By Eric Eager
VP of Research and Development at SumerSports
Hi everyone. I’m back. Actually, I really never left. I’ve just moved to SumerSports, where I’m a partner and the VP of Research and Development. For those that are friends of my old podcast, the PFF Forecast, I’ve started a new podcast with former Falcons General Manager Thomas Dimitroff, the SumerSports Show, which you can find it on YouTube and also all of the major podcast platforms. I will also continue to guest on all of the Purple Insider stuff.
In fact, I wanted to write about this season’s Vikings. As many know, I’ve been critical of the team for a few years now, but with the new regime taking over I think there is a case for optimism. Through seven weeks, that case has been made. Sure, the Vikings are not an elite team statistically - coming into the week they were 17th in Football Outsiders DVOA (14th on offense, 21st on defense) and 13th in PFF’s power rankings, which made them about two points better than the average team on a neutral field. My friend Ben Baldwin’s market-based metric shined a little more on the purple, making them the sixth-best team in the league, about 3.3 points better than the average team on a neutral field. They’ve only covered the closing line in two games so far this year, so if you bet a $100 on them each week you’d be down $240.
With all that said, they are sitting at 5-1, two-and-a-half games ahead of the Green Bay Packers, with a head-to-head victory in their back pocket. As of Sunday night, PFF had them with an 88% chance to make the playoffs and an 82% chance to win the division for the first time in the Kirk Cousins era. We are very likely going to see the Vikings in the postseason, which would put Kevin O’Connell in rarefied air in terms of first-year Vikings coaches. Only Dennis Green, who won the NFC Central in 1992 with an 11-5 record, has made the playoffs as a first-year Vikings coach, and only Jerry Burns, who guided the 1986 team to a 9-7, playoff-less, campaign, has had a winning record in his first stanza at the helm.
However, it’s not either one of those teams that this Vikings squad reminds me of. It’s actually the 2006 team, guided by first-year head coach Brad Childress, that is giving me flashbacks when I think of the 2022 squad. As many remember, the Childress era got off to a rocky start, going 6-10 in year one and 8-8 in year 2, losing the last two games of 2007 with a chance to make the playoffs. What people might forget is that the 2006 squad also got off to a hot start.
They went to Washington in week one - the first-ever Monday Night Football game played on ESPN, and won 19-16, as Washington’s kicker Jon Hall missed a 48-yard field goal at the buzzer. In the second week of the year, the Vikings couldn’t muster any offense (feel familiar?), but forced overtime with great special teams (feel familiar?) - a touchdown pass from kicker Ryan Longwell to H-Back Richard Owens. Longwell then booted the game-winner in OT and the Vikings were 2-0. They lost close games to Chicago (who would later represent the NFC in the Super Bowl) and Buffalo, before beating Detroit at home in a game where they had to erase a 14-point deficit (feel familiar?) and win as six-point favorites.
The win that had Vikings fans (including me) believing that the team had something was them going into Seattle after the bye as seven-point underdogs. They knocked Matt Hasselbeck out of the game (feel familiar?), got a big 95-yard run from Chester Taylor, a touchdown pass from Melwelde Moore, a defensive score and a good game from Brad Johnson to win 31-13. The team was 4-2, in a weak NFC (8-8 was good enough to make the playoffs that year, and 10-6 was enough to get a bye in the playoffs), with a quarterback playing below his career standard and a defense that was making plays - having scored three defensive touchdowns up until that point.
But that team was not very good, at least statistically. It was the first year of PFF charting, and they had them as the 17th best team per their Elo metric, while Football Outsiders had them 21st in DVOA (25th on offense and 13th on defense). The upcoming schedule was not considered all that difficult, either, with a down-ish Patriots team coming into the Metrodome in week 8, the Packers sporting a 2-4 record at the time, another game with Detroit, three more games against a bad NFC West, and games against the Dolphins and Jets.
