Colts vs Vikings Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 15

The Worksheet, a fantasy football overview by Rich Hribar, breaking down everything you need to know for the Week 15 Indianapolis Colts at Minnesota Vikings Saturday afternoon game.

• The Colts have turned the ball over on a league-high 17.4% of their possessions.
• The Colts have forced a turnover on 7.4% of opponent possessions, 30th in the league.
• Minnesota has allowed opponents to score on 57.1% of their drives over their past five games, the highest rate in the league.
• The Vikings are allowing 7.2 yards per passing play, the most in the league.
• The Colts are averaging 5.4 yards per passing play, 29th in the league.
• The Vikings are allowing a first down or touchdown on 52.4% of pass attempts 10 yards or further downfield, 29th in the league.
• The Colts have thrown the ball 10 yards or further on 21.5% of their passes, the lowest rate in the NFL.
• Minnesota running backs have a 24.4% success rate on rushing plays since Week 9, the lowest rate in the league.
• 31.9% of the backfield carries for Minnesota over that span have failed to gain any yardage, the highest rate in the league.
• Colts running backs have a 31.9% success rate rushing the ball this season, the lowest rate in the league.

Quarterback

Kirk Cousins: Cousins cashed in his best matchup in a month while running into the perfect game script to take advantage of things. Cousins ended up as the QB5 (25.0 points), throwing for a season-high 425 yards (10.4 Y/A) and two touchdowns against the Lions. This came after a gauntlet in which Cousins faced the Bills, Cowboys, Patriots, and Jets.

The Colts are not a scary defense, but they have limited fantasy production. Indianapolis has allowed 12.6 passing points per game (11th) and 6.9 yards per pass attempt (12th). 

The Colts are 10th in the league in rate of zone coverage on passing plays (74.0%) and only rush four on 81.3% of passing snaps, the second highest rate in the league. Under those conditions, Cousins is eighth in the league in completion rate (72.1%), but 18th in the league in yards per pass attempt (7.3 Y/A) as his depth of target has been just 6.8 yards downfield (27th) while he has six interceptions.

With the state of Minnesota's defense, any game can turn into a shootout at this point. There is still a runout here in which Cousins can hit, but he is more of a floor-based option in the QB10-QB15 range.

Matt Ryan (TRUST): This one is interesting because the Vikings have a defense we inherently just want to attack weekly at this point, but where they are at their worst (vertical passing) is what Ryan and the Colts do the least of. 

The good news is that Minnesota is also rough on underneath targets, even if we ideally want to challenge them downfield. On throws within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage, Minnesota is 23rd in EPA per dropback, allowing a 72.7% completion rate and 11 passing touchdowns (18th). 

As a bulk product, the Vikings are allowing 16.2 passing points per game (27th). The Vikings have allowed a top-10 scorer in seven of their past eight games and all eight of those passers to finish in the top half of weekly scoring. That includes players such as Teddy Bridgewater, Taylor Heinicke, Mac Jones, Mike White, and Jared Goff.

Ryan only has three QB1 scoring weeks on the season. He takes a step of faith as a streamer, but those three QB1 scoring weeks have come against the Jaguars, Titans, and Raiders, teams we have circled weekly for streaming upside.

Running Back

Jonathan Taylor: Taylor has found a high floor and production to close the season. Based on the cumulative fallout with this offense via injuries and trades, Taylor has garnered a high workload that has allowed him to overcome the continued bouts of rushing inefficiency. 

Since the trade of Nyheim Hines and the addition of Jeff Saturday, Taylor has totaled 24, 25, 23, and 24 touches over his past four games for 163, 94. 98, and 103 yards. He also has a touchdown in three of those four games. 

Taylor is 23rd out of 26 qualifying backs in success rate over that span (28.2%), but he has played 90.1% of the snaps, the highest rate in the league. 

Taylor is a volume-based RB1, but he does run into a tougher draw here as the one thing Minnesota has done well this season is defend the run. The Vikings are allowing 3.79 YPC (fifth), but they have allowed 10 touchdowns on the ground to backs (18th) to keep the scoring potential open here for Taylor.

Dalvin Cook: Cook scored his ninth touchdown of the season on Sunday against the Lions, but things once again remained ugly overall in terms of production. Cook rushed 15 times for just 23 yards, adding one reception for 13 yards.

Over the past six weeks, Cook ranks dead last among 31 backs with 50 or more carries in success rate (24.2%), rate of runs that have failed to gain yardage (28.3%), and rate of carries to result in a first down or touchdown (14.1%). Minnesota has dealt with offensive injuries to Christian Darrisaw and Garrett Bradberry over this stretch paired with a brutal rushing schedule. 

The Colts are 12th in yards allowed per carry (4.07 YPC) to backs, but they are allowing 15.1 rushing points per game to backs (24th) due to allowing 11 rushing scores (24th) and facing 24.5 attempts per game (the fourth most in the league) since they have trailed so heavily this season. With the Vikings as home favorites, we will lean on the latter for Cook stacking opportunities to make him a volume-based option on the RB1/RB2 line.

