The fantasy football landscape shifts each week, bringing fresh opportunities and unexpected challenges that separate the prepared from the pretenders. Savvy managers know that last week’s performance tells only part of the story, and diving deeper into the underlying metrics reveals the accurate picture.
This week presents some intriguing decisions. Here’s insight about key Minnesota Vikings players heading into their matchup with the Green Bay Packers to help you craft a winning lineup.
Aaron Jones Sr., RB
Too little, too late.
Aaron Jones has cleared 20 touches in consecutive games and bounced back on Christmas Day after getting folded up. His 15.3 PPR points against the Lions weren’t an overwhelming result, but it was his best game since Week 10 and his third-best performance of the season.
He fell into volume with Jordan Mason out, and that’s valuable, but he’s going to finish three straight seasons more than 7% below his per-touch fantasy expectations. And it’s not hard to envision 2026 being a season where Jones’ name isn’t meaningful for most in our game.
He turned 31 early in December and is nearing 2,000 regular-season touches, with his efficiency dipping. That’s not the resume of someone I would draft with any level of confidence, even if the Vikes list him atop this depth chart in the last year of his contract.
Mason is five years his junior and, with him averaging 4.6 yards per carry in his first season with the team, I’ll be labeling him as the top RB on this roster should nothing change in depth chart-wise.
I actually think there is value potential up-and-down this roster: the quarterback play, as a whole, figures to be better in 2026, and that tide can raise all boats.
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Jordan Mason, RB
An ankle injury kept Jordan Mason out last week and could keep him on the shelf for a game that means nothing in the standings for either team. The Vikes gave him work early in the season with Aaron Jones ailing, but haven’t called his name in a significant way since late October.
Jones only has one more year left on his deal, and that’s a large part of why I see myself landing shares of Mason this summer. He’s produced 10.6% over expectations through his four low usage seasons, and I’m generally intrigued about what he can offer if fully unleashed.
We don’t know exactly what this offense will look like next year, but I feel good about them needing a stable run game to support iffy QB play. Consider me cautiously optimistic.
Jordan Addison, WR
It was only a matter of time.
Jordan Addison was scoring at a Hall of Fame level through two seasons (one TD reception for every 10.9 targets), and that’s come back to earth this season (25.3). Still, he did remind us of why he has our interest on Thursday with a 65-yard touchdown run that saw him get every inch out of a stretch to the pylon to help seal the game.
His profile is troubling to me both in the very short-term and into next season. Addison’s aDOT has trended up every season, and I can work with that, but not when the QB situation is as unproven as what Minnesota is currently dealing with.
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Kevin O’Connell has given him even less slot usage this season (20.2%) than in the previous two years (27.1%), which very much caps how efficient he can be. I think Addison is a talented player in a well-thought-out scheme, and that puts him on fantasy radars, but this isn’t the type of player that you can count on weekly.
I’ll have Addison ranked as a middling WR3 in 2026, understanding that there is risk even in a best-case scenario, but also knowing that this offense could improve with time should J.J. McCarthy establish himself as even an average signal-caller.
Justin Jefferson, WR
We’ve seen quarterback play cripple Ja’Marr Chase for a stretch this season, we’ve seen it happen to Garrett Wilson for the entirety of his career, and the Jakobi Meyers production spike isn’t a coincidence.
Entering this season, we were aware that this sort of thing can happen, but we assumed, based on experience, that Justin Jefferson was immune to it.
As it turns out, everyone has a breaking point. During his career, he has had 11 games with 20+ routes and no more than 30 receiving yards: he’s done it in four of his past five games.
His 29.7% target share this season isn’t drastically different from what we’ve come to assume, but the quality of opportunity obviously hasn’t been the same.
Relax.
We have five seasons’ worth of data, and this is one of the very best in the game. If JJ McCarthy can harness some of the good we’ve seen this season, JJetta should have a real shot at leading the position in scoring.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba was on a 2,000-yard watch for a while this season, and Malik Nabers was labeled as the next face of the position entering 2025. I have nothing against either of those receivers or any of the others in that general range (CeeDee Lamb, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Puka Nacua, etc.), but you can have them, and I’ll ride with Jefferson.
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T.J. Hockenson, TE
This has been a dreadful season for T.J. Hockenson, and one target on 24 routes in Week 16 before sitting out Week 17 (shoulder) was just another example. As bad as that sounds, it wasn’t even his first game this season with a sub 5% target share, and with his yards per route run down 30.3% from a season ago, it’s easy to connect the dots and say that his best days are behind him.
These difficult onesie positions require us to take stands and move on when something doesn’t smell right. Hock missed seven games a season ago and failed to score on 62 targets; our antennas probably should have picked up this level of risk with a change at center.
With six games under 20 receiving yards this year, Hockenson is a player to watch from a distance next season and pounce if you like what you see from J.J. McCarthy in September.
