing up for a potential long-term window of contention. 

Bryan: The party piece for the Lions is the best offensive line in football. Taylor Decker, Frank Ragnow and especially Penei Sewell make up the foundation for a line that both produces some of the lowest pressure rates in the league (just 26.5% last season) and has a fantastic blend of technique and raw, kneecap-biting power in run blocking. They can weather the loss of Jonah Jackson for a season with Kevin Zeitler; that’s a long-term concern but not something that should be concerning in 2024. The entire offense grows out from the confidence that the line is going to match anything opposing defenses can throw out of them, and it allows them to cultivate and produce Good Jared Goff. We know who Goff is at this point in time. He’s not a straw-that-stirs-the-drink passer. But give him a clean pocket, plenty of play-action and motion, and he can run your offense at a high level. Maybe I don’t love giving him $53 million a year, but a) who else are you going to run out there this year, and b) he’s shown he can have success behind this line and with Ben Johnson calling the plays. Johnson has created one of the most explosive offenses in football despite having a quarterback Sean McVay decided he couldn’t win with and a receiving corps that features Amon-Ra St. Brown and the proverbial Pips. So hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

Cale: The cost of doing business in the modern day quarterback market is nasty, but to secure someone like Goff long-term at least provides stability around what is otherwise a very young offense. Getting your star running back, wide receiver, tight end, and tackle all on rookie deals is a massive boon for any offense. That all provides the opportunity to even pay Goff in the first place. (St. Brown and Sewell both agreed to extensions this offseason, but their deals don’t jump in value until 2026.) At this point in his career, Goff is just a solid, reliable quarterback option. Call him a Ben Johnson merchant all you want, but Goff has now posted back-to-back seasons with a top-five passing DVOA and DYAR. That’s a feat he was never able to accomplish under Sean McVay. This man is playing the best quarterback play of his career, working downfield more, and upping his accuracy. He still struggles under pressure, but this is a real B, B-plus option at quarterback. In my opinion, you can win a Super Bowl with the right pieces.

My only concern with this offense comes from the pieces themselves. St. Brown has provided enough of a sample size to comfortably make him a proven WR1. If last year’s numbers hold, he can solidify himself as a top-ten receiver this season. LaPorta just posted the best DYAR by a rookie tight end since Mark Andrews, and his tape shows a similar do-it-all style of play. That’s an elite pairing for any quarterback to have, it’s just the rest of the cast that gives me pause. The top option behind LaPorta is Brock Wright, a primary blocking tight end. Jameson Williams has yet to make a consistent contribution, though he seemingly started to put together during the late half of the season. Kalif Raymond had a hyper-efficient 37.4% DVOA on 44 targets last year, but those targets have gone down consistently each season. The next four receivers on the roster – Donovan Peoples-Jones, Daurice Fountain, Tom Kennedy, and Antoine Green – combined for 22 receptions in 2023. I’m not saying Detroit’s offense has to be five or six weapons deep the way San Francisco is, but it would be nice for the Lions to have one reliable option beyond St. Brown and LaPorta. That worry is likely more a concern for the playoffs than the regular season, but it is the one thing in my mind holding this offense back from reaching top-tier status. 

Bryan: I’m also optimitic-ish about their defense entering the top 10. I have no idea how they’re going to defend any deep shots, though adding rookies Terrion Arnold and Ennis Rakestraw and bringing in Carlton Davis should help bolster a defense that gave up an 81.6% DVOA on deep passes, 21st in the league. But I respect a defense that goes “we will defend the deep pass by clobbering your quarterback before your receivers have time to run a route”. You’ve got budding superstar Aiden Hutchinson and underrated Alim NcNeil, and you’re adding D.J. Reader and Marcus Davenport to the mix? Maybe getting a Year 2 boost from Jack Campbell behind them? I still think the Lions are going to get involved in maybe a few too many shootouts for my liking, but I think they’ve got enough here to at least hang in there against the top offenses in the conference and obliterate the bad ones.

