Vikings @ Bears Week 18 Game Preview
With only playoff seeding on the line, the Vikings may not care much about the result of this game and the Bears could push to get the cover.
Vikings at Bears
The Vikings are coming off a humiliating loss to the Packers, one which has knocked them out of the second seed in the NFC and into third position. This week’s game against the Bears starts at 1:00 pm EST, which is before the 49ers’ kickoff, with whom the Vikings are tied in record.
The 49ers are unlikely to lose given they are playing the Cardinals, but Minnesota also has to consider seeding. The third seed is far more desirable, as it would match them up against the Buccaneers instead of the Cowboys or Eagles. It’s doubtful we see anything but the starters from Minnesota given how poorly the entire offense performed against Green Bay, but it’s worth noting that the third seed in the West will have the better matchup by every metric.
If the Vikings do play their starters for the full game, it could be a fruitful day for many of their top skill players. Chicago is potentially the worst defense in the league right now and has given up 6.1 yards per carry (second worst in the league) and 7.8 yards per pass attempt (worst in the league) over their last three games.
They have been absolutely trucked by opposing RBs over their last four games and have now allowed over 75 yards to four different RBs in their last two games alone. Dalvin Cook has rushed for just 3.8 yards per carry in his last two games, but he has a 70.5 yard rushing projection on Fantasy Life right now and that could get bigger as the week goes on. He should be in line to potentially push for his third 100-yard game of the year.
Expect the Vikings to rely on Cook a lot in this game as they try to protect Kirk Cousins for the playoff run, who was picked off three times and fumbled once last week. Cousins has been sacked 4.3 times per game over the Vikings’ last three starts, the third most in the league. It’s unlikely to matter much this week against such a weak Bears pass rush, but it’s still a concern that the Vikings are likely to try and mask.
Justin Jefferson will certainly be wanting as many passes thrown his way as possible, as he currently sits just 194 yards off Calvin Johnson’s receiving record for yards in a season and just 229 yards away from becoming the first receiver to hit 2000 yards in a season. Given the tough matchup coming up in the playoffs next weekend, stuffing Jefferson with the kind of volume he’d need to reach this record would be somewhat negligent by Minnesota. However, records are always tempting to reach for and locking in some small bets on alternate yardage props (over 150/175) for Jefferson this Sunday isn’t a bad idea.
The other side of the ball is much less exciting from an offensive standpoint. Justin Fields continues to excel as a runner but faces a Vikings secondary that is one of the worst in the league. Minnesota ranks sixth-last in defensive DVOA and gave up 208 yards passing to Fields in Week 5, his second highest mark of the year. Fields connected on some bigger plays downfield two weeks ago against Buffalo, but predicting which WR will have a big day from their group of Byron Pringle, Velus Jones, Chase Claypool, and Equanimeous St. Brown seems near impossible. Pringle did play the highest number of snaps last week at 75%, but as you would expect, he also has an insanely low projection of just 17.9 yards this week on Fantasy Life.
The Vikings will want to get this game over with quick and, honestly, may not care about the result. The big -5.5 spread also makes this a weird spot for betting, as we’re anticipating a Vikings TD+ win (with all their starters playing the whole game), but we have seen their defense get trounced by poor offenses multiple times in the last few weeks. Look for Chicago to push the Vikings’ fragile psyches into some kind of close game they don’t want to play and get the cover.