Minnesota Vikings Over/Under Wins Odds 2021: Watch the Aaron Rodgers situation closely

The Minnesota Vikings are one of the more interesting teams heading into the upcoming NFL season and Zach Rainey thinks they may fall short of nine wins...

The Minnesota Vikings come into the year hoping to build off of the second half of the 2020 season, in which they went 6-4 after their Week 7 bye to finish 7-9 after starting the season 1-5.

The Vikings are more of a polarizing team than a lot may think. If you think the Vikings can be good, you’re buying into the insinuation that Kirk Cousins is the answer. There’s nothing wrong with a guy like Kirk Cousins. Actually, he had one of his best seasons last year; throwing a career-high 35 touchdowns to 13 interceptions and 4,265 passing yards.

His entire career, his teams tend to hover around the same pedigree; one or two wins over .500, or one or two wins below .500. The only difference was in 2019 when he led his team to a 10-5 record (he missed one game due to injury.) I’m not sure exactly what it means, but it is interesting that the Vikings took a quarterback, Texas A&M’s Kellen Mond.

He’s always had good weapons since he’s been in Minnesota. Even when Stefon Diggs left in free agency, the Vikings went out and got Justin Jefferson, who led the team in receptions with 88 for an even 1,400 yards and seven touchdowns.

You could argue the last two seasons of football have been Cousins’ best of his career and that he is still trending upward. I’m somewhere in the middle. I think Jefferson is the real deal, so with him and Adam Thielen, you essentially have two No. 1 receivers.

The problem is, outside of that, they really don’t have much. Dalvin Cook played 14 games and fourth on the team in receiving. With Kyle Rudolph officially out of town, I expect to see a lot more reps for Irv Smith Jr. He had 30 catches for 365 yards last year, but he’ll need to take another step, to be able to give Cousins and the Vikings a legitimate third option. Although, there have been rumors of bringing in former Jacksonville Jaguars receiver Dede Westbrook.

While we’re on the subject of Cook, there’s really not many running backs better than him. Outside of Derrick Henry, there’s no running back that comes to mind that I think is better as a pure running back than him. If he can stay healthy for a full 16 games, which is almost impossible for a running back, he could be a good bet to win the rushing title.

Harrison had an impressive 2020 in which he finished tied for fourth in the league with five interceptions. Outside of Smith, I’m not a big fan of Minnesota’s secondary. They went out on a limb and signed Patrick Peterson, but I think Peterson’s name is bigger than his play at this current moment.

Up front, I think the Vikings can match up with almost anybody.

Four-time Pro Bowl outside linebacker Anthony Barr will return to a team that has one of the best linebackers in today’s game In Eric Hendricks and a Danielle Hunter, who sat out the 2020 season after registering a career-high 14.5 sacks, tied for fourth in the NFL in 2019.

I want to believe in you Minnesota, I do. But your schedule is rough.

They open up at Cincinnati and I think they get a win there. Then they head to Arizona to play the Cardinals. Kyler Murray started the year last year red hot, and with J.J. Watt joining an already lethal pass-rush, this game could be a loss. I have this as a 50-50 game.

What do I mean by that? You know how some years, a random team will have a better record than you think they ought to, and then the following season prove you right and regress? A lot of times, it’s because a team that was on the winning side of one-possession games is then on the wrong side.

Week 3 is the home opener against Seattle. Seattle has their own problems, but I see this game as more of a 50-50 game as well. They’ll host Cleveland at home in Week 4. I think the Browns take this one and continue on their upward trajectory following last season.

Fortunately, I have them picking up back-to-back wins versus Detroit and at Carolina before heading into the bye.

After the Bye is when the schedule toughens up. Right out of the gate, they’ll host the Dallas Cowboys for Sunday Night Football. I don’t have to tell Vikings and Raiders fans about Cousins in prime time. I think you know where I’m going with this.

Following the game against Dallas, they host the Baltimore Ravens and the Los Angeles Chargers. The Ravens have been consistently good with Lamar Jackson, as well as one of the game’s secondaries. The Chargers have possibly the next big thing at quarterback and who I have making the playoffs this year. Minnesota drops both.

It will get worse before it gets better, and I think they fall at home to Green Bay in Week 11, granted they have Aaron Rodgers. San Francisco in Week 12 right now is a 50-50 game, but I’ll give the edge to the Vikings for now going into the season.

They’ll get a win in Detroit in Week 13 and I think get a win against Pittsburgh on Thursday Night Football in Week 14.

I think they’ll split games against the Bears in Weeks 15 and 18, but fall to the Los Angeles Rams and Green Bay Packers in Weeks 16 and 17.

If we bring the 50-50 games and we spit them, we’re looking at a record of 8-10, pretty much par for the Kirk Cousins course. With Minnesota’s over/under set at nine, I’ll take the under. But like I said earlier, that could almost hinge on Aaron Rodgers more than anyone on the Vikings