ESPN Magazine Projects Vikings To Be Worse Than Last Year

Last year was a very disappointing year for Minnesota Vikings fans.  After a 2012 campaign that found the Vikings with a Wild Card playoff birth, the 2013 season failed to come anywhere near those kind of results.

In 2013, Minnesota featured a defensive scheme that was designed to allow yards, but not touchdowns.  Sadly, the personnel of the team didn’t exactly fit the scheme that the team was trying to put forth and injuries to the secondary really hurt that even more.  We also saw the quarterback carousel happen.  It’s hard to forget some of the just plain awful games we saw from the combination of Josh Freeman, Christian Ponder, and Matt Cassel.

Aug 8, 2014; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer looks on during the third quarter against the Oakland Raiders at TCF Bank Stadium. The Vikings defeated the Raiders 10-6. Mandatory Credit: Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports

The Coaching staff was also called into question on numerous occasions.  Leslie Frazier seemed to lose control of his team and his coordinators couldn’t help him organize the talent on the team.  Also, defensive and offensive playcalling was really baffling at time and left fans with a sour taste in our mouths.

Now that we can forget about 2013 and move forward to 2014, things can only get better, right?  Well, that isn’t the case according to ESPN Magazine.

According to THIS tweet from ESPN, which is “The Worldwide Leader In Sports”, the writers of ESPN Magazine see the Vikings ending the season 4-12 this season.

This is after the Minnesota Vikings got new head coach in Mike Zimmer, offensive coordinator Norv Turner, and defensive coordinator George Edwards.  And after Minnesota changed both their offenses and their defenses.  And after the Vikings had an excellent draft that landed impact players on the team.  And after they put forth a terrific preseason 4-0 effort.

While there are still a lot of unknowns with this team, I firmly believe they have too much talent and have too good of coaches to finish this season worse than the previous one.  Perhaps I’m looking through purple colored glasses here, but I think ESPN might just be very wrong on their assessment of this team.