SB Nation Reacts Results: Positivity from Vikings fans as camp nears

The results from our latest round of SB Nation Reacts questions are in, and it appears that fans of the Minnesota Vikings are experiencing something that isn’t completely unheard of at this time of year.

Positivity.

We had two questions for our readers last time around, with the results suggesting that we should be looking for some pretty big things from the purple this season.

The first question that we asked concerned how many wins the Vikings would post in 2022, and a lot of folks are expecting an improvement from our favorite football team. Nearly three-fourths of people that responded believe that the purple will win between nine and eleven games in 2022, which would stand as an improvement over their 8-9 mark from last season. An additional 19% believe this team has the ability to win at least 12 games. . .that’s some pretty high cotton, I think, but it isn’t completely out of the realm of possibility.

That leaves less than 10% of the fans expecting a regression in Kevin O’Connell’s first season. Eight percent of our respondents think the team will win between six and eight games this upcoming season, while the 1% think this team is going to struggle to post five victories this year. I’d be stunned if the team was that bad, but I suppose stranger things have happened.

Our other question had to do with the tandem of Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen, specifically how many touchdowns the two of them would account for this year after combining for 20 in 2021. Nearly two-thirds of those who responded to the poll are looking for a similar performance this year, as they think the dynamic duo will combine for at least 19 touchdown receptions. The next-highest result wouldn’t be that much of a drop-off, with 27% of fans thinking that they combine for between 16 and 18 scoring receptions this season.

Looking at last year’s Rams squad that Kevin O’Connell was the offensive coordinator for, they had one receiver that caught 16 of Matthew Stafford’s 41 touchdown passes last season. Outside of that, there was some pretty even distribution, as they had four other players that caught at least four touchdown passes. Conversely, Kirk Cousins threw 33 touchdown passes last year, and 27 of them went to the trio of Jefferson, Thielen, and K.J. Osborn. A drop in that number from Jefferson and Thielen might not necessarily equate to fewer touchdowns for the Vikings overall. . .they might just be a bit more evenly distributed, particularly if Irv Smith Jr. can come back healthy and have the impact that a lot of people think he can. That said, I still think that Thielen and Jefferson end up combining for at least as many TD catches as they did last year, injuries notwithstanding.

Those are our SB Nation Reacts results for this week, folks. We’ll have many more of these to come as the season gets closer!

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