Fantasy Football: Where are Minnesota Vikings players being ranked?

We take a look at what ESPN has to say

We’re getting closer. . .ever so slowly. . .to the start of the 2019 NFL season, which means that we’re getting close to the start of fantasy football season as well. Even though we’re still far enough out from the start of the season that we don’t know what impact potential injuries might have, we’re starting to see some rankings of players starting to trickle in, and we can start seeing where members of the Minnesota Vikings are being slotted.

One set of rankings comes from Mike Clay over at ESPN, who gives us the 192 players that should be selected in your fantasy football draft. That number is based on a 12-team league where there are 16 rounds of selections, and he includes kickers and defenses as well (though you should never be drafting either of those all that early). Let’s see where he has the various members of the purple ranked, shall we?

Despite the penchant for injury that he’s displayed over the past couple of years, Clay’s highest-ranked Viking is running back Dalvin Cook, who Clay has as his #11 running back and #21 overall player. As someone that took Dalvin Cook early in at least one league last year, I’ll say this is just about right. . .if he can play the majority of the games. Obviously, you can say that about a lot of players, but with Cook having missed over half of the Vikings’ games since he was drafted, the injury concerns are amplified.

Both members of the Vikings’ outstanding receiving tandem find themselves in the third round range in Clay’s rankings. Adam Thielen is Clay’s WR12 and his 25th overall player, while Stefon Diggs is slightly below him at WR15 and #33 overall. Honestly, I’m not sure which of the two I would go with first in 2019, but I’d probably lean slightly toward Thielen, if for no other reason than Diggs being a slightly greater injury risk.

Once you get past those three guys, it’s a long wait to find your next Viking, as you have to go all the way to #145 overall to find the Minnesota defense. Clay has the Zim Reapers as his #5 defense, which seems just about right.

After that, we drop to #167 overall to find Kyle Rudolph, who is TE16 on Clay’s rankings. That makes him sort of a mid-range TE2, and though I’m probably a little biased, that seems a bit on the low side. I could be wrong, though.

Kirk Cousins is also a backup in Clay’s rankings, as he’s down at QB20 and the 183rd-ranked player on Clay’s board. I’m not sure if this is a function of thinking that the Vikings are likely going to run the ball more in 2019 or what it might be, but this seems low to me as well.

Alexander Mattison gets some love at #187 overall, largely because of Cook’s injury concerns and the fact that if Cook does go down again, Mattison is likely next in line to get the bulk of the carries.

Those are all of the members of the Vikings that appear in Mike Clay’s early fantasy football rankings. Do you think that any of them are too high or too low?

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