Aaron Jones — Week 2: Twenty-Three Carries, A Hundred Five
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 21
Jones carried 23 times for 105 yards, all but two of the running-back carries with Jordan Mason on injured reserve, per CBS Sports, including a 20-yard run from his own four two snaps after Chicago fumbled at the one. He had seven carries on the drive to the last field goal and was not targeted, in a 9–3 win over the Bears.
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Six to three, Vikings, nine oh three left in the third quarter, second and seven at the Minnesota four. Two snaps earlier D'Andre Swift had fumbled on first and goal and Isaiah Rodgers had recovered at the Minnesota one. Aaron Jones went off right tackle for 20 yards to the 24. +1.6 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and 4.4 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it. It was his longest carry and his best by expected points. The drive ended on a third-down sack, but the punt came from the 31 and not from the goal line.
The line: 23 carries, a hundred five yards, no touchdown, three first downs, six of the 23 successful, −2.4 expected points on the carries. The carries went eight, four, four, three, four, six, seven, one, one, −2, eight, eight, three, 20, three, two, five, nothing, nothing, five, 15, nothing, nothing. 12 before halftime for 52 yards, 11 after for 53. His one third-down carry was third and two at the Chicago 34 with 11 23 left in the second quarter, right guard for one; Carson Wentz kept it for two on fourth and one. He had no carry inside the Chicago 20, because Minnesota ran one snap there all