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At the heart of any meaningful prediction is an accumulation of good information.
At the heart of the way the NFL is structured these days — and with the 2022 Vikings in particular — is a lack of good information.
Teams do less tangible work in the offseason than they used to, and new head coach Kevin O'Connell appears to be a believer in a "less is more" approach.
The Vikings' best players on a top-heavy roster haven't played a single preseason snap, and that isn't likely to change in the preseason finale Saturday against Denver. And those players are learning a brand new system on offense and defense.
How will it all look 15 days later when the Vikings open against the Packers? Good luck sorting that out, which I talked about on Thursday's Daily Delivery podcast.
Pessimistic predictions are out there. ESPN has the Vikings No. 23 in their power rankings, a spot that would surely signal a third straight year of missing the playoffs.
Sports Illustrated predicts the Vikings will go 7-10 and finish third in the NFC North behind the Packers and — gasp — the Lions.
If you're inclined to buy into the pessimism, it's likely because you think a roster that's a year older and seems vulnerable to even a modest amount of injuries will have a hard time being consistent enough to win more than it loses. In other words: new regime, but more of the same.
But optimistic outlooks are out there, too. Plenty of "experts" have picked the Vikings to make the playoffs, while current betting odds have the Vikings' over-under total at 9.5 wins.
If you are buying the positive sentiments, you might point to a relatively forgiving schedule (nine home games, seven road games and one neutral game) devoid of star-caliber quarterbacks and an offense that could flourish with O'Connell's creativity.
Both of those are reasonable positions. The larger point, though, is that a lack of real information means those sentiments fall more under the category of guesses than predictions.
For any real information, we are going to have to wait until Week 1 against the Packers.
Admitting that we don't really know is uncomfortable, but it's better than false confidence.
