5 Bold Predictions: Minnesota Vikings vs. Green Bay Packers – Week 1

Cook and Jones will both rush for 150 yards

If you’re a fan of games that get over by 2:30 p.m. CT on Sunday afternoon, this matchup is right in your wheelhouse.

Both the Vikings and Packers are teams that want to run the ball early and often throughout the 2020 season. With both teams sporting deficiencies in the trenches, both Dalvin Cook and Aaron Jones should be in line for big days.

For the Vikings, Cook should be the focal point of the offense much like he was in 2019. In the early weeks of the season, Cook was near unstoppable with the ball in his hands and even broke a 75-yard touchdown run against Green Bay in Week 2.

With questions about the ability to stop the Packers pass rush, Minnesota will likely use their aggressiveness against them and feed Cook.

As Cook enters 2020 on the final year of his rookie contract, he should be motivated to prove the Vikings are making a mistake by not extending him and a big Week 1 performance would be a great start to his campaign.

On the other side, Green Bay was a team that threw the ball at a 60 percent clip last season. But they didn’t make an effort to improve this offseason by fading one of the most hyped receiver classes in recent NFL Draft memory.

Instead, the Packers opted to upgrade their running game, which ranked eighth in DVOA last season per Football Outsiders. This could come in handy against a Minnesota team who took a big blow with the loss of Hunter earlier this week.

While Hunter was ranked 14th among qualifying edge defenders in run-stop grade, Yannick Ngakoue (112th) and Ifeadi Odenigbo (81st) represent a steep decline. With Shamar Stephen (96th) and Jaleel Johnson (118th) not much better in the middle, there should be plenty of running lanes for Jones even with the addition of a “mystery man” at right tackle.

Long story short, this game will be won by the team with the better ground game.