Fantasy managers are very good at remembering whether an offense was good.
We are less interested in why.
Minnesota scored 20.2 points per game in 2025, 26th in the NFL. Bad offense. File away. Move on.
Except the Vikings also started three quarterbacks, cycled through offensive linemen like an airport cycling through gate changes and somehow finished 9–8 after starting 4–8. Their intended starting offensive line played 83 snaps together all season.
That feels like relevant context.
Now Minnesota has named Kyler Murray its 2026 starter, and the AutoDraftYears model projects the offense to climb back toward average.
The market basically agrees.
The players?
Not so much.
The team is fairly priced. Jordan Addison and Jordan Mason absolutely are not.
2025 Was an Offensive Survival Exercise
The weird thing about Minnesota's 2025 season is that 9–8 almost makes it look respectable.
Offensively, it wasn't.
The Vikings finished 26th in scoring at 20.2 points per game, 28th in total offense at 275 yards per game and 29th in passing offense. One year earlier, Sam Darnold had thrown for 4,319 yards and Minnesota went 14–3.
Then the J.J. McCarthy era finally began.
Briefly.
McCarthy missed all of 2024 with a torn meniscus, suffered a high ankle sprain early in 2025 and later entered concussion protocol. He made 10 starts and completed 57.6% of his passes for 1,632 yards, 11 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.
Carson Wentz started five games while McCarthy was out, then suffered a shoulder injury that ended his season.
Max Brosmer eventually started twice.
Kevin O'Connell spent the season operating a quarterback carousel while the offensive line was apparently conducting its own separate experiment in roster instability. Minnesota used 26 different offensive-line combinations, the most by the Vikings since at least 2014.
And the fantasy consequences were exactly as ugly as you would expect.
Justin Jefferson still reached 1,048 yards, because Justin Jefferson apparently considers quarterback stability optional. But he caught only two touchdowns after posting 1,533 yards and 10 scores in 2024.
Jordan Addison missed the first three games due to suspension and finished with 42 catches, 610 yards and three receiving touchdowns. He had scored 19 receiving touchdowns over his first two seasons.
T.J. Hockenson managed only 438 yards.
Jordan Mason was actually the team's leading rusher with 758 yards and six touchdowns, while Aaron Jones shared the workload.
This was not an offense lacking useful players.
It was an offense that could never get enough of them functioning normally at the same time.
Minnesota eventually won its final five games and salvaged 9–8.
Fantasy managers did not receive retroactive points for perseverance.
The Model Mostly Projects Normalization
This is where the AutoDraftYears forecast becomes much easier to understand.
Minnesota averaged 20.2 points per game last season.
The model projects:
23.1.
The Vikings' five-year average is 23.0.
This is less “offensive breakout” and more “please return your tray table to its upright position.”
The real change underneath the scoring projection is volume.
| Metric | 2025 | 2026 Projection |
|---|---|---|
| Points/Game | 20.2 | 23.1 |
| Offensive Snaps/Game | 52.6 | 59.5 |
| Pass Rate | 54.2% | 57.6% |
| Team Fantasy Rank | — | 16th |
The model expects nearly seven additional offensive snaps per game.
That's enormous.
It also expects Minnesota to throw more, now with Murray officially winning the quarterback job over McCarthy.
Yet even after all of that, the model only gets Minnesota to 15th in projected scoring.
That's important.
We're not betting on Kevin O'Connell discovering electricity.
We're betting that an offense with Jefferson, Addison, Hockenson and a healthier line can stop being one of the league's least productive units.
Reasonable.
History Says About Three Fantasy Starters
Minnesota's projected environments are almost aggressively normal:
- QB: 15th
- RB: 20th
- WR: 16th
- TE: 14th
No elite environment.
No wasteland.
Take the projected profile — 23.1 points per game, 57.6% pass rate, 59.5 snaps and 3.3 red-zone trips — and compare it with the 30 closest offenses from 2016 through 2025.
Those teams averaged 2.9 fantasy starters.
Bear case: 2.
Base case: 3.
Bull case: 4.
Read off the 30 most similar offenses in 2016–2025, not asserted. A starter is a QB1, an RB2, a WR3 or a TE1 — top 12, 24, 36 and 12 at the position. Across all 320 team-seasons the average offense produced 2.6.
Across all 320 team-seasons in the AutoDraftYears sample, the average offense produced 2.6.
So Minnesota should support fantasy value.
The question is where we're being asked to pay for it.
And this is where the peaceful team-level forecast turns into a small family argument.
Minnesota Is Fairly Priced. Its Players Are Not.
The market ranks Minnesota's total fantasy roster 18th.
The model has it 16th.
Two spots.
Essentially nothing.