Cale: I think the thing that excites me most about this Detroit defense is how well they have done with developmental projects. The aforementioned McNeil has been an absolute stud the last season and change. Derrick Barnes is a legitimate run-stopper at the Mike. Kerby Joseph and Ifeatu Melifonwu were both third-round hits in back-to-back years, while Brian Branch already looks like one of the best young safeties in the league. They’ve also managed to hit on reclamation projects like Alex Anzalone, who has become a true all-around off-ball linebacker. Adding veteran presences like Reader, Davenport, and Amik Robertson to this mix is a solid way to bolster a defensive roster that has gotten better every year under Dan Campbell. 

Bryan: 10.5 is a high line. It’s actually the highest line the Lions have ever had in PFR’s database, apropos of the rather unprecedented expectations Detroit has on them this year. If two of their division rivals also reach their potential, I could see this being a frustrating 10-7 year, just missing out on hitting this prop. But I don’t think this is a one year flash-in-the-pan team. I think Dan Campbell and company have made measurable steps forward each and every season he’s been in charge, and while I’m not quite ready to crown them the pride of the NFC just yet, I don’t think they’re going to have to wait another 30 years before winning a playoff game. Over.

Cale: Give me the over and the repeat division title. This team has the top-end pieces to compete with any team in the NFL. We barely even mentioned how exceptional Campbell has been as a coach, especially on easy spots to earn analytics brownie points like fourth downs. The Detroit Lions are ready to compete with the best this league has to offer, and I’m not afraid to say it. 

Green Bay Packers (9.5)

Bryan: I am going to preface this with the note that I’m taking the over on the Packers. I believe their second-half offensive surge is more real than not, and while I don’t expect them to look like they did against the Cowboys every week in 2024, I like the direction the team is headed. I don’t think they have a No. 1 receiver on the roster right now, but they may have three No. 2s, and you can make that work. Defensively, Kenny Clark and Devonte Wyatt up the middle is a real area of undeniable strength and I like the addition of Jeff Haffley to try to round the rest of the lineup into shape. The upside here is exciting. I want to make that clear right up front, because I’m now going to talk about how the Jordan Love contract scares the hell out of me.

Love is basically getting his four-year, $220-million contract based on a half-season of work. A great half-season of work, mind you; months where he was one of the best quarterbacks around. Starting from Week 9 against Los Angeles, Love had a passing DVOA of 32.7%, third in the league behind Brock Purdy and Matthew Stafford. He had legitimately great performances against Kansas City, against Minnesota, and against Dallas in the playoffs when it seemed like he could not put a foot wrong. His confidence popped off the screen; he was accurate and fearless and creative and all things you want out of a franchise passer. I get the excitement and the potential; it had been a full six months since Green Bay had a quality starting quarterback and you could feel Packers fans beginning to break out in hives.

Of course, that wasn’t the story before November. While a pair of very poor primetime games against the Lions and Raiders may have colored public opinion of Love overly negatively, Love was at a -1.5% DVOA through the first two months of the season, 19th in the league. He was inaccurate, hesitant, and looked lost as if he did net yet understand the offense. Nor did he have a track record before the season, despite this being Love’s fourth year in the league. You have one bad start in 2021 against Kansas City, and then a bunch of cameos, preseason games, and practice highlights. You can make the argument that Love did not play a good game in the NFL until his 61st opportunity. That’s the problem with drafting a quarterback to sit behind someone, be they an established starter or a bridge – yes, Minnesota VIkings fans, I’m also talking to you now. You lose so much evaluation time on a player when they’re sitting on the bench, and a two-month sample size is simply not enough to feel confident that you have The Guy.

