As we sit one week away from the Minnesota Vikings taking the field against the Pittsburgh Steelers in this year's Hall of Fame game to start the NFL preseason, another article comes from behind the great E$PN In$ider paywall that gives a pretty favorable impression of this year's Vikings team.

K.C. Joyner, known as The Football Scientist, has an article detailing three teams he's deemed as Super Bowl "sleepers" for this coming season. The Vikings are listed as one of those three teams, along with the Miami Dolphins and the New York Giants.

Joyner lists three reasons for putting the Vikings on such a lofty perch, and the first has to do with the man who, more than anyone else, holds the key to a successful 2015 for the Minnesota Vikings. That, of course, would be quarterback Teddy Bridgewater.

Bridgewater had the type of rookie campaign that, in previous years, would have led to an offensive rookie of the year award. From Weeks 13-17, Bridgewater was tied for the league lead in completion percentage (72.1 percent) and his 16.5 vertical yards per attempt (11 yards or more) ranked first overall. He also ranked 11th in Total QBR and set a record for the highest completion percentage by a rookie attempting 40 or more passes in a single game. Throw in his 0.5 percent bad decision rate (BDR, which measures how often a passer makes a mental error that leads to a turnover opportunity for the opposing team), tied for third-lowest, and it means Bridgewater could be on his way to competing with the top young quarterbacks in the NFL.

We've talked about Teddy Bridgewater's decision-making skills in the past, and for a guy that's only made 12 career NFL starts, they're pretty staggering. Bridgewater is already reading defenses and processing information at a veteran level. . .and not just a veteran level, but a top-notch veteran level. And he did it all last season with things pretty much falling apart around him. With better personnel and more stability in 2015, things should be even better for him.

Part of that stability has to do with the second thing that Joyner cites in his article, that being the Vikings' rushing attack and the return of running back Adrian Peterson.

Minnesota would have the makings of a powerful rushing attack even without Peterson. The Vikings finished tied for eighth in my good blocking productivity (GBP) metric, and Jerick McKinnon ranked fifth in good blocking yards per attempt (GBYPA), which measures a ball carrier's productivity when the defense isn't able to disrupt a rushing attempt. The potential benefit of this for Peterson is that the Vikings don't need him to rack up 2,500 rushing yards on his own; they just need him to move an already-strong ground game into elite status.

I know that people are expecting big numbers from Peterson this year, and those will probably happen. But prior to his injury last season, McKinnon showed enough to prove that he can, at the very least, spell Peterson to preserve him a bit more as the season wears on. Peterson will probably have a big year in 2015, but he doesn't necessarily have to have a big year in order for the Vikings to be successful.

Speaking of personnel, the most significant offensive addition is the subject of Joyner's third part of his look at the Vikings, that being wide receiver Mike Wallace.

Wallace didn't impact Miami's vertical passing game as much as expected, but one thing he did do well was score touchdowns. Over the last two seasons, only 10 wide receivers tallied more receiving scores than Wallace's 15. Last year, the Vikings ranked tied for 19th in passing touchdowns to wide receivers (13). Wallace's arrival makes a top-10 finish in that category a legitimate possibility, especially if he's able to again become a difference-maker deep.

While it's true that Wallace didn't live up to the huge contract he got from the Dolphins, the numbers he put up down there would have made him the Vikings' leading receiver by a comfortable margin in each of those two seasons. This came about despite the fact that Miami's quarterback, Ryan Tannehill, has had his struggles with the deep ball during his time as a starter. Bridgewater, on the other hand, has shown to be pretty solid in that regard, albeit in a limited number of attempts. Wallace is definitely going to have the opportunity to make plays this year for the Vikings, and there's reason to be confident that getting him for a fifth-round pick is going to end up looking like a real steal by the end of the season.

Add another believer to the Minnesota Vikings' bandwagon for 2015. Looks like it's getting pretty crowded back there.