XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT
Week 1 wraps up with the Vikings visiting the Bears for a 43.5 total game in which Minnesota is favored by 1.5. After moving on from Sam Darnold we get to see the exciting second-year J.J. McCarthy take the reins for the Vikings, while the Bears need to hope Caleb Williams can show some progress this year before he starts being viewed as a big-time draft bust. I’m actually really excited for this game. I’ve always loved the Vikings for DFS, and J.J. McCarthy could make them even more exciting. I also really want to love the Bears this season (especially with their new coach), and this game will give us an idea of how they’re going to look.
MINNESOTA
We’ll start with Minnesota and their backfield, where Aaron Jones returns and Jordan Mason has been signed to the RB2 role. We have a good idea how this is going to play out: the Vikings are likely to limit Jones touches in an attempt to keep him healthy (which worked well last year) – Jones played in every game but had just 255 carries and 62 targets. The targets are quite nice, the carries are a bit low but not awful. We should expect him to land around the 18 or so touch mark in most games, but he likely has very little upside from there and will need to get by on efficiency. The Vikings did give him almost all the running back red zone work, and as long as that continues, he can still find ceilings. At $7,400, and with solid passing game involvement, he seems underpriced to me and is a player I want a lot of exposure to. Mason is likely to be in an RB2 role with something like 8-12 touches per game. Unless I’m wrong here, he looks wildly overpriced and could even be a complete X out spot, something I rarely do in Showdown.
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In the passing game, Jordan Addison is suspended, so the wide receiver corps is Justin Jefferson, a recently resigned Adam Thielen, and Jalen Nailor, with Tai Felton and/or Myles Price backing them up. There’s really nothing I can say about Jefferson. He’s awesome. He’s going to be very heavily owned. He’s a good play. The Bears were a strong pass defense last year (though that was also in part due to the volume. They faced relatively few pass attempts in the second half of the season), but he’s Justin Jefferson. Thielen is 35 years old but still managed two 100+ yard games last year (and another of 8/99/1). At $4,400, that would be fantastic, and we know the best time to play older players is early in the season when they’re at their freshest. It feels weird recommending a 35 year old pass catcher, and he has more target competition than he did last year, but $4,400 is awfully cheap for the WR2 in what should be a good offense. Nailor is probably 4th (or even 5th after Jones) on the target tree. He’s worth a dart throw here and there, but I expect his week-to-week target share is going to be quite low.
At tight end, T.J. Hockenson was elite in 2023, got hurt, came back, and was very very good in 2024 despite not scoring any touchdowns. Now he’s further removed from injury and with a full healthy offseason? He’s the real WR2 of this offense, and at $6,600, he’s priced more like a solid-to-good tight end, not a top tier one. He’s one of my favorite overall plays on the slate. Josh Oliver will back up Hock and it’s unclear how much we’ll see of him. Last year, it was a decent amount but that could have been Minnesota taking things easy on Hock coming back from injury, so his role could shrink this year. Oliver is still a reasonably capable pass catcher when on the field and deserves to be included in player pools. It’s worth noting the Vikings have historically been one of the most concentrated offenses in the league in the last five or so seasons. We’ve rarely seen their WR4/5 types or TE2s be fantasy relevant, and we’ve generally seen very robust snap counts for the main guys, so my guess is Oliver fades out this season and all the non-primary guys are very thin options.
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