Kyler Murray’s massive contact came after a two-month sample size of great play in 2021, and he hasn’t put up back-to-back games with positive DVOA since signing it, even before the ACL tear. And we want to believe that Love’s more recent performance matters more than his earlier performance, because that fits the narrative of a young player and his young teammates improving and taking the leap. And yet, second-half performance is no more predictive than first-half performance. It’s not less predictive, mind you, but history tells us that we do not have enough information to know if Love is the guy we saw in December or the one we saw in October. The odds are he’s somewhere in between, and I’d say there’s enough film evidence to lean towards him being a top-10, maybe even top-five passer, but there’s not nearly enough there for me to feel comfortable making him the highest-paid player in football. There’s a real chance this blows up in their face, and I’d be biting my fingernails to the nub hoping that this works out.

Cale: Woo, say it with your chest, Bryan!

I am very much in your camp, albeit to a lesser extent. I am all game for singing Love’s praises. I’m someone who watched that first appearance as a backup against the Philadelphia Eagles and thought there was a real chance Aaron Rodgers was getting Wally Pipp’d in real time. Most of everything that I saw last year proved my hot takes right. At his best, Love’s arm and accuracy could compete with most other quarterbacks in the league. The second-half slump is undeniable, though. I agree with you, I want to see it again. I think Love will be fine, and maybe some of the reason to giving that deal this early is meant to be the Packers’ vote of confidence in who Love can be. I would probably have tried to wait another year to get that deal (but the way this market is trending, that hypothetical contract would have an extra $80 million in guaranteed money on there. That’s why they pay Brian Gutekunst the big bucks.)

It’s crazy to think that this Packers team was the youngest team in the league by snap-weighted age last year. Most of that youth was couched in the receiver and tight end room. Every single receiver or tight end with double-digit targets from Love last year – nine players in total – were all 25 or younger. Of Love’s top five targets, four were under 24. It’s one thing to manage a skill position group this young. It’s another to have all of them excel. Dontayvion Wicks, Jayden Reed, and Romeo Doubs all accrued receiving DYARs over 100, and all three along with Christian Watson posted positive receiving DVOAs. Tucker Kraft finished third among all qualifying tight ends in DVOA his rookie season. Let’s see how Josh Jacobs comes back from a quad injury with a better offensive line, but one thing is for sure: Love is all set in the passing attack. 

Defensively, the change at coordinator can likely only be an improvement over years past. Green Bay really let one solid year from Joe Barry (which was arguably a carry-over talent-wise from the Pettine regime) dictate their defensive futures, and mixed results from defensive prospects like Quay Walker and Eric Stokes haven’t made things any easier. The Jeff Hafley defense will take some time to really come into shape, especially without the personnel in place, but a healthy Jaire Alexander playing alongside Xavier McKinney should put the defensive floor much higher than last year. A leap from Lukas Van Ness would really make this a formidable pass rush as well. 

Bryan: Again, I must be clear – I’m taking the over. I’ve got Love as an above-average quarterback this season, I like the odds of at least a couple of Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, Jayden Reed or Dontavion Wicks taking the next step forward, and I think they’ll be able to juggle all the moving parts on the offensive line to make things work even with David Bakhtiari gone. Defensively, without Darnell Savage, De’Vondre Campbell and [still] Rasul Douglas, I think the Packers defense will be bad, but not terrible – and if the offense is as good as they hope, it will make up for the growing pains there. I just would be holding my breath for about the first month of the season; at least until Love has more career pass attempts than Kenny Pickett.

Cale: Ditto. Green Bay has a tough schedule, and in this division it feels like anything can happen. Jordan Love just seems like the guy, especially with what he was able to do in his first full year in the league. Another year of maturity for this post-grad receiving corps, a fresh start for the defense, and some minor roster upgrades puts the over within grasp.