There are also some additional crazy similarities between the 2006 team and the 2022 team. The Vikings 2006 first-round pick, Chad Greenway, was being beaten out for a starting linebacker job by veterans E.J. Henderson and Napolean Harris, before sustaining a season-ending injury on a special teams play (in the first preseason game, mind you). Vikings fans hope Lewis Cine can make a recovery similar to Greenway’s. The 2006 draft also had a second-round corner who was injury prone in year one, but eventually contributed - as Cedric Griffin eventually supplanted Fred Smoot across Antoine Winfield. Ryan Cook was a second-round lineman that was mostly a disappointment…
Also, Brad Childress was a successful offensive coordinator who didn’t call plays for Andy Reid, whose Eagles made three-consecutive NFC Championship Games and one Super Bowl while he caddied for him, similar to O’Connell’s path in Los Angeles. Childress struggled as a play caller in year one - eventually handing those duties off to Darrell Bevell in year two - but was actually pretty good as an in-game strategist, going for a very woke fourth and one around his own 30 in a game against the Packers at the Metrodome. O’Connell has similarly struggled calling plays, but has mostly managed the games better than his predecessor, especially at the end of halves.
The Vikings were so disgusted with free agent pickup and former Eagles backup Mike McMahon that they had to trade a draft pick for backup Brooks Bollinger at the end of the preseason, akin to their recent trade for Nick Mullens.
There are also some differences. The 2006 Vikings were able to splash in free agency, acquiring Steve Hutchinson in the famous “poison pill” contract, along with Ben Leber, Chester Taylor, Tank Williams, Dwight Smith, Artis Hicks. They traded their franchise quarterback, Daunte Culpepper, to the Dolphins and let Nate Burleson walk, leaving them with two second round picks and two third round picks (they later traded up in the second to take Tavaris Jackson). The 2022 Vikings team had nowhere close to the freedom that the 2006 club did, by virtue of keeping Kirk Cousins instead of trading him.
The 2006 Vikings were the start of a run of teams that would finish first in the NFL in rushing defense three straight years (and second in 2009), but their pass defense would tie for last in 2006, as their leading sack man (defensive end Darion Scott) had as many sacks (5.5) as Za’Darius Smith has through six games. The Vikings this year don’t have any defensive or special teams touchdowns, while the 2006 team would end the year with seven such plays. Brad Johnson averaged 6.3 yards per pass attempt, and threw almost twice as many interceptions (15) as touchdowns (nine), earning a PFF grade of 58.9. Kirk Cousins has had a down year for him statistically (6.6 yards per pass attempt, five interceptions), but there is almost no chance he plays his way out of the starting job by season’s end the same way Johnson did, or that he’ll be a backup in his next stop like the journeyman.
There was no one on the 2006 team as talented as Justin Jefferson is, although both teams were similarly bad at receiver depth. Marcus Robinson famously led the team in receiving for much of the year, only to be cut by Childress on Christmas Eve, after the team fell out of contention.
Everyone knows how the 2006 story ends. They got blown out at home on Monday Night Football against the Patriots (with Brad Johnson throwing three interceptions - a MNF feat Cousins has already achieved this year), before bad losses to San Francisco, Green Bay and Miami. They would muster only two wins the rest of the year, one against the Cardinals starting rookie Matt Leinart and one in Detroit, because of course. They would finish the year 22nd in PFF Elo, 21st in Football Outsider’s DVOA (which is interestingly where they were after their 4-2 start). They would pick seventh in the 2007 NFL draft, select Adrian Peterson, Sidney Rice and others, and be in the NFC title game just a few years later.
Is that the destiny for the 2022 squad? I think a few things are working in the Vikings favor relative to the 2006 club. Firstly, the quarterback is much better - while Kirk Cousins is very limited, and appears to be on the decline, he’s not going to turn the ball over as frequently as Brad Johnson did. Secondly, the NFC might be even weaker in 2022 than it was in 2006. Aside from the Eagles, all of the teams considered by many to be in the upper tier of the conference all have major flaws. The 2006 version of the Eagles, the Chicago Bears, were in the Vikings’ division and running away with it, preventing the purple from one avenue to the playoffs. No such juggernaut is in the Vikings’ division this season, so even if they regress some, they are still very likely to make the playoffs and have a home game in it - much like Denny’s 1992 club.
So, as you prepare to watch the second chapter of the 2022 Vikings season; don’t say I didn’t warn you. While it’s unlikely that they will have a collapse like 2006, the similarities and precedent are there. Here’s to more continued luck the rest of the way.
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Dr. Eager, wanted to say thanks. I do not gamble and could not care less about sports betting. Yet, I listened to the forecast every week and felt smart for it. This is the highest praise I can offer.
It may not be a magical season because the Vikings have a few holes, but I think they are almost a lock to win ten games and secure the division top spot in the NFC north.