Vikings opener eve: Where Hope and Pessimism Clash

I have no idea what is going to happen with the Vikings this season. None.

The only thing I feel very sure of is that, even if they have a down season it still won't be BAD. Mike Zimmer teams don't have bad seasons. 2016 and 2018 are looked back on so negatively, but even there they won 8 games both those years. And even in 2014, Zimmer was a rookie coach inheriting a rock bottom defense, who also lost his starting QB and star running back before summer even ended, and still went 7-9. Zimmer does not let things spiral out of control like that.

Officially I am picking 9-7, which would mean it's a step back year. 

The losses from week 1 2019 to Sunday just on the defensive side are insane. Hunter, Griffen, Joseph, Weatherly, Rhodes, Waynes, Alexander. All gone, plus losing Michael Pierce. That's an absurd loss of manpower. This alone could make the biggest difference this season, even if Hunter is only out a few weeks and even if players like Odenigbo, Holton Hill, and rookies Cam Dantzler and Jeff Gladney all step up and play great. I believe in Zimmer, but it's a tall task to rebuild so much of a defense so quickly. If the Vikings are even sniffing a top 10 ranking on that side of the ball this year, Zim is a god.

Basically we need this defense to be what we needed the offense to be during much of the Zimmer era: Just good enough.

Cause I think this could be the best offense of the Zimmer era. I don't think the transition from Stefanski to Kubiak will be rough at all. From the sounds of it, Kubiak wants to do a lot of mobile pocket plays, which Kirk excelled at last year. Kirk is stellar on play action and rollouts. Basically anything that lessens the negative impact of the offensive line is a positive.

I have some worry about the OL, but not a ton. That unit does not get enough credit for how big an improvement they did make last year. No they were not elite, but they were solid against really all but the elite pass rushes. The 49ers took them apart in the playoffs, but they also took apart Green Bay and until the last 10 minutes of the super bowl even shut down Mahomes.

I think Dakota Dozier is going to be one of the team's most valuable personnel changes. He was very good filling in at guard last year. Now he takes over at LG.

At RG it is the last chance for Pat Elflein. I have not been opposed to him getting this chance. Elflein was really good as a rookie, then fell apart due to injuries. If he can resurrect his career then you're set. If not, I guarantee he will have a quick hook and we may see Ezra Cleveland or Dru Samia. They aren't going to tank the season for Elflein.

The passing game loses Diggs, but I can't imagine they're gonna miss his behind the scenes behavior. And his production should spread out nicely between Justin Jefferson (who by all accounts looks like the rare 1st round WR who comes in and is immediately productive), year 2 of a progressing Bisi Johnson, a healthy Chad Beebe, and Irv Smith, who by the end of the year will be a bonafide star. And you still have steady old Kyle Rudolph.

The run game all depends on the health of the newly extended Dalvin Cook. There is no overestimating how much a full 16 games of a healthy Cook could mean. He could easily be a 2,000 total yards player.

This offense should be dangerous. They should be in every game as long as the defense is decent enough to keep them in it. What a strange flip of the norm for most of the Zimmer era (and really most of the Vikings eras period since Daunte Culpepper was under center).

The lack of a true home field advantage is really going to hurt. Not many teams rely on a loud home crowd more than the Vikings do. No amount of pumped in crowd noise or whatever they do can replicate that. It's an uneven playing field, cause some teams will have some fans, and it's really the biggest X factor of the year leaguewide.

I'm on the record at 9-7 for the Vikings, and them slipping into the playoffs as the last wild card. But I do think it's more likely that a few things break better than we maybe expect and they rise to 11 or 12 wins and are a true super bowl threat, than it is that a few things go much worse than expected and they plummet to a 5 or 6 win season.

I would be shocked if, at minimum, they aren't at least playing meaningful football in late December.