Chicago Bears (8.5)

Cale: Everything in the air feels like 2024 is the year the Bears finally get back on track. Caleb Williams isn’t Justin Fields. He’s a true No. 1 overall talent that falls just shy of the generational label. Williams is also not walking into a situation where he has to compete with Andy Dalton, deal with Matt Nagy, and throw to a checked-out Allen Robinson as his WR2. Bears running backs always seem solid – this year is no exception – but I’m not sure a Bears passing game has ever looked this good on paper. Cole Kmet, DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, and Rome Odunze might be the most modern an 11 personnel Bears offense has ever looked. There isn’t a better situation for a rookie quarterback in the league than what Chicago has in store for Williams. Odunze seems so confident in this offense he’s already thinking about setting the franchise receiving record before his rookie contract is up. The concerted effort to build this line out through the draft gives Williams way better odds to survive in the pocket than FIelds ever had. 

Bryan: I think the Bears have hit it this time. It’s a new era with their exciting first-round quarterback. The scouts are raving – good arm strength, with the ability to put zip on throws on the first and second levels, willing to hang in under pressure to make throws, with a good understanding of concepts and what’s asked of him. And obviously, a good athlete and smooth runner. Yes, the Chicago Bears’ problems have been solved with the addition of Justin Fields…

…Wait a second, these are my old notes. Let me see here … Mitchell Trubisky, no, Rex Grossman, Cade McNown, Jim Harbaugh? No, no, no. Now, I know that none of these have any impact on whether or not Caleb Williams is the answer to the long-suffering Chicago quarterback situation, but I feel a little like Charlie Brown staring at Lucy holding the football – a reference which was born in and then died during the long Bears quarterback drought.

Cale: Ah, Chicago, the wasteland where quarterbacks go to die. It’s such a desert for arm talent in the Windy City that Sid Luckman still ranks second all-time for the Bears in passing yards … with 14,686 yards. He retired in 1950. Mitchell Trubisky, who barely finished out his rookie contract before getting run out of town, is somehow fifth all-time. This franchise has never had a great quarterback. They’ve barely had a good quarterback. Williams feels like the quarterback who will break that generational curse. Ryan Poles and the Bears have done everything from a roster-building standpoint to make sure Williams has everything he needs to succeed. Now, it’s just a matter of execution.

Bryan: To be clear, the Bears haven’t had nine or more wins in a season since 2018, and you have to go back to the mid-2000s to find a time when they were doing it on a regular basis. And there are so many ways this could go south, even if Williams ends up being the long-term answer at the position. He could struggle as a rookie, like so many good quarterbacks have done in the past – we can’t all be C.J. Stroud, after all. Or the weapons may not be as advertised – Keenan Allen and D’Andre Swift have missed quite a bit of time with injuries and Rome Odunze is a rookie. Injury luck could hit the line again; Tevin Jenkins and Nate Davis missed time last season and the Bears’ offensive DVOA dropped from -3.2% to -9.6% when at least one of them was out.

The second-half defensive improvement, as Chicago went from an 11.8% defensive DVOA to -11.8% could be a mirage. Yes, the addition of Montez Sweat and the corresponding increase in pressure rate gives an explanation as to why things got better, but defense is notoriously difficult to stick from year to year. The Bears were super-reliant on turnovers during that second-half stretch; take out turnovers for all teams and Chicago falls from sixth to 14th in defensive DVOA. I do not like the line outside of Sweat; I was stunned when they didn’t add any more pass rushing help this offseason because I don’t think DeMarcus Walker or Gervon Dexter moves the needle. Jaylon Johnson is exceptional and T.J. Edwards and Kevin Byard are solid players, but this is a defense composed more of holes than solutions, and I feel like they were playing above their true talent level to close 2023.

Cale: That second-half bump is real, and the turnover-heavy nature of the performance suggests it might not last. I do think that Sweat addition was exactly what this group needed, though. Having solid run-stuffers on the line like DeMarcus Walker and Andrew Billings on the line alongside a pass rush threat like Montez Sweat feels like the basis for a very solid defensive front. The 2023 overhaul at off-ball linebacker, ill-advised as it may be from a cap perspective, worked out well on the field. The addition of Byard alongside Jaquan Brisker can provide some variety and confusion in coverage shells, potentially making life easier on Johnson and Tyrique Stevenson. 

