Chargers 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 Chargers and Vikings on Thursday Night Football.

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

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Justin Herbert: Working in jailbreak game script after the Chargers trailed 3-23 at the half and 10-31 early in the third quarter, Herbert stacked counting stats and fantasy points.

He ended up throwing the ball 55 times (third-most in his career) for a new career-high 420 yards.

He threw 3 touchdowns and 2 interceptions, but also tacked on 31 rushing yards to offset some of the turnovers.

This was Herbert’s first QB1 scoring week since the season opener.

The counting stats were propelled by the state of the game, driven by the league’s best offense from 2025 to this point with the Colts.

It is more challenging to chase here with the Vikings having issues generating points.

Minnesota has scored more than 22 points twice this season.

The good news for Herbert as a fringe QB1 is that the Minnesota defense has had some weaker points in recent games.

The Vikings are 10th in passing points allowed per game (12.7), but they have allowed over 80% completion rates and over 9.0 yards per pass attempt to Aaron Rodgers and Jalen Hurts in two of their past three games.

They have Caleb Williams, Michael Penix, Jake Browning, and Dillon Gabriel on their resume outside of those games.

Minnesota gave up big plays to both Rodgers and Hurts.

In those games, they allowed 17.2 yards per completion to Hurts and 11.7 yards per completion to Rodgers, with 79 and 80-yard touchdowns in each game.

That opens the door for Herbert to have big plays, but pass protection remains a concern.

Herbert was pressured on 44.3% of his dropbacks in Week 7 (2nd highest) and has the seventh-highest pressure rate over the past four weeks (39.3%).

Minnesota is third in the NFL in pressure rate (42.9% of dropbacks).

Apply any grains of salt for their overall resume of opponents, but when Minnesota has gotten pressure, they have allowed 5.4 yards per pass attempt (10th) and 9.6 yards per completion (3rd).

Without pressure, they have allowed 8.5 Y/A (28th) and 11.6 yards per completion (28th).

Herbert could get Joe Alt back to improve the protection issues.

The short week throws a wrinkle in his potential return, but Alt was practicing to close last week.

With Alt on the field, Herbert has averaged 9.2 air yards per pass attempt compared to 6.5 air yards per attempt with him off the field.

Carson Wentz: With J.J. McCarthy (ankle) still recovering, the Vikings will once again turn to Wentz on Thursday night.

In his four fantasy starts, Wentz has been QB12, QB9, QB22, and QB19, which makes him best used as a QB2.

That said, Wentz has been a solid source of volume and passing yardage; the touchdown production is just the hiccup in his ability to get into QB1 range.

Wentz has thrown multiple touchdowns in his two weeks as a fantasy QB1.

Over the past two weeks, he has had 1 and 0 touchdown passes.

Wentz has thrown the ball 46, 34, and 42 times over his past three starts.

The Vikings have a 70% dropback rate in neutral game scripts during those weeks (3rd highest).

They have thrown the ball 3% over expectations during those games.

That has allowed Wentz to have two 300-yard outings over his past three.

The Chargers are another defense that has had recent issues.

They have allowed at least 17 fantasy points to three of the past four quarterbacks they have faced, but those weeks have come against Daniel Jones, Jayden Daniels, and Jaxson Dart.

Running Back

Jordan Mason: The Vikings opened Aaron Jones‘ practice window on Tuesday, but it is highly questionable that he will return on a short week.

We will follow his status heading into Thursday night, but given the short week, we will move forward as if he will miss at least one more game.

Mason has been driven by touchdown production, lacking rushing efficiency or a receiving role.

He has 4 rushing touchdowns over the past four games.

Mason has rushed for 4.0 yards per rush in the past three games and only has a 5% target share over his four games as the starter.

But his workload has been sturdy enough to have him in play as a volume-based RB2 with added matchup upside.

Mason has handled 70.4%, 76.2%, and 71.4% of the backfield touches in the past three weeks.

This matchup also looks much better than it did at the start of the year.

The Chargers have had a host of issues slowing down backs in recent weeks, allowing big weeks to Bill Croskey-Merritt (150 yards and 2 touchdowns), De’Von Achane (150 yards and 2 touchdowns), and Jonathan Taylor (137 yards and 3 touchdowns).

Mason may not be as explosive as those backs, but the Chargers have a league-worst 40.4% success rate against running back runs over the past three weeks.

They have allowed a league-high 40.4% of backfield runs to result in a first down or touchdown over that span.

