The Vikings “are leaning heavily towards resting a bulk of their starters” in Week 17 according to ESPN’s Courtney Cronin. This was born out earlier on Friday when we saw the odds of a Vikings win over the Bears drop from -7 to -1. Minnesota is locked into the No. 6 seed and will play the No. 3 seed, which could be the Saints, Packers, Seahawks or 49ers.
For fantasy, it will be tough to rely on any Vikings player unless we receive some good intel on specific players and even then, we can’t be 100 percent confident. Both Alexander Mattison and Dalvin Cook are recovering from injuries, so they won’t play but are likely to go in the playoffs. That will leave Mike Boone and Ameer Abdullah as the two main backs again, but they could end up calling someone off the practice squad to give them an extra body.
Trevor Siemian should get the bulk of the quarterback snaps with Kirk Cousins resting, which isn’t good against the Bears strong defense. Prop the Bears D/ST up in your rankings this week and lower the upside of any of the Vikings backups who may end up seeing extended run.