Great article, but I just can't get myself that worked up over the schedule, and the theoretically herculean difficulty that it supposedly represents. According to Football Outsiders, in 2018 our schedule was the 6th easiest, last year our schedule was the 13th easiest (pretty close to middle of the pack), and in 2017 our schedule was the 7th hardest. Our overall strength of schedule, to this point, oddly hasn't that been that big of a factor in how we did.
And even if it were a big factor, this year, using what Vegas has as expected win totals, we have... the 13th easiest schedule.
Incidentally, we are also playing all 4 of the teams that are most likely to regress according to Bill Barnwell, such that a lot of the people that are saying that the Vikes have this crazy hard schedule may not be doing enough to account for likely regression in Vikings opponents.
I think that if Kubiak can get this offense to not be shut down by elite DLs and if one of our new CBs or our new-look DL can be above average (none of which I would bet on, to be clear) that the Vikings are plenty good enough to get over a hump. I think it is unlikely that we will be held back by our schedule. If you look at superbowl odds, the Vikings don't play any of the top 3 teams and only have 5 games against top 13 teams. For comparison's sake, the Packers play 7 games against top 11 teams, the Niners play 7 against top 13 teams, and the Saints play 6 games against top 11 teams. We will be competing for playoff spots against teams that play more of the best teams than we will. The top teams have always been where we struggled (e.g., we went 0-5 against top 10 teams by DVOA in 2018), so the fact that we are largely avoiding them means that, of all things, it does not feel like our SoS will be our downfall in 2020.
I love reading Sando's article every year, largely because of how bewildering I think some of the ranking's are. Nothing like some good hate reading, ya know? Great way for me to feel superior to a bunch of NFL execs while I am sitting wrapped in a blanket with the posture of a banana. But seriously, there are a lot of very odd choices in that ranking, like Aaron Rodgers as the 3rd best QB in the league, which is hilariously indefensible IMO. I also find it extraordinarily unlikely that Drew Brees will be a clear top 10 QB by the time we face him in a theoretical week 16 matchup 3 weeks shy of his 42 birthday, much less a top 4 QB. Not that I think that Brees will be garbage, to be sure, but rather that I think that he'll be a generally middling QB, like basically every QB ever is when in their 41st year following years of years of showing signs of substantial and unquestionable physical decline. I get that Brady is older and hasn't slowed down that much, but then Brady bathes in avocados and baby tears every night while twisting his ankles behind his head to increase pliability. Brady showed less age than Brees did last year among a far far far worse offensive cast. Comparing the two isn't fair to Brady, which is a weird sentiment but I think correct.
Sando's list also criminally underrates Lamar, Big Ben, Wentz, and Dak, for my money. I would be TERRIFIED of the saints if they had any of those 4.
But still, point taken - Sando accurately points out that we face a LOT of "upper middle class" QBs this year, and face basically no bad QBs (only 3 games against True Biscuit and Minshew, and even the terrible Panthers have the also underrated Teddy to raise their floor). If one thinks that NFL talent is relatively even distributed between a best team and a worst team where a likelihood of success is directly related to how good an opponent is, our schedule is certainly very hard. I just don't happen to think that is true for the Vikings (I am the guy that sent you that long twitter rant about how good the vikes are against the middle class of the NFL). I think that Zimmer, so long as he has at least 4 or 5 great and versatile defensive pieces (which he certainly could this year, pending health), can create a scheme that can (and overwhelmingly does) play good enough to beat those offensive teams that stick to playbooks throughout a year and don't reinvent themselves too much every game, being weirdly under-the-radar fantastic against the beatable portion of his schedule in a way that he doesn't get enough credit for.
The teams that terrify me as a Vikings fan are teams that first and foremost have a defense that can consistently create strong inside and outside pressure with just a front 4 (good news is that there are only like 5 of these teams in the NFL, bad news is that two are in our division), and (to a lesser degree) offensively attack you with lots of good weapons rather than one elite weapon (e.g., I would rather face one MT or Julio or AB than a team that has Cooks and Woods and Kupp - if a team has a clear player they want to run their offense through that makes me feel better about the Vikings stopping them). For example, it might be weird, but I feel better about us playing the Seahawks and their elite QB (Russel is outstanding, obviously, but otherwise the Seahawks will probably have a predictable offensive philosophy and no pass rush to speak of) than the Colts and their fine QB (Buckner and Houston on the DL are the perfect recipe for an s-show, and I think Reich has a chance to make the offense dangerously duplicitious throwing equally around to TY and Paris and Pittman with Mack and Taylor being the new pass-catching Gordon and Ekelor). I have some hopes that Rivers won't yet be comfortable with all of his teammates by week 2 so we can squeak by, but still that is the exact kind of team that is tailor made to beat us.
