
Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Cooler, where the experts don't know how much I love free tacos. Let's get to it:
*While reading plenty about the Vikings in the last few days, including some pretty optimistic projections from a lot of national media members — most SI.com writers have the Vikings going to the playoffs, while CBS Sports' Will Brinson says Super Bowl, homeboy — I became curious about just how different or the same this Vikings team is from the 2018 version.
The takeaway after studying the Vikings' Week 1 depth chart in 2018 vs. 2019? It's a nearly identical top end of the offensive and defensive roster with one big exception: offensive line.
Nine of the 11 defensive players listed as starters on the Vikings' first depth chart in 2019 are the same as they were a year ago at this time. The only differences: Shamar Stephen replaces Sheldon Richardson at defensive tackle and Anthony Harris replaces Andrew Sendejo as a Week 1 safety.
Every offensive skill position player is the same: Kirk Cousins, Dalvin Cook, C.J. Ham, Adam Thielen, Stefon Diggs and Kyle Rudolph. But the offensive line has four changes out of five spots, accounting for 67 percent of the new starters on the entire offense and defense from last year to this year.
Riley Reiff is still a starting tackle, but last year's Vikings had Tom Compton, Brett Jones, Mike Remmers and Rashod Hill also listed with the first team on the Week 1 depth chart. This year, those four have been replaced by Pat Elflein, Garrett Bradbury, Josh Kline and Brian O'Neill.
It makes sense. A 2018 season that went awry had multiple culprits, but poor offensive line play was very high on the list. If the Vikings were right that A) the rest of the starting 22 didn't need much tweaking and B) The four new players on the offensive line constitute a significant upgrade and not just a reshuffling, then this has a good chance to be a playoff team and I might owe two guys some tacos. If not? Free tacos could be mine.
*Phil Miller and I talked at length on Thursday's latest Twins Insider podcast about Jose Berrios' ongoing struggles.