Lions vs. Vikings Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 9

The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 9 matchup between the Lions and Vikings.

Find a breakdown of every Week 9 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.

Trust = spike production for that player

Quarterback

Jared Goff: Goff comes out of the bye playing efficient football.

He has completed 74.9% of his passes (2nd) for 8.0 yards per pass attempt (5th), and a 7.4% touchdown rate (2nd).

We have not seen that translate into front-end fantasy scores, however.

Goff has one top-10 scoring week so far, with five games in the back half of weekly scoring over his seven outings.

Goff is 28th in dropbacks per game (31.4).

Detroit has a 52.1% dropback rate (31st), which dips to 47.8% when playing with a lead.

Even in pricing in a potential lack of passing volume here, this is an excellent layout for Goff to remain efficient.

All he needs to do is run hot in the touchdown department to turn in QB1 output.

Detroit is at home with one of the highest totals of the week.

At home, the Lions have scored 52, 34, and 24 points.

In those games, Goff has completed 70.2% of his passes for 8.8 Y/A and a 9.5% touchdown rate.

Minnesota has struggled against every capable starter they have faced this season.

They are 27th in passing points allowed per attempt (0.511), allowing a 68.3% completion rate (26th), 7.7 Y/A (27th), and a 5.9% touchdown rate (24th).

They had success against Michael Penix, Jake Browning, and Dillon Gabriel, but have allowed top-10 scoring weeks to Jalen Hurts (24 points) and Justin Herbert (25.3 points) these past two weeks.

Aaron Rodgers threw for 9.1 yards per attempt with 2 touchdowns against them in Week 4.

Brian Flores has not been shy about sending blitzes again this season, sending extra defenders on a league-high 44% of defensive snaps.

Flores has blitzed Goff on 63.8% of his dropbacks over the past two seasons, with a 50% rate or higher in all four meetings.

Goff has completed 78.5% of his passes across those matchups for 8.4 yards per pass attempt.

Against the blitz in those games, Goff has completed 80.5% of his passes for 9.0 Y/A and a 5.7% touchdown rate.

J.J. McCarthy: McCarthy is set to return this week after missing the past five games with an ankle injury.

In his first two career starts, McCarthy connected on 58.5% (24 of 41) of his passes for 301 yards with 2 touchdowns.

31.5% of his dropbacks resulted in -1.0 EPA or worse, the highest rate in the league to open the season.

For some context, Cam Ward is at 21.6% this season.

McCarthy threw 3 interceptions and took 9 sacks in his two starts.

That has been an ongoing issue for the Minnesota offense.

Vikings quarterbacks have an 11.3% sack rate (31st).

31.5% of the pressures against Minnesota have resulted in sacks (31st).

That is not great here.

Detroit is 10th in pressure rate (38.8%) and sixth in sack rate (8.8%), turning 22.2% of their pressures into sacks (7th).

Offensive line concerns remain prevalent here.

Last week, the Vikings were playing their third-string left tackle, third-string right tackle, and third-string center.

Christian Darrisaw could only play 9 snaps.

Brian O’Neill has missed two of the last three games.

Ryan Kelly has not played since Week 4 due to multiple concussions.

Donovan Jackson returned to the lineup two weeks ago, but he has allowed 6 pressures in those games.

This offensive line can get pieces back, and McCarthy still has a minuscule sample to improve on.

But with McCarthy having such a long layoff and the offensive line remaining a question mark against a good pass rush as a massive road underdog, he is a back-end QB2 option.

Running Back

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