I would contest the 2017 schedule point... they had two wins against Brett Hundley, two against rookie Mitch Trubisky, one against DeShone Kizer, one against Joe Flacco, one against the Bengals when reports came out their coach was getting fired...They lost to Big Ben, Stafford, Cam (yes, they also had very good wins vs. Atlanta and LAR) but who you beat, when you beat them and how things went your way makes a difference as part of the luck factor over a season.
Things like DVOA are a catch-all and they're helpful but it doesn't contextualize everything. And there's really no way of knowing before a season whether their schedule will make a difference or not. If it takes being a home playoff team to win and you lose 1 extra game because your schedule turned out to be tough (say it was against all healthy QBs or something), then it can matter. Whether that plays out this year and beyond is pretty random
Fair enough! Frankly I still buy that the 2017 team had a harder SoS relative to the rest of the league given how many of the best 2017 teams they played, but then 2017 was a pretty historically poor year across the board for the NFL, given how many important players or units were decimated by injuries (Rodgers went down, Luck went down, Palmer went down, Deshaun Watson went down, most of the Legion of Boom was hurt, etc.).
And moreover, I think your point that before a season it is a bit tricky to extrapolate too much from SoS is an EXCELLENT one (and is kinda what I was trying to say). Too much of a crapshoot, particularly in this year where it seems likely that at least a few teams may have starters miss a game or two for the 'rona.
Thanks for all the tidbits! Incidentally you won me a random internet debate this last week cuz I was telling people that there was a chance that Kubiak was actually slotting Ezra in at LG despite his cryptic way to saying it, and nothing gives me more irrational pride than winning anonymous internet debates about meaningless NFL preseason position battles.
That's a good point on the QB injuries of 2017....I guess my point is that the schedule can randomly play in your favor or against you and sometimes you need it to go your way in order to end up with home field or a 1 seed etc.
I'm glad I could win you an internet debate haha. I didn't think it made much sense to love Ezra to RG... that would be pretty tough. But I totally respect wanting to win internet arguments. Appreciate the thoughtful feedback!
If Zimmer embraces analytics more they would definitely get over the hump
Great article, but I just can't get myself that worked up over the schedule, and the theoretically herculean difficulty that it supposedly represents. According to Football Outsiders, in 2018 our schedule was the 6th easiest, last year our schedule was the 13th easiest (pretty close to middle of the pack), and in 2017 our schedule was the 7th hardest. Our overall strength of schedule, to this point, oddly hasn't that been that big of a factor in how we did.
And even if it were a big factor, this year, using what Vegas has as expected win totals, we have... the 13th easiest schedule.
https://bettoriq.com/sport/nfl/nfl-betting-evaluating-strength-of-schedule-for-the-2020-season/
Incidentally, we are also playing all 4 of the teams that are most likely to regress according to Bill Barnwell, such that a lot of the people that are saying that the Vikes have this crazy hard schedule may not be doing enough to account for likely regression in Vikings opponents.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/29634019/nfl-teams-most-likely-decline-2020-why-packers-seahawks-saints-lose-more-games
I think that if Kubiak can get this offense to not be shut down by elite DLs and if one of our new CBs or our new-look DL can be above average (none of which I would bet on, to be clear) that the Vikings are plenty good enough to get over a hump. I think it is unlikely that we will be held back by our schedule. If you look at superbowl odds, the Vikings don't play any of the top 3 teams and only have 5 games against top 13 teams. For comparison's sake, the Packers play 7 games against top 11 teams, the Niners play 7 against top 13 teams, and the Saints play 6 games against top 11 teams. We will be competing for playoff spots against teams that play more of the best teams than we will. The top teams have always been where we struggled (e.g., we went 0-5 against top 10 teams by DVOA in 2018), so the fact that we are largely avoiding them means that, of all things, it does not feel like our SoS will be our downfall in 2020.
Funny that we were talking about this and Mike Sando's tier rankings have the Vikings up against the toughest QB schedule this year https://twitter.com/SandoNFL/status/1296090153916669954?s=20
I love reading Sando's article every year, largely because of how bewildering I think some of the ranking's are. Nothing like some good hate reading, ya know? Great way for me to feel superior to a bunch of NFL execs while I am sitting wrapped in a blanket with the posture of a banana. But seriously, there are a lot of very odd choices in that ranking, like Aaron Rodgers as the 3rd best QB in the league, which is hilariously indefensible IMO. I also find it extraordinarily unlikely that Drew Brees will be a clear top 10 QB by the time we face him in a theoretical week 16 matchup 3 weeks shy of his 42 birthday, much less a top 4 QB. Not that I think that Brees will be garbage, to be sure, but rather that I think that he'll be a generally middling QB, like basically every QB ever is when in their 41st year following years of years of showing signs of substantial and unquestionable physical decline. I get that Brady is older and hasn't slowed down that much, but then Brady bathes in avocados and baby tears every night while twisting his ankles behind his head to increase pliability. Brady showed less age than Brees did last year among a far far far worse offensive cast. Comparing the two isn't fair to Brady, which is a weird sentiment but I think correct.
