Rams vs. Vikings Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 8

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 8 matchup between the Vikings and Rams on Thursday Night Football.

Find a breakdown of every Week 8 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Sam Darnold: Darnold turned in a QB13 (16.3 points) scoring week on Sunday, connecting on a season-high 81.5% (22-of-27) of his passes for 9.6 yards per pass attempt.

He only threw 1 touchdown with an interception, but he added a season-high 39 rushing yards to his total to deliver a solid outing against a good defense.

Darnold has an interception in five of his six games this season, but he only finished lower than QB14 one week.

This is another good spot for Darnold to stay efficient as a fringe-QB1 option, but it may not offer a complete path to spike week.

The Rams have allowed 7.9 yards per pass attempt (27th) with a 5.8% touchdown rate (27th).

As a result, they are 27th in passing points allowed per attempt (0.491).

But since they only face 28.7 attempts per game (10th), they have not allowed many spike weeks for fantasy with just two QB1 scoring week against them.

The Raiders' quarterback situation from last week doesn’t move the needle, but that also includes Jordan Love (QB14), Jared Goff (QB18), and Caleb Williams (QB22).

The Rams play a ton of zone coverage (76.0% of snaps).

Darnold has a 1.9% touchdown rate against zone coverage (18th) and 7.8 Y/A (14th) compared to a 10.6% touchdown rate (6th) and 10.6 Y/A (2nd) against man coverage.

Mathew Stafford: Stafford is still without a QB1 scoring week on the season and has not been in the top 20 scorers for fantasy since Week 1.

Stafford has thrown 5.2 fewer touchdowns than expected, which is the worst differential in the league.

Stafford is a volume-based QB2 here, but Cooper Kupp‘s return should aid Stafford’s potential regression.

Minnesota is 10th in passing points allowed per attempt (0.348), but they force teams into passing scripts.

They face a league-high 42.3 pass attempts per game.

With all that volume, the Vikings allow 14.8 passing points per game, which is 29th in the league.

The Vikings have allowed multiple passing touchdowns in their past three games.

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Running Back

Kyren Williams: Williams exited the bye following the same plan he has followed all season: stack touches and find the end zone.

Williams handled 21 touches on Sunday, the fifth time this season he has hit 20 touches in a game.

He has 82.3% of his backfield touches this season, the highest rate among running backs.

On Sunday, he only managed 76 yards and did not record a reception, but he got into the end zone twice.

Williams has scored a touchdown in every game this season (he did not score in the playoff game last season, so do not let anyone tell you that he has a longer touchdown streak than this season).

Williams is only averaging 3.8 yards per carry (34th among backs with 50 or more attempts) with a run of 10 or more yards on 5.2% of his rushes (40th), but 29.3% of his runs have resulted in a first down or touchdown (5th).

He is tied for the league lead with 16 runs inside the 10-yard line.

46.3% of his fantasy points have come directly from touchdowns, the highest rate for any RB1 or top 40 scorer.

We have tried to short Williams all offseason so we will tread lightly here, but that rate should inevitably decline.

We will need touchdowns this week.

This will be a test for this run game, which is the best run defense the Rams have played since the season opener.

The Vikings had their hands full with the Detroit backfield last week, but even with that game factored in, they are allowing 4.28 YPC to backs (13th) and 10.2 rushing points per game (5th) to backfields.

We are still playing Williams as a volume-based fantasy option who has the most touchdown equity in the league, but this would be an objectively tough spot for him to find some of that scoring regression we are expecting at some point.

Aaron Jones: Jones had zero restrictions on Sunday after exiting before the bye with a hamstring issue.

Jones handled a season-high 89.5% (17-of-19) of the backfield touches for 116 yards.

He started things with a 34-yard touchdown run, his first rushing touchdown since Week 1.

That game came against the Lions, who are third in the league in yards allowed per game to running backs.

Things could not be more different here.

The Rams have allowed 152.8 yards per game to running backs, 25th in the league.

They have allowed 18.1 rushing points per game (28th) to backs and just allowed 123 yards to Alexander Mattison on Sunday.

Jones should concede some work given the short week and potential game script allowing Ty Chandler to work in, but this is a good matchup for him to take advantage of.

Wide Receiver

Justin Jefferson: Jefferson did not go as wild as we had hoped on Sunday, but he still collected 7-of-8 targets for 81 yards and his fifth touchdown of the season.

Jefferson’s peripheral stats are among the league’s best.

He leads the NFL in yards per team pass attempt (3.22) and target share (33.3%).

The only thing that has capped a supernova runout for fantasy is that Sam Darnold is 23rd in pass attempts per game (27.3) since Minnesota has played so well.

The Rams are sixth in the NFL in the rate of zone coverage (76.0%) and sixth in the rate of Cover 3 (44.8%).

