Sports Illustrated has a pair of strange predictions for the 2024 Vikings

Along with extensive lists on just about everything having to do with the NFL, this point of the offseason is the time for predictions. A lot of the Really Smart Football People™ are throwing them out there, and some of them don’t make a whole lot of sense.

Take, for example, the list of 100 bold predictions for the 2024 NFL season from Conor Orr of Sports Illustrated. There are a couple of them concerning our Minnesota Vikings that, when put together, don’t make a whole lot of sense.

The first of these concerns quarterback Sam Darnold. Orr declares that 2024 will be “the season of Sam Darnold” before making this declaration.

The 2018 No. 3 pick of the Jets will have a short runway as the Minnesota Vikings’ starter before he gets traded before the Nov. 5 deadline to a contender that has an injured starter, paving the way for the J.J. McCarthy era to begin in Minnesota. Darnold will head back to the AFC and start in a critical late-season game against the Jets, a team that will be teetering on the brink of playoff contention. After playing well in a thrashing of the Jets, the New York Post back page headline will be GHOST STORY.

So Darnold is going to end up playing well for the Vikings and, presumably, have them in contention for a post-season berth, only to have the Vikings turn around and trade him away. Huh.

Look, I want to see J.J. McCarthy as much as anybody else, but if Darnold is out there slinging it better than he has at any other point in his career, I don’t think the Vikings would trade him away. After all, Kevin O’Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah want to win football games, and if they’re doing that with Darnold then trading him away doesn’t make any sense. You would think that the only way the Vikings would deal Darnold away during the season is if they were out of contention, right?

Despite that, and this is the part that might not make a whole lot of sense, Orr later predicts that the Vikings will “easily” hit the over on their 6.5 project win total. If they’re doing that even after trading away a quarterback they’re winning with early in the season then it’s going to be time to talk about Kevin O’Connell as one of the better head coaches in the league. I’ve stated in this space that I think they’re going to win more games than a lot of people think, and I honestly don’t care which quarterback they’re doing it with.

Am I incorrect in thinking that these two predictions from Orr don’t exactly mesh up?