Kimani Vidal: The box score was not pretty as Vidal turned 13 touches into only 35 yards on Sunday, but he again had control of the backfield.

His Week 7 performance did keep the door open for Hassan Haskins to potentially get more opportunities, but Vidal played 64.9% of the offensive snaps, outtouching Haskins 13 to 3.

Vidal ran 31 pass routes (50.8%) compared to 19 for Haskins.

The uneven performances are a reminder that his Week 6 game was not elevated solely by facing Miami, but that this offensive line still lacks the stability to provide consistent running room.

The Chargers have shown they will swerve into airing things out if pressed to do so.

They threw the ball 9% over expectations on Sunday and have only one game this season where they have thrown the ball below expectations.

Vidal averaged 0.44 yards before contact per rush on his 9 runs on Sunday.

Over these past two weeks, Vidal has rushed 16 times for 27 yards when hit at or behind the line of scrimmage, compared to 117 yards on his 11 runs getting contacted beyond the line of scrimmage.

Minnesota played the run much better last week against a struggling Philadelphia running game than they had in recent games.

The Vikings allowed 55 yards on 19 backfield runs (2.9 YPC) on Sunday, and they had a 73.7% success rate against those runs, their highest rate in a game since Week 3.

This is a heavy bye week, so Vidal still is in play as a boom-or-bust RB2/FLEX option since he is a running back getting the football in a viable offense.

Wide Receiver

Justin Jefferson (TRUST): Jefferson pulled down 5 of 10 targets for 79 yards on Sunday against the Eagles.

He opened the game strong, catching 3 passes for 68 yards at the half, anchored by a 40-yard reception.

He only secured 2 of 5 targets for 11 yards in the second half.

Jefferson has seen double-digit targets in his past three games despite the slower second half.

With Wentz starting, this is another strong spot for volume and production.

After averaging 27.0 routes and 6.5 targets per game in his starts with McCarthy, Jefferson is averaging 41.0 routes and 9.8 targets per game with Wentz.

Jefferson has also seen 25.9% of Wentz’s throws against Cover 3 and Cover 4, with 3.75 yards per route run against those looks.

The Chargers are second in the league in rate of Cover 4 (23.7%) and eighth in rate of Cover 3 (39.6%) as their primary coverages.

The Chargers are also 25th in points allowed per game to WR1 targets (16.5).

Jordan Addison: Addison has made an impact since returning to action, posting games of 4-114-0, 5-41-1, and 9-128-0 in his three games.

He has been targeted on 20.3% of his routes since returning (WR40), but the top-down passing spike for the Vikings has pushed him up.

Addison has run 42.7 routes per game in his games back, third among all wide receivers (Jefferson is first).

As long as Wentz is under center, Addison is an upside option on the WR2/WR3 line.

Addison had a bump last week with Quinyon Mitchell trailing Jefferson often.

Addison had a 39.3% first-read target share after rates of 20.8% and 21.4% in his first two games, per Fantasy Points data.

He has not had the overall success as Jefferson against the Chargers' primary coverages (1.0 yards per route run), but Addison has been targeted on 24.4% of his routes against Cover 3 and Cover 4.

Addison has been targeted at a much higher rate against zone coverages in general, with 26% of his routes targeted against zone coverages compared to 11.4% against man coverage.

Ladd McConkey: McConkey saw a season-high 15 targets with 9 receptions on Sunday, but he only managed 67 yards on those opportunities.

Despite the lackluster yards per target, McConkey has gotten more involved lately with the Chargers, throwing the ball quicker and near the line of scrimmage.

McConkey has seen 21.9%, 23.7% and 27.8% of the team’s targets these past three games, with a target on 25.6% of his routes.

Over his previous three games, McConkey received 18.5%, 15.6%, and 15.8% of the targets with a target on 16.9% of his routes.

We have also seen McConkey get more scoring opportunities.

After 0 end zone targets over the first four weeks, McConkey has 6 end zone targets over the past three weeks.

With the amount of pressure Minnesota is generating, McConkey should remain involved near his opportunities in recent weeks, putting him on the board as a WR2/WR3.

The Vikings have been much better against slot receivers, and McConkey plays a team-high 61.4% of his snaps.

Minnesota is third in points allowed per game to slot receivers, allowing 6.2 yards per target (5th) and 0 touchdowns to those receivers.

Quentin Johnston: Johnston returned to action last week after missing Week 6 with a hamstring injury.

