Vikings vs. Packers Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 17

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 17 matchup between the Packers and Vikings.

Find a breakdown of every Week 17 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Sam Darnold: Darnold bounced back with a QB5 (22.9 points) scoring week on Sunday after a lackluster Monday night outing.

He threw 3 touchdown passes, his 11th game of the season throwing multiple touchdowns.

Darnold is a fantasy QB1 in a game that projects to be high-scoring.

One of those games with multiple scores was when these teams played in Green Bay in Week 4.

In that game, Darnold had 3 touchdowns and 9.8 yards per pass attempt on his way to 20.5 fantasy points.

Since that game, the Green Bay defense has been improved, allowing 6.7 Y/A (4th) and a 3.0% touchdown rate (2nd).

Darnold shares overlap when you look at the passers who have had success over that span against Green Bay for fantasy purposes.

They have allowed QB1 scoring weeks to Tua Tagovailoa (25.2 points) and Jared Goff (22 points).

We highlighted Darnold’s use of play action last week as an avenue for upside against Seattle, which held up.

Darnold was 8-of-11 for 104 yards (11.3 Y/A) and a touchdown using play action.

When Darnold did not use play action, he completed 58.3% of his passes for 5.1 Y/A.

Green Bay has shown similar vulnerability against play action passes.

The Packers allow 6.3 Y/A on non-play action passes (6th in the league) but spike to allowing 8.8 Y/A on play action passes (23rd)

When these teams played in Week 4, Darnold was 6-of-7 for 9.4 Y/A using play action.

Jordan Love: Love was not asked to do much on Monday night against a hapless New Orleans team.

He ended the game by completing 16-of-28 passes for 182 yards and a touchdown.

It was only the second time this season that Love has finished a game and ended that week in the back half of weekly scoring.

He only has two weeks to finish higher than QB10.

One of those was when these teams played earlier in the year.

That was a unique outing for Love.

He was returning from a knee injury that had sidelined him the previous two weeks, and the Vikings took a considerable lead.

Through three quarters, he was the worst quarterback in Week 4.

At that point, he had completed 19-of-37 (51.4%) passes for 187 yards (5.1 Y/A) with 1 touchdown and 2 interceptions.

Chasing points in a jailbreak game script, Love caught fire in garbage time, connecting on 13-of-17 passes for 202 yards and 3 touchdowns in the final quarter.

The Packers have adopted a run-first approach on offense.

Since their Week 10 bye, Green Bay has a 45.9% dropback rate, the lowest in the league.

It will be a test to see if Minnesota can push them out of the running game.

When these teams played in Week 4, Green Bay was forced into a 75.7% dropback rate, their highest rate in a game this season.

Minnesota faces the highest pass rate in the NFL due to playing with leads and locking up the run.

As a result, Minnesota allows 268.7 passing yards per game, 30th in the league.

They are fourth in passing points allowed per attempt (0.366) but are 20th in passing points allowed per game (14.0) since they face a league-high 38.1 attempts per game.

In recent weeks, we have seen Geno Smith (314), Kirk Cousins (344), and Caleb Williams (340) hit 300 yards against Minnesota through volume, with Williams and Smith scoring over 20 fantasy points in those games.

That is why the success of the Green Bay running game and how that impacts passing volume here are essential for Love to be in position for a spike-week QB1 fantasy outing or a floor-based scoring week.

Love has both outcomes in his pocket, which makes him appealing as an upside QB1, especially in DFS.

Running Back

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