Football Outsiders’ projections aren’t buying the Vikings’ offense – should you?

[purplefaithful]

The NFL analytics website Football Outsiders is not impressed by the Minnesota Vikings’ changes on offense.
In their 2017 projections, FO ranked the Vikings as the 22nd best offense in the league in DVOA – a stat that adjusts yards to situations. Last year, Minnesota finished 26th in DVOA.
http://www.1500espn.com/vikings-2/2017/0...s-offense/

[Guest]

Bottom line:
Football Outsiders’ projection system is set up – as all projections are – to give a “most likely scenario” based on previous results. But the Vikings’ scenarios have a wider range of possible outcomes because of a unique set of circumstances last season.
Whether the Vikings and Bradford maximize all the possibilities on offense, well, Shurmur said it best:
“Now we’ve got to go out and do it.”

[Guest]

Well Bradford is a rich man who doesn't want to spend his golden years hobbling around, so he will continue to dink and dunk and stay out of harms way as much as possible!
I don't think so. He threw long passes with pinpoint accuracy when Norv was here, so we know he can do it. 
He's smart and he's accurate, just give him some time to throw and he will finally have that season where statistics and wins match up.

[Guest]

It's difficult to get a good read on the Vikings offense. On paper they should be better:

• Bradford getting a full off-season in the offense.
• Better depth at running back and guys like Cook and Murray are much better scheme fits, especially for running out of the shotgun/pistol and contributing in the passing game.
• Healthy Diggs and a maturing Thielen at WR. Treadwell is still a question mark, but has had more time to get healthy/adapt to the NFL, and rookie receivers like Coley and Adams have flashed potential.
• The OL went through a catastrophic series of injuries last season that is unlikely to happen the same extent.
• They've also added 4 new starters to the OL in Reiff, Easton, Elflein, and Remmers. They may not all be long term pieces and we miss out on the benefit of continuity, but I think it is a better group than we've had recently. Not perfect, but if they can hover around the middle of the pack, then that would be a big improvement.
• Going through a scheme change. Gone are constant power and max protect sets and now they are more likely to spread the field and give the QB more options, whereas before they'd fail to block in max protect and leave the D with 6 or 7 defenders to stop 2 or 3 receiving options.

That being said, the offense didn't show much during the preseason, so while the pieces seem to be in place to improve, it's hard to feel confident about the changes until we start seeing results.

[Guest]

It all comes down to oline play. Bradford is good enough. The RBs are good enough. The receivers are good enough. 

If they can give Sam 2.5 seconds instead of 2 in the pass game, and improve our run game from 2 yards a carry into the 3s, it will be a MASSIVE improvement over last year. 

I sure hope they can. Oline was really the only thing holding this team back last year. Maybe this year will be different. It's certainly a different line as far as personel. Let's pray it is different as far as performance. 

[Guest]

Stupid drive killing penalties. If they can avoid them...