Jefferson leads the team with 28.3% of the targets and 41.2% of the air yards against Cover 3.

The Rams have played better pass coverage since getting Darious Williams back (no wide receiver has a touchdown in the past two games against them).

Still, no individual player here is pushing us off Jefferson having a front-end ceiling.

Cooper Kupp: Kupp was held out last week supposedly because of the quick turnaround this week, but he is expected to play here.

We only had a brief sample of Kupp on the field this season, but he was targeted on a robust 38.6% of his 70 routes run.

Kupp may be eased into action in his first game since Week 2, but he is right back in fantasy lineups if available.

If he is at or close to 100%, this game environment allows him to draw plenty of opportunities.

Wide receivers have scored 58.5% of the fantasy points allowed by Minnesota (third-highest).

They face 26.8 wide receiver targets per game, the second most in the league.

We have seen players that can work inside and out like Kupp stack targets against Minnesota.

Stefon Diggs had 10 catches for 94 yards against them.

Jayden Reed had 7 catches for 139 yards and a touchdown.

Garrett Wilson had 13 catches for 101 yards and a touchdown.

Amon-Ra St. Brown had 8 catches for 112 yards and a touchdown.

Jordan Addison: Catching 3-of-4 targets for 66 yards on Sunday, Addison has not had more than three receptions in any game this season.

Addison has topped 4 targets in a game only once, so he is best used as a touchdown-dependent WR3/FLEX.

He has been targeted on 21.9% of his routes against Cover 3, not far from Jefferson (22.8%), and also averages 2.28 yards per route run against Cover 3, offering some upside per target if his volume does end up limited.

Puka Nacua: Not only is Kupp returning on Thursday Night, but so is Nacua.

Nacua had as much runway as Kupp in terms of practicing to this point, so he could have more limitations.

The Rams have a divisional showdown in Seattle next week, so getting Nacua active for live reps with a long window to see how responds in play.

If you sit Nacua, you will feel left out if he has a nice game.

If he is lackluster and you start him, you will feel like you made the wrong decision.

There is no great decision here for gamers, so I believe you just play him where you have him unless you feel strongly about your other options.

If Nacua is limited, his snaps should be high leverage ones.

Rams WRs: With both Kupp and Nacua back, there is a ripple effect on the rest of this receiving room.

The most stable fantasy option here has been Tutu Atwell if throwing a dart in single-game DFS.

Atwell has been a WR4 or better in five straight games with four consecutive games as a WR3 or better.

He has been targeted on a team-high 26.8% of his routes since Week 2, leading the team with 332 yards receiving.

Over that span, Atwell has played 61.8% of his snaps out wide but also 37.7% from the slot, so Kupp's return impacts him.

The one stable piece has been Demarcus Robinson, who has run a route on 93.3% of the dropbacks since Kupp’s injury.

The downside is that Robinson is doing the least.

He has caught only 9-of-19 targets for 156 yards over the past five games.

It would be nice to see Atwell get more run over Robinson, but that is all up in the air.

The Rams should be pressed to throw to create target opportunities.

Jalen Nailor: Nailor caught 4-of-5 targets for 76 yards on Sunday, all of which were season highs.

With Minnesota chasing points for the first time this season, they played 11 personnel on a season-high 80.6% of their passing plays.

That allowed Nailor the opportunity to stay involved.

That may not happen here given the implied game script, which makes Nailor best used in single-game DFS.

If we get pushback here, Nailor has a first down or a touchdown on 68.8% of his targets, the highest rate for any wide receiver who has run 100 or more routes on the season.

Tight End

T.J. Hockenson: Hockenson was also held out an extra week with this game looming, but he is expected to debut here.

Hockenson will ramp up his return from his ACL injury, but when he is on the field, those snaps should be on passing downs and in high-leverage situations.

We should not see Hockenson play many run-blocking snaps early on.

There is volatility here for Hockenson based on an unknown snap count.

Still, gamers have been playing many touchdown-or-bust options at the position who are not nearly as talented as Hockenson or attached to as good of a team.

If you are swinging on him in that capacity, the Rams have allowed an 84.6% catch rate (30th), a 7.7% touchdown rate (27th), and a league-high 10.4 yards per target to tight ends.

Colby Parkinson: Parkinson grabbed both his targets for 32 yards on Sunday.

He is averaging 3.5 catches for 32.8 yards per game at this point.

Parkinson's best attribute as a TE2 is that he has been on the field for 77.8% of the dropbacks (TE10).

His 1.17 yards per route rank him 21st among tight ends who ran 100 or more routes on the season.

Minnesota has allowed 6.5 yards per target (10th) to tight ends with 2 touchdowns.

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