Pete Prisco Releases Annual Overrated and Underrated Lists

As he does every year in the time before camp starts, Pete Prisco of CBS Sports has put together his annual "Overrated" and "Underrated" lists. He took a look at all 32 NFL teams and determined who he thought was the most overrated and underrated player on each roster.

For the Minnesota Vikings, he picked a couple of names that might be a bit surprising. . .well, they surprised me, anyway. Let's start with the overrated side, where Prisco went with wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson.

Look up the word tease and his name would be next to it. This kid has all the tools, but he was benched in 2014, a season many expected to be his breakout year. Now the team has to wonder if the former first-round pick is anything more than a kick returner.

See, I can get the logic behind this selection, since Patterson was a gigantic disappointment in 2014. However, he might have been a better selection for the Vikings for last season's overrated list because of all the hype he was getting. This year? I'm not even sure if Cordarrelle Patterson is "rated," never mind "overrated." (For the record, Prisco's pick for the overrated list last year was Greg Jennings.)

For the underrated list, Prisco takes a guy that we certainly don't underrate, if only because we know exactly how good he is. I'm speaking, of course, of safety Harrison Smith.

Entering his fourth season, he has yet to play in a Pro Bowl, despite being one of the better young safeties in the game. This could be his year. He is rangy and he can tackle. That's a good combination in today's game.

I have a feeling that a lot of people are going to know who Harrison Smith is, and how good he is, by the time 2015 is all said and done. It's a crime that more people don't already know him.

Incidentally, on his overrated list, Prisco names former Vikings receiver Percy Harvin as the most overrated player in the NFL.

Has anybody done less with more than Harvin? He should be an explosive playmaker flourishing in the prime of his career, but he's on his fourth team for a variety of reasons -- mostly himself -- and he's done little with the amazing skill that he possesses.

Here's the eye-opening stat: He is just 27. Can you believe it? This is a player who should be ready for 90 catches, 1,300 yards and 10 touchdowns each season and he barely has 50 catches total in the last three years combined.

Harvin is the ultimate tease, yet you talk to fans and scouts and they marvel at his ability. What a waste. That's why he is the NFL's most overrated player.

This is the part where I point out that Rick Spielman managed to finagle three draft choices from the Seattle Seahawks in exchange for a guy that's done basically nothing since the first half of the 2012 season, after which he completely whined his way out of Minnesota and gravy trained his way to a Super Bowl ring (that he contributed next to nothing to. . .the Seahawks would have just as easily won that title without him).

Hey, remember when people thought Minnesota should have bent over backwards to appease that crybaby? It's really a good thing that they didn't.

Anyway, how do you think Prisco did with his Overrated and Underrated lists for this year, specifically as it pertains to the Minnesota Vikings?