Outside of a truly historic year from MVP Adrian Peterson in 2012, the Minnesota Vikings have failed to finish above .500 in four of the last five seasons. In fact, Minnesota has produced a winning record just three times since the 2006 season. Given their sub-par performances of late, last year's 7-9 team under rookie duo head coach Mike Zimmer and quarterback Teddy Bridgewater was a pleasant surprise. This year, the Vikings are hoping to break through the glass ceiling and push for the playoffs.
ESPN and Football Outsiders have come up with a projection system to reasonably predict a team's upcoming season results. The system projects a mean wins average of 8.5 games for the Vikings and a 41.8 percent chance of making the playoffs.
"Teddy Bridgewater's improvement in the final five games of the year is actually not a reason we see the Vikings as a rising team," Aaron Schatz wrote. "There's no consistent history for young quarterbacks improving late in the year and then carrying that improvement over to the next season. We do, however, like the Vikings to improve to average on offense because Bridgewater, like most second-year starters, should be better. Plus, the Vikings have experience and continuity on the offensive line, and they get Adrian Peterson back. The defense should continue to improve; Minnesota has a core of recently drafted talent that's young but not too young. And though it can be hard to accurately predict special teams, we do have Minnesota No. 2 behind New England in that area, in part because opposing teams often prefer to hand the Vikings field position with squibs rather than risk a big return from Cordarrelle Patterson.
"But while our computers are jumping on the Minnesota Vikings bandwagon, we're not ready to drive it into the fast lane quite yet. The Vikings' schedule is no longer projected as tough as we had it back in May, but it's still sixth in the league. That's why their wild-card run is more likely than not to fall a bit short."
Now can an entire season of football be boiled down to a computer algorithm? No. There are too many real life variables that can't be accounted for. But 8-8 or 9-7 seems to be a fair prediction for a young team still getting used to high expectations.
