SoMnFan
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Minnesota Vikings (13-3)
Point differential in 2017: +130
Pythagorean expectation: 11.7 wins
Record in games decided by seven points or fewer: 3-2 (.600)
2017 strength of schedule: 0.514 (seventh toughest in NFL)
There might not be a more talented team in football, top to bottom, than the Vikings. Defensive coordinators would beg their general managers to get the sort of high-end talent and depth Mike Zimmer has on his preferred side of the football. The Vikings also return the best one-two wideout duo in football from a year ago and a running back who looked like a star before tearing his ACL, and they had enough cap space to pay Kirk Cousins $28 million per year, which should lock in both a higher floor and higher ceiling at quarterback versus Case Keenum.
So why are they likely to decline in 2018? Start with the schedule. Last year, the Vikings went up against Aaron Rodgers for a total of two possessions before Anthony Barr essentially ended the Packers' season by breaking their star quarterback's collarbone. They picked off replacement Brett Hundley five times over two games while holding the Packers to a total of 10 points. Rodgers will be back in 2018, and the Bears should be fielding an improved roster after investing heavily this offseason. The NFC North could be the toughest division in the league -- the Vikings probably won't go 5-1 within it again.
It's no surprise the Vikings' defense was great last season, but it was able to pull off one of the most remarkable outlier seasons in recent memory by allowing opposing offenses to convert on only 25.3 percent of third-down attempts. Pro-football-reference.com has play-by-play data going back through 1994, and no team over that time frame was stingier on third down than last year's Vikings.
Even great defenses can't keep that up. The 25 best third-down defenses before the 2017 Vikings allowed teams to convert on 30.0 percent of their third downs. Each of those teams gave up conversions 36.8 percent of the time the following year, which was far closer to the league average of 38.5 percent. As you might suspect, their defenses were worse. They allowed an average of 43.8 more points the following season, which would bump the Vikings from their top-ranked finish in points allowed to fifth.
Minnesota's defense also ranked as the league's healthiest by adjusted games lost last season. While that number doesn't include Sharrif Floyd, who would have started at defensive tackle if he hadn't been ruled out with what appears to be career-ending nerve damage in his knee, the remaining Vikings defenders were remarkably healthy. Minnesota's 11 defensive starters missed a total of four games: three from Andrew Sendejo and one from Everson Griffen. That's not going to recur, and if you remember how the Vikings' defense declined once Harrison Smith suffered a high ankle sprain in 2016, you'll know that even the most talented defenses need only one missing star to run the risk of falling apart.
The Vikings might be able to make up for a modest defensive decline with an improvement on offense, but what are the chances Cousins is an upgrade on the version of Keenum we saw last year? It would have been easy to suggest that the former third-stringer would have regressed toward his previous career averages had he stayed in Minnesota, and Cousins' track record certainly suggests a higher floor than Keenum's level of play before last season, but Keenum was great last season. Between the two, Keenum topped Cousins in Total QBR, passer rating, completion percentage and interception rate.
You would still pick Cousins if you were deciding between the two passers, but Cousins' ceiling in 2018 is likely the sort of season Keenum had in 2017. He'll also be working with a new offensive coordinator in John DeFilippo, who drew rave reviews as the quarterbacks coach in Philadelphia but ranked 32nd in points scored during his lone season as a coordinator with the Browns in 2015. There will likely be some growing pains for the Vikings early during the 2018 season, which has to be disconcerting given that they start with games against the 49ers, Packers, Bills, Rams and Eagles. The Vikings should still be a very good team, but 13 wins would be an enormous ask.
One of the 6 teams picked to decline
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