Questions Answered: Everyone Picking the Giants, Our Prediction, Tanner McKee in 2023?
The following questions are about current Minnesota Vikings topics, answered by PurplePTSD. Today is the January 11th edition, addressed in a from-the-hip fashion. If you have questions, please email them to [email protected].
Also, please note: These are opinion-based responses. Some answers will be incorrect from time to time. But we’ll try to keep that to a minimum.
Questions Answered: Everyone Picking the Giants, Our Prediction, Tanner McKee
Q: Why are all the media people picking the Giants this weekend?
A: Oh, this is an easy one — but a great question nevertheless.
The national media is picking New York for two reasons:
- New York City largely drives American sports media, and New York-based pundits are absolutely starved for the Giants to be relevant in January.
- The Vikings are the first 13-win team in NFL history to finish the regular season with an underwater point differential. They’re the fashionable pick to lose because folks firmly believed they overachieved in the regular season.
We shall see in four days if the pro-Giants crowd is correct.
Q: What is your prediction for Vikings-Giants?
A: Well, we’re not based in New York, and we believe the Vikings will win this game — with a foreboding forecast for the following weekend in San Francisco.
We predict the Vikings will win by eight points, somewhere in the vicinity of 29-21 or 28-20. The Giants are a decent football team, one that will have the recent memory of losing to the Vikings three weeks ago — in the same building.
But we refuse to believe that Minnesota won 13 games, all just to lose at home against a non-elite Giants team. Pencil us in for a Vikings triumph.
Q: Tanner McKee was mock-drafted to the Vikings by Pro Football Focus. Is that realistic?
A: No.
McKee isn’t slated to go in the 1st Round, but PFF decided the Vikings would ignore all draft scouts. McKee in Round 3 or so would be fine to plot life after Kirk Cousins, who turns 35 this summer.
It’s fine and dandy for Minnesota to prepare for the future QB1 but reaching in Round 1 — especially when the roster needs non-QB attention — isn’t wise.
There’s a chance that the draft-hype machine propels McKee into Round 1 by April, but for now, we don’t see it.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. He hosts a podcast with Bryant McKinnie, which airs every Wednesday with Raun Sawh and Sal Spice. His Vikings obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ and The Doors (the band).