Minnesota is 5-0 having allowed 64 points, and our model has moved the Vikings to ten wins while still keeping them behind Detroit and Green Bay
Updated
Minnesota went to New Orleans and won 23-13, took its bye at 5-0, and remains the only unbeaten team in the NFC North and one of three in the league. The Vikings have allowed 64 points in five games, 12.8 a game, the fewest in football by a distance. When we ran the rest of the season Minnesota came out at 10-7 with a 69.5 percent playoff chance and half a percent title odds, up from 9-8 and 37.5 percent two weeks ago and from 6.5 wins and a ten percent playoff chance in July. A 5-0 team projected for ten wins is still the model telling you it does not expect the margins to hold. It is telling you so less firmly than it was.
The defense is as good as the record and the model has it as a top-seven unit with the third-best pass rush in football. Minnesota projects to allow 323 points, seventh in the league, down from 337 and eleventh, and the Vikings project for 51 sacks. Dallas Turner has six sacks and projects for 17.1, tied with Aidan Hutchinson for the second-highest individual projection in the league behind Will Anderson Jr. Andrew Van Ginkel has five sacks and an interception and projects for over ten and another pick. Byron Murphy Jr.'s interception projection has more than doubled to over three. Blake Cashman projects for 112 tackles and two and a half sacks. Josh Metellus for 84 tackles and a sack. The team projects for over eleven interceptions, 14th, which is the one number on the defense that is merely good.
The offense is why the projection stops at ten, and the Saints game was its best of the year. Kyler Murray has started four of five and is 69 of 101 for 662 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, an 85 rating, and projects for 3,189 yards and 15 touchdowns behind a 91 rating, up from 88. Aaron Jones has 410 rushing yards and projects for 1,043, up from 858, the biggest move on the offense. Justin Jefferson has 179 yards in three games and projects for 74 catches and 996 yards, the lowest projection of his career. T.J. Hockenson projects for 60 catches. Jauan Jennings has slipped from 48 catches to 37. The unit projects for 348 points, 21st in the league, and the Vikings have scored 109 in five games, 21.8 a game, which is about where the model has them.
The division is where the record and the projection diverge most. Detroit is 3-2 and projects for 12.5 wins with the best title odds in football. Green Bay is 4-2 and projects for eleven, with Minnesota holding the head-to-head after Week 1 and the rematch still to come. Chicago is 4-2 and projects for nine, with the head-to-head lost to the Vikings. Minnesota leads the NFC North by two games over the Lions and projects to finish two and a half wins behind them. When we ran the rest of the season the Vikings won the division in a minority of simulated years, more often than two weeks ago, and the Detroit game in Week 8 at 16 percent is where most of that minority is decided.
The next month is where the model's skepticism gets tested. Indianapolis at home at 66 percent, a trip to Detroit at 16, Buffalo at home at 50, and a trip to Green Bay at 26. When we ran that stretch Minnesota went 2-2 more often than anything else, with the Colts game won and the Lions game lost. A 7-2 record entering the second week of November would push the projection toward eleven and force the model to take the defense more seriously than it already does.
The Saints game was the only one the Vikings played in the fortnight and it was a 23-13 win in New Orleans in which the offense scored 23, its second-highest total of the season, and the defense held the Saints to 13. The model gave Minnesota 62 percent. The projection moved a win and the playoff odds nearly doubled, and most of that came from the bye: the new weighting looked at five games of a defense that has allowed 12.8 a game and moved its points-allowed projection from eleventh to seventh, and looked at five games of Turner and Van Ginkel and held them at 17 and ten sacks. Murphy's interception projection more than doubling is the back end earning the model's trust. The offense moved less. Murray's rating projection rose three and his touchdown projection rose one, Jones' rushing projection rose 185 yards, and the points-for projection rose 14, which is the model watching the Saints game and seeing an offense that can score 23 against a bad defense rather than one that will score 23 against a good one. What moves the number from here is Detroit in Week 8. The model gives the Vikings 16 percent in it, which is the lowest number it has assigned to a 5-0 team in any game this season, and the result decides whether the NFC North is a race or a procession.
The matchup record is among the four largest overperformances in the league. We gave Minnesota 36 percent against Green Bay, 32 in Chicago, 48 in Tampa Bay, 74 against Miami and 62 in New Orleans. Five wins from two and a half expected is the gap, and the first three were games the model had the other side winning. The market opened Minnesota at eight and a half wins. Our model sat two under it in July and sits a win and a half over it now. The lean is the pass rush, which is real. The hedge is an offense that has scored 21.8 a game, and the Detroit game is the one the model has circled.