He only caught 2 of his 6 targets for 30 yards, but did manage to get into the end zone for the fifth time this season.

Johnston had no restrictions after the injury, running a route on 91.8% of the dropbacks.

The increased rate of shorter passing on offense has limited Johnston in recent outings.

In his past two appearances, Johnston has only had 11.1% and 12.5% of the team’s targets.

Not only have the Chargers gotten McConkey more involved lately, but the emergence of Oronde Gadsden has added another underneath target to pull targets away.

It is worth noting that back in Week 4, when Herbert only had 6.5 air yards per attempt, Johnston had a season-high 34.2% target share and 13 targets.

The reduction in targets could have less to do with Herbert getting the ball out and more to do with this offense having so many mouths to feed that someone is always going to be the odd man out on any given week.

The recent reduction in target opportunities moves Johnston back into the upside WR2/WR3 range.

There are reasons to chase an upside outcome, however, and I still prefer Johnston over most of the Charger receivers here if Herbert has time to throw.

Minnesota is allowing big plays to wide receivers, and Johnston is the big-play receiver in this passing game.

The Vikings have allowed a league-high 14.2 yards per target to outside receivers with a 12.2% touchdown rate (31st) to those pass catchers.

Minnesota has allowed a 58.3% completion rate to outside receivers on deep targets (20-plus yards downfield), which is 31st in the league.

21.7% of Johnston’s targets have come on those throws compared to a 10.8% rate for Keenan Allen and a 6.9% rate for McConkey.

Keenan Allen: Allen took advantage of the game conditions the most on Sunday, catching 11 of 14 targets for 119 yards and a touchdown, his first trip to the end zone since Week 3.

Allen only ran a route on 75% of the dropbacks, but with the passing volume elevated, he still ran a season-high 46 routes.

Allen had run 29 and 25 routes the previous two games.

Allen was not just a volume-based play; he was also efficient.

He averaged a season-high 2.59 yards per route.

Even expecting the passing volume here to drop from Sunday’s counting numbers, I still like Allen as a WR3/FLEX in this matchup.

Minnesota is blitzing 39.7% of the time, second in the league.

When Herbert has been blitzed, Allen has a team-high 25.7% of the targets with a target on 34.5% of his routes against the blitz.

Tight End

Oronde Gadsden: Gadsden kept up his recent surge on Sunday, exploding for 164 yards and a touchdown, catching 7 of 9 targets.

Those 164 yards were the highest in a game by a rookie tight end since 1985, and the fourth most by a rookie tight end ever.

Gadsden only had 16.7% of the team’s targets, so his target volume overall was inflated due to the sheer volume of the game.

That said, he still increased his playing time, something he has done every week this season.

Gadsden was in route for 78.7% of the dropbacks on Sunday, TE17 on the week.

He was targeted on 18.8% of his routes, TE27.

That is a reminder that there is still volatility here when everyone is healthy in this receiving room, and a jailbreak script does not propel the passing volume.

However, that is not just cold water; it adds context to work through future production.

We should be aggressive when a young player excels with opportunity.

It should not be ignored when a rookie tight end at a low-bar position shows the type of upside Gadsden had last week.

Especially since Gadsden comes with receiving chops out of college.

Gadsden has shown enough as a rookie (while Jim Harbaugh has talked him up heavily) to warrant upside TE2 treatment with plenty of room to continue to grow.

The Chargers are still a pass-heavy team that struggles to run the ball.

Until Omarion Hampton returns, it's harder to bank on the run game being a large part of this offense.

Minnesota is seventh in points allowed per target to tight ends (1.70), allowing 5.8 yards per target (6th) to the position.

They have allowed 4 touchdowns and a 6.7% touchdown rate (21st) to the position to keep the lights on for a score.

T.J. Hockenson: Hockenson secured 6 of 9 targets for 43 yards on Sunday.

He did have a touchdown overturned on the latest version of “what is a catch?” but we are six weeks into the season for Minnesota, with Hockenson’s only TE1 scoring week coming attached to his lone touchdown this season.

Hockenson averages 32.7 yards per game, his fewest since his rookie season.

His 7.8 yards per catch are a career low.

Hockenson is a touchdown-dependent TE2.

The Chargers only allow 3.9 receptions per game to tight ends (5th), but if you are solely chasing a touchdown, the Chargers have also allowed a 10.3% touchdown rate to the position (30th).

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