Bryan: You can make a list of “what if bad thing happens” for any team in the league if you want to be a pessimist. Not everything can go wrong will go wrong. And while you can not expect a rookie quarterback to have success off the bat, they always could, and Williams has the best odds and the best supporting cast (on paper) in the class. But you’re trying to convince me that the Bears, with a rookie quarterback, are going to be in the midst of the wildcard hunt, and I have too many concerns to overcome. I’m under at 8.5. I’d be under at 7.5. I’m tempted to go under at 6.5, which you can get at +350 if you shop around. I’m not down on Williams as a prospect, and the Bears may well have the bones of their next good team in place. I just don’t see it in 2024.

Cale: Bryan, I really wanted to break from you here. I wanted to throw in a whole paragraph arguing, “Hear me out, there is a world where the Bears are still solidly third place in this division and still hit their over mark.” Chicago faces off against the entire AFC South, the Los Angeles Rams, and the Carolina Panthers before their Week 7 bye. After that, they get the Commanders, Cardinals, and Patriots before a grueling last eight weeks of the season. You can be as confident in Caleb Williams as you want, but that back half of the season is a gauntlet. The entire division twice over, plus a trip to San Francisco and a Thursday night game against Seattle. I can patch together a long-shot outcome that gets the Bears to 5-4 or even 6-3 before the first Packers game Week 11, but finding three wins in that back half is nigh impossible. 

Your opinion of Caleb Williams directly dictates how you bet this team in the preseason. The infrastructure in Chicago might be the best it’s been in recent memory. The bar is not hard to clear, but this Bears offense feels downright formidable. I think this defense hovers right below average for most of the season, but that is a quality improvement and more than manageable for a winning team. This was a 7-10 team last year (playing the fourth-easiest schedule in the league by DVOA), and the Bears are markedly improved at most of the most impactful positions on the field. I just don’t think it matters this season. Even if Williams has a C.J. Stroud-esqe debut and has a similar supporting cast, the rest of the division is just too good to build out a rational way to hit that 8.5 mark. Under for me. 

Minnesota Vikings (7.5)

Bryan: …We’re really going to do this? We’re really going to pretend that Sam Darnold is a thing? That this is an acceptable bridge quarterback situation on the way to the eventual J.J. McCarthy era, one that may not begin until 2025 if you take Kevin O’Connell at face value? We’re just going to sit here and suggest that Darnold isn’t the worst veteran starting option in the league? Alright, then!

Cale: Are you not reading training camp reports about Sam Darnold’s downfield connections to Justin Jefferson, and subsequent Reddit posts from football astrologists about how the Gemini-to-Gemini connection is going to flip the NFC North on its head? No? Just me?

Bryan: I am on record saying that I would have kept Kirk Cousins, but that is in large part because I am a coward, and better the demon you know and all that. Cousins was having a very good season before tearing his Achilles midseason; his 13.7% passing DVOA still pinned him as a top-10 quarterback despite the lack of an established supporting cast outside of Justin Jefferson (who, to be fair, should double or triple in these kinds of discussions). I get that Cousins wasn’t going to be anything more than QB10 at this point in his career; I guess I just don’t agree that the Vikings needed to blow everything up and start a rebuild. Cousins is a cromulent quarterback, and I think that if he was under center for the current Vikings team, they’d be a wild card contender with the ability to get hot late. Minnesota wants to be more than that, and I get it, but I can’t help but think that a good chunk of Vikings fans will find them longing for Kirk by mid-October, as they struggle through McCarthy’s growing pains or Sam Darnold’s general Sam Darnoldness.

