Adam Thielen included in Pro Football Focus Top 101 of 2018

After we passed along the news that defensive end Danielle Hunter and safety Harrison Smith were in the opening portion of the Pro Football Focus Top 101 of 2018 list, we assumed that there would be more members of the Minnesota Vikings to come later.

Well, as it turns out, there was only one more member of the Vikings that made this year’s list. Fortunately, it won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone.

Wide receiver Adam Thielen was the third and final member of the Vikings to crack the Top 101 from Pro Football Focus, as he checked in at #30. Here’s what they had to say about Thielen’s season:

Adam Thielen cemented himself as a hands-down number one wide receiver in 2018. He earned a receiving grade of 89.5, ranking seventh at the position and gained an average of 2.10 yards per route run, tied for 18th out of 108 qualifying wide receivers.

That gave the Vikings just three players on this year’s list, down from the five that made PFF’s list in 2017. Both Thielen and Smith were repeats from last year’s list. Smith dropped from #3 in 2017 to #101 this season, while Thielen moved up to #30 from #77. Hunter made his debut on the list this year.

The three Vikings that made the list in 2017 that did not repeat this season were defensive end Everson Griffen, defensive tackle Linval Joseph, and wide receiver Stefon Diggs.

Hopefully we’ll see a bounce back from some members of the purple next season, and this list will have significantly more members of our favorite team on it when the 2019 season finishes.