Sando's list also criminally underrates Lamar, Big Ben, Wentz, and Dak, for my money. I would be TERRIFIED of the saints if they had any of those 4.
But still, point taken - Sando accurately points out that we face a LOT of "upper middle class" QBs this year, and face basically no bad QBs (only 3 games against True Biscuit and Minshew, and even the terrible Panthers have the also underrated Teddy to raise their floor). If one thinks that NFL talent is relatively even distributed between a best team and a worst team where a likelihood of success is directly related to how good an opponent is, our schedule is certainly very hard. I just don't happen to think that is true for the Vikings (I am the guy that sent you that long twitter rant about how good the vikes are against the middle class of the NFL). I think that Zimmer, so long as he has at least 4 or 5 great and versatile defensive pieces (which he certainly could this year, pending health), can create a scheme that can (and overwhelmingly does) play good enough to beat those offensive teams that stick to playbooks throughout a year and don't reinvent themselves too much every game, being weirdly under-the-radar fantastic against the beatable portion of his schedule in a way that he doesn't get enough credit for.
The teams that terrify me as a Vikings fan are teams that first and foremost have a defense that can consistently create strong inside and outside pressure with just a front 4 (good news is that there are only like 5 of these teams in the NFL, bad news is that two are in our division), and (to a lesser degree) offensively attack you with lots of good weapons rather than one elite weapon (e.g., I would rather face one MT or Julio or AB than a team that has Cooks and Woods and Kupp - if a team has a clear player they want to run their offense through that makes me feel better about the Vikings stopping them). For example, it might be weird, but I feel better about us playing the Seahawks and their elite QB (Russel is outstanding, obviously, but otherwise the Seahawks will probably have a predictable offensive philosophy and no pass rush to speak of) than the Colts and their fine QB (Buckner and Houston on the DL are the perfect recipe for an s-show, and I think Reich has a chance to make the offense dangerously duplicitious throwing equally around to TY and Paris and Pittman with Mack and Taylor being the new pass-catching Gordon and Ekelor). I have some hopes that Rivers won't yet be comfortable with all of his teammates by week 2 so we can squeak by, but still that is the exact kind of team that is tailor made to beat us.
Thanks for giving it a read and for the feedback.
I would contest the 2017 schedule point... they had two wins against Brett Hundley, two against rookie Mitch Trubisky, one against DeShone Kizer, one against Joe Flacco, one against the Bengals when reports came out their coach was getting fired...They lost to Big Ben, Stafford, Cam (yes, they also had very good wins vs. Atlanta and LAR) but who you beat, when you beat them and how things went your way makes a difference as part of the luck factor over a season.
Things like DVOA are a catch-all and they're helpful but it doesn't contextualize everything. And there's really no way of knowing before a season whether their schedule will make a difference or not. If it takes being a home playoff team to win and you lose 1 extra game because your schedule turned out to be tough (say it was against all healthy QBs or something), then it can matter. Whether that plays out this year and beyond is pretty random
Fair enough! Frankly I still buy that the 2017 team had a harder SoS relative to the rest of the league given how many of the best 2017 teams they played, but then 2017 was a pretty historically poor year across the board for the NFL, given how many important players or units were decimated by injuries (Rodgers went down, Luck went down, Palmer went down, Deshaun Watson went down, most of the Legion of Boom was hurt, etc.).
And moreover, I think your point that before a season it is a bit tricky to extrapolate too much from SoS is an EXCELLENT one (and is kinda what I was trying to say). Too much of a crapshoot, particularly in this year where it seems likely that at least a few teams may have starters miss a game or two for the 'rona.
Thanks for all the tidbits! Incidentally you won me a random internet debate this last week cuz I was telling people that there was a chance that Kubiak was actually slotting Ezra in at LG despite his cryptic way to saying it, and nothing gives me more irrational pride than winning anonymous internet debates about meaningless NFL preseason position battles.
That's a good point on the QB injuries of 2017....I guess my point is that the schedule can randomly play in your favor or against you and sometimes you need it to go your way in order to end up with home field or a 1 seed etc.
I'm glad I could win you an internet debate haha. I didn't think it made much sense to love Ezra to RG... that would be pretty tough. But I totally respect wanting to win internet arguments. Appreciate the thoughtful feedback!