Adam Thielen crushed his passing yards prop at online sportsbooks last season; it wasn’t even close! However, 925 of his 1,373 total yards were accrued in Minnesota’s first eight games. In other words, he was nothing more than a WR2 or WR3 in terms of fantasy in the Vikings final eight games. It can be argued that his gargantuan drop in production ultimately led to Mike Zimmer’s squad just falling short of the playoffs after falling in the NFC title game the previous year. While those that backed him over the impost didn’t care how he got there so long as he did, the team will be hoping for more consistency in 2019-20. Entering the second year with Kirk Cousins at the helm, that’s likely to occur and give those jumping on his bandwagon once again an excellent shot of cashing in on what looks to be a grossly overcompensated betting line. But there’s a reason for that…
Total Rushing Yards: 1050.5
Offensive Philosophy
Minnesota barely ran the football a season ago. That was the main reason why Zimmer elected to axe John DeFilippo at the tail end of the season and hand the controls over to the more pro-rushing Kevin Stefanski. In the Vikings final three games, only the Bills, Redskins, Bengals, Titans, Seahawks and Ravens ran the ball more; four of those teams ran the ball the most overall a season ago. Is that what we’re to expect more of in 2019-20? If so, it doesn’t bode well for either Adam Thielen or Stefon Diggs.
That said, Cousins wasn’t paid all that money just to hand the ball off, and Dalvin Cook is yet to play in more than 10 games in a season throughout his brief career. Minnesota ranked No. 4 in pass play percentage a season ago doing so 64.4 percent of the time and did so somewhat effectively in averaging 252.0 yards per game (No. 13). As much as the coaching staff will look to make it a point to run the ball, there’s no way their flat out abandoning the passing game – not with the talent on hand at both wide receiver positions.
Minnesota Vikings Football Schedule
Week 1: Falcons
Week 2: @Packers
Week 3: Raiders
Week 4: @Bears
Week 5: @Giants
Week 6: Eagles
Week 7: @Lions
Week 8: Redskins
Week 9: @Chiefs
Week 10: @Cowboys
Week 11: Broncos
Week 12: Bye Week
Week 13: @Seahawks
Week 14: Lions
Week 15: @Chargers
Week 16: Packers
Week 17: Bears
Schedule Breakdown
Minnesota’s wide receiver corps is faced with running up against the league’s No. 22 ranked schedule strength when going by last season’s outputs. With that, Thielen and company look to be in line for banner showings the first two weeks of the season with both Atlanta and Green Bay possessing two of the worst pass defenses from a year ago. However, the Falcons will have all their injured playmakers back this time around, and the Packers look to have made some nice moves in the offseason to shore up their leaky defense.
Running up against the Raiders and Giants should be fun, but it’s immediately offset by tough matchups against the Bears and Eagles. That’s more or less the “MO” of the Vikings schedule this season; a number of cakewalk matchups offset by a number of toughies. Figuring out which games Cook and the ground game take center stage is going to be very annoying for those getting involved in the futures markets with either of Minnesota’s pass catchers. Still, the number to beat at betting sites is disrespectful as evidenced by the heaping load of chalk currently attached to the over of Thielen’s target.
The Bet
I’m buying into the Vikings change in offensive philosophy enough to the point that I’m looking to buy into the low side of his receiving total at a nice plus-money return. While I would’ve much rather gotten into the market at the opener which hovered above 1,200 yards, I’m willing to gamble. Thielen already felt the brunt of it at the tail end of last season when Minnesota averaged 16 fewer pass attempts per game once Stefanski took over.
The only way Thielen, and Diggs for that matter, each rack up over 1,000+ yards receiving is if Cook once again succumbs to the injury bug. While the chance of that occurring is high since it’s happened in each of his first two seasons at the NFL level, the kids owed some good luck on the injury front from the football gods.
If you don’t have the stomach to buy in at the lowest point of the market, do some number searching and seek out the best number at other top rated sportsbooks. Thielen has disappointed in the second half of the last two seasons, and 2019-20 should be no different with the offense looking to run a much more balanced attack.
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