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McCauley is the leader to act as Minnesota’s nickel back this year, stepping in outside during obvious passing situations while Antonie Winfield covers the slot. With a good camp, he may push Cedric Griffin to start at right corner.

He appears on track to start and play the main role on Thursday against the Lions, perhaps with Ty Chandler backing him up as it seems Jordan Mason won’t be able to make it active. Jones will probably be more of an RB3 with Max Brosmer under center against the Lions.

You don’t need to wait for the rule out on Wednesday — with Max Brosmer under center, it’s a run-don’t-walk to the waiver wire to replace Hockenson in your Week 17 lineup. If you somehow made it to the championship with Hockenson in your lineup, we’re impressed.

He’ll presumably miss the rest of the regular season at the very least. Ersery finishes the campaign with a 58.7 PFF grade — decent, but nothing outstanding — and a surprisingly low 52.9 PFF run block grade as a rookie second-round starter on C.J. Stroud’s blind side. Blake Fisher replaced Ersery on Sunday when he left the game, but the Texans have enough versatility that it wouldn’t be a surprise if they lined up someone else there against the Chargers in Week 17.

Kittle’s Week 17 status could be in jeopardy with the 49ers having already clinched a playoff berth, but we’ll keep the light on for the practice report since the 49ers are (miraculously) alive for the No. 1 seed in a must-win game against the Bears. Some are calling it the middest ankle sprain they’ve ever seen, the rare “Jeff Fisher 7-9" ankle sprain. We’ll check back in on Kittle on Wednesday, but fantasy managers should probably start preparing backup plans.

Fields looked downright unplayable for much of 2025, struggling to complete 10 passes at times and crossing 200 yards passing in just four of nine starts. The Jets also failed to really utilize his legs on designed plays for much of the season, leaving him with the worst of both worlds as a fantasy contributor. Still somehow only 26, Fields is no guarantee to see out the second year of his two-year contract with the Jets. A post-June 1 release would save the Jets $10 million in cap space. He also is a trade possibility. The knee injury is not incredibly significant, with Fields telling reporters in the locker room last week that he felt “week to week,” so he should be healthy for the offseason.

We’d write that this increases the chances of Jahymr Gibbs consolidating the backfield touches, but he’s already done that since Dan Campbell started calling plays. Montgomery might get a little extra run on Thursday if the Lions manage to blow out the Max Brosmer-led Vikings, so he does perhaps have a little more FLEX upside than in recent weeks.

Two limited practices would seem to have Williams well in line to play on Christmas. Will we get a full dose of Williams, or will the backfield continue to trend more towards a split with Malik Davis as the season winds down and the Cowboys are eliminated? The answer will probably tell us a lot about what on paper seems to be an RB2 smash spot against the Commanders.

Without additional context, this looks bad for Flournoy’s chances of playing on Christmas. He got in a limited session Monday, but this could be a situation where he re-aggravated his knee by pushing it too fast. Or the Cowboys may simply have seen what they wanted to see and wanted to keep him sidelined on Tuesday to rest him. We’ve presented you the narratives and leave you with: It will be interesting to see which narrative will win.

Rypien was with the Vikings in training camp and arguably would be as deserving of a start as anybody in Minnesota given how Max Brosmer has played so far. Perhaps that’s a Week 18 possibility. For now, he’ll serve as a backup.

It would seem exceedingly likely that Josh Johnson will get the start on Christmas against the Cowboys. The Commanders are seven-point underdogs at home and Johnson (wincing) could be a viable superflex QB2 against one of the worst defenses in the NFL this year.