Then we open the individual player board.
| Player | ADP | Market | Model | Adjusted Edge | Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Justin Jefferson | 12 | WR6 | WR10 | -3 | Fair |
| Jordan Addison | 107 | WR47 | WR30 | +13 | Upside Bet |
| Jordan Mason | 113 | RB41 | RB120 | -91 | Fade |
| Kyler Murray | 120 | QB18 | QB24 | -8 | Fade |
| Aaron Jones | 122 | RB43 | RB31 | 0 | Fair |
| Jauan Jennings | 160 | WR65 | WR46 | — | Thin Market |
| Player | ADP | Market | Model | Edge | PPG | Role | Risk | Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Justin JeffersonWR | 12 | WR6 | WR13 | -6 | 10 | 82 | Medium | FAIR PRICE |
| Jordan AddisonWR | 106 | WR44 | WR30 | +12 | 9 | 69 | Low | UPSIDE BET |
| Jordan MasonRB | 106 | RB38 | RB120 | -90 | 6 | 55 | Medium | FADE |
| Aaron JonesRB | 116 | RB41 | RB32 | 0 | 4 | 71 | Medium | FAIR PRICE |
| Kyler MurrayQB | 128 | QB18 | QB24 | -10 | 13 | 65 | Medium | FADE |
| T.J. HockensonTE | 170 | TE22 | TE20 | — | 7 | 73 | Medium | THIN MARKET |
Market and Model are ranks within the position. Edge is the model's position rank against the market's, after removing the drift that affects every player at that price — so it reads as “the model likes him this many places more than it likes the typical player who costs this much.” A call needs the edge to clear the position's bar (QB 5, RB 15, WR 11, TE 5 places), set at two-thirds of that position's own spread.
This is why team rankings should never become “draft everybody from Team X.”
Minnesota's macro price is perfectly reasonable.
Its internal pricing looks like somebody handed the grocery scanner to a toddler.
Addison Is the Player I Actually Want
Jordan Addison is the cleanest bet here.
Market: WR47.
Model: WR30.
Adjusted edge: +13.
Risk: Low.
The WR buy threshold is +11.
He clears it.
And 2025 gives us a decent explanation for why the market might be cautious.
Addison missed three games before his season even started, played inside one of the NFL's worst passing offenses and caught passes from three starting quarterbacks. His receiving touchdowns fell from nine in 2024 to three.
Now the model expects almost seven more offensive plays per game and a higher passing rate.
He doesn't need to become Justin Jefferson wearing novelty glasses.
At WR47, the price is asking remarkably little from a 24-year-old receiver who already posted 19 touchdowns over his first two seasons.
This is the Viking whose price changes my draft.
Jordan Mason Is the Opposite
And then there's Jordan Mason.
Market: RB41.
Model: RB120.
Adjusted edge: -91.
Ninety-one running-back spots.
At some point disagreement stops being disagreement and becomes a custody hearing.
The strange part is that Mason wasn't bad last year.
He led Minnesota with 758 rushing yards, averaged 4.8 yards per carry and scored six times.
The model's problem is 2026 role, not 2025 performance.
His Role Score is only 55, projected PPG is six and Minnesota's RB environment ranks 20th. Aaron Jones remains on the roster, and the Vikings' current depth chart lists Jones and Mason together atop the backfield.
That makes pick 113 hard to justify.
Everything has a price.
RB41 apparently isn't Mason's.
Kyler Is a Smaller Fade
Murray is more interesting because the football argument is obvious.
Justin Jefferson.
Jordan Addison.
T.J. Hockenson.
Kevin O'Connell.
This is certainly more appealing than being dropped into an offense assembled from folding chairs.
Minnesota liked what it saw enough this summer to formally name Murray the starter over McCarthy.
The model still has him only QB24 versus QB18 in the market, enough to trigger its -8 fade threshold.
Why?
The projected offense itself is only average, and Murray played just five games in 2025 because of a foot injury. He has completed a full regular season only once over the past five years.
Could he beat QB24?
Easily.
That's not the same question as whether I need him at QB18.
I don't.
What Should Fantasy Managers Actually Do?
Do not draft Minnesota as a concept.
Draft the prices.
Jefferson is still Jefferson. He is expensive because people with internet access are aware of this.
Aaron Jones looks perfectly reasonable around cost.
Murray has an exciting new environment, but the model thinks fantasy managers are paying too much for the story.
Mason's 2025 production is real. The model simply doesn't believe the 2026 workload supports RB41.
And Addison?
That's where the market finally gives us something.
The Vikings don't need to become great for him to work.
They mostly need to stop running 52.6 plays per game with a quarterback room held together by athletic tape.
That is a considerably lower bar.
Sources: Auto Draft Years FF Model workbook — Team Data By Year, Team Stat Ranking, 2026 Team Context; Auto Draft Years 2026 consensus board (16 authoritative market sources); Player outcomes 2016–2025, Pro Football Reference via the project dataset. Team environment grades, forecasts and player model ranks are proprietary. Every figure on this page is generated from the dataset at build time; none is typed in by hand.