Cale: In all seriousness, I’m pretty out on the Minnesota Vikings quarterback room altogether. I was never in on McCarthy during the draft process. The lack of experience really scared me off him. If a team like Minnesota puts in the work and makes me look dumb, I’m more than happy to look like an idiot on this one. It shouldn’t be a thing I have to worry about this season with Darnold at the helm, though. Darnold as a starter sits somewhere in between Kirk Cousins and the carousel of characters that filled in for him following the injury. His work in San Francisco was unimpressive, but the track record since Carolina shows that Darnold can at least execute.

Frankly, all you need to do with this receiving corps is execute. When Justin Jefferson returned to start for the final four weeks of the season, he still managed to average 10.8 yards per target. His 18.3% receiving DVOA over those final weeks practically matches the 20.7% DVOA generated during the first five weeks before he got hurt. Anyone could throw it up to him and it would work. Jordan Addison is a different story. His -12.4% DVOA in the backup-riddled back half of the season pales in comparison to his 34.4% DVOA over eight weeks with Cousins. A good chunk of that on both sides came without Jefferson, to be fair, but that is a stark contrast fueled by inconsistency and inability at quarterback. Getting just one decent quarterback at the helm could fix things, though. Could that be Darnold? I doubt it, but maybe. 

Bryan: With a competent passer under center, the Vikings passing attack would be quite scary. Jefferson is the best receiver in football; Jordan Addison was amazing as a rookie, and T.J. Hockenson should be a nice midseason add when he returns from his torn ACL. Neither the line nor the running back room thrill me, but Aaron Jones is good when healthy and Christian Darrisaw and Brian O’Neill are a solid tackle pair. I don’t think I’d be crazy calling that an above-average unit if they had a quarterback I could trust.

The Vikings defense was…interesting to watch last year. We’ve gone over Brian Flores’ strategy of blitzing as much as humanly possible to make up for a lack of talent, with mixed but generally positive results. But now they’ve brought in Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel and Blake Cashman in free agency, and Dallas Turner in the draft. Harrison Smith still has juice in him, and Camryn Bynum and Josh Metellus makes for a competent three-safety set. I’m also reliably informed the Vikings employ interior lineman and cornerbacks, though I admit I’ve seen very little evidence of that. WIth Flores’ creative blitzes, I think that will be a AAA defense, by which I mean adequate, acceptable and generally all right.

Cale: The Flores defense’s identity is so singular in the NFL, you almost have to respect it. The last defense to blitz as much as Flores’ Vikings took the field in 2014. They used six-man blitzes at a rate nearly double that of the next-highest defense. Hell, they weren’t even great at it – Minnesota was 21st in pressure rate while blitzing – but a calling card is a calling card. The defensive churn might help them better execute on this vision of chaos, but without competent cornerback play I see this defense as more an annoyance for other teams to plan around than a unit that will single-handedly win the Vikings games. The injuries to Mehki Blackmon and Shaq Griffin don’t help matters. 

That’s why I have to take the under on Minnesota. This team collectively feels like it’s in a transition year. Sam Darnold is no longer the player you assign to be a long-term starting option, no matter the weapons around you. J.J. McCarthy has yet to take a single first team rep in training camp, and I think he’s the kind of quarterback project who might get sat the entire season. The Vikings defense is loaded with the kinds of veteran players you would be pumped to hear your team signed on a one- or two-year contract. It feels less exciting when nearly the whole unit is made out of those guys. This whole team is a mixed bag, and the rest of the division is way too good for this jumbled set of pieces to get wins with any consistency. 

Bryan: In the weak NFC, I think I could stretch all the way into seeing the Vikings as a playoff team if they had Cousins still on the roster – ignoring, of course, that their offseason would have looked very different had they decided to keep going with their old quarterback. If they could get through the brutal opening gauntlet of 49ers-Texans-Packers-Jets-(Bye)-Lions-Rams at even .500, the schedule opens up nicely. But even if J.J. McCarthy is the guy right off the bat…the Vikings are letting Sam Darnold absorb most of that early schedule. And that means too many losses to sniff a 7.5 line. Under.