Wide Receiver

Justin Jefferson: Jefferson somehow made 11 catches and 223 yards feel relatively quiet this past weekend, but it was the fourth time this season that he paced the position in PPR points. Jefferson was also robbed of roughly an extra 40 yards and a touchdown on a play that was inadvertently whistled dead because the official falsely believed Jefferson stepped out of bounds. 

With another 37.5% of the team targets, Jefferson is averaging 11.8 targets per game over his past six games. We have mentioned multiple times how the addition of T.J. Hockenson has elevated Jefferson’s ceiling and target quality. He has now been a top-five scorer in four of those six games played with Hockenson. 

The Colts live to protect the big play, so we will test that out here with Jefferson as a locked-in WR1. Indianapolis is second in the NFL in completion rate allowed on throws over 10 yards downfield (38.9%) while wide receivers have scored just 41.6% of the fantasy points allowed by the Colts (third fewest). That said, Jefferson is a beast of his own while the Colts are not completely impervious to elite wideouts. They have allowed production to Davante Adams (9-126-1), CeeDee Lamb (5-71-1), and Terry McLaurin (6-113-0).

Michael Pittman: Pittman hit the bye with his worst game of the season, catching 2-of-4 targets for 16 yards in Week 13 versus the Cowboys. Pittman has been a WR2 or better now in just four games this season. He at least has had a usable floor in full-PPR formats, with double-digit points in 8-of-12 games, but Pittman has fallen short of preseason expectations.

He has just one reception this year on a target over 20 yards downfield on just three targets. 

Minnesota is a team we have been targeting with wide receiver play, so Pittman is in play here as a floor-based WR3 with more safety in full-PPR formats. The Vikings are allowing a league-high 9.4 yards per target to opposing wideouts.

That said, the Vikings play zone coverage on 81.5% of passing plays, second in the league. Pittman has been targeted on 18.8% of his routes against zone coverage as opposed to a 26.7% rate versus man coverage. 

Adam Thielen: Thielen has lived as a touchdown-dependent option, more so since the team added Hockenson to the fold. This Sunday was a good runout for Thielen. He only posted 65 yards (and still has yet to have more than 72 yards in a game this season), but he caught 7-of-8 targets and his fourth touchdown of the season. 

Since the Vikings added Hockenson, Thielen has been the WR30, WR44, WR68, WR9, WR69, and the WR12. Those two top-30 weeks coming in weeks in which he caught a touchdown. 

The Colts do offer some matchup appeal here since they play Cover-3 on 43.4% of passing plays. Thielen has been targeted on 22.3% of his routes versus Cover-3, a bump up from his 17.7% base target rate per route.

Thielen is a touchdown-dependent WR3/FLEX. 

Alec Pierce: Pierce is an all-or-nothing type of play, posting just one top-40 scoring week since Week 6. But that week did come prior to the bye, catching 4-of-8 targets for 86 yards and his second touchdown of the season.

There is a basement-level floor here, but if you do need an upside swing based on the matchup, Pierce has that here. He leads the Colts with 12.5 air yards per target and has a team-high 21.7% of his targets on deep throws.

That is where we have consistently picked on the Vikings. Minnesota has allowed a league-high 27 receptions to wideouts on deep targets. Over the past three games, wideouts have caught 9-of-16 deep targets for three touchdowns.

Parris Campbell: After a multi-week surge in the middle of the season, Campbell has cooled back off the past two weeks, posting games of 2-14-0 and 4-43-0 with target shares of just 9.4% and 14.3%. Averaging just 9.9 yards per catch and 7.3 yards per target, Campbell needs a lot more volume than that to get there with stability, even as a floor play.

Campbell has nearly identical splits in target rate per route versus zone (14.6%) and man (14.0%), so there is no clear tell here in hopes of drawing those looks. The Vikings are also third in the league in yards allowed per target (7.2) to slot receivers. 

Tight End

T.J. Hockenson: Hockenson once again provided a safe floor on Sunday, catching 6-of-8 targets for 77 yards. His 12.8 yards per catch were a welcome sight since he has drawn so many low-leverage targets since the trade to Minnesota. With the Vikings. Hockenson has a depth of target of 6.1 yards downfield, averaging 8.4 yards per catch and 6.3 yards per target. 

Hockenson is a strong mid-tier TE1 against the Colts, who offer another good matchup. Indianapolis is allowing 7.7 yards per target (25th), a 74.0% catch rate (28th), and a 6.5% touchdown rate (22nd) to tight ends.

Colts TEs: After it looked like we may finally have the Jelani Woods breakout in Week 12, the Colts immediately went back to a committee prior to the bye with Kylen Granson available. Granson ran 22 pass routes (4-19-0) prior to the bye compared to 11 for Woods (2-28-0).

Woods is the option that offers all of the upside, so we stick a pin in his opportunity exiting the bye, but nobody here can be played outside of a Saturday-only DFS dart.

More Week 15 Fantasy breakdowns from The Worksheet:

SF at SEA | IND at MIN | BAL at CLE | MIA at BUF | PHI at CHI | ATL at NO | DET at NYJ | PIT at CAR | DAL at JAX | KC at HOU | ARI at DEN | NE at LVR | TEN at LAC | CIN at TB | NYG at WAS | LAR at GB