The Vikings are ESPN’s consensus pick to win the NFC North

We’ve talked about ESPN going through the various NFL divisions and asking questions of their reporters, and we have a new one to mull over, this one concerning who will win the division championship in 2018.

The four-letter asked all of their NFC North correspondents who they thought would be the NFC North champs this season, and not surprisingly the Minnesota Vikings were the consensus selection. Three of the four writers chose Minnesota to win their third division title in four seasons.

The one that did not? Courtney Cronin, who covers the Vikings for ESPN. She picked the Green Bay Packers to ascend back to the top of the division. She cited the changes that the Packers have made to their coaching staff and some of the selections they made in April’s draft. Oh, and the “Aaron Rodgers exists” thing that has driven a lot of the predictions for Green Bay thus far this offseason.

The other three reporters. . .Rob Demovsky (Green Bay), Jeff Dickerson (Chicago Bears) and Michael Rothstein (Detroit Lions). . .all selected Minnesota. Demovsky states that the Vikings look like a more “complete” team than Green Bay, Dickerson says the Vikings are the “easy choice” to win the North, and Rothstein cites the addition of Kirk Cousins and the return of Dalvin Cook among his reasons for picking the Vikings to win the North.

All four of ESPN’s writers said that they expect both Minnesota and Green Bay to represent the NFC North in this year’s postseason, which is not surprising.

But, if you attribute any kind of meaning to these sorts of things, it’s a good sign for our favorite football team that they seem to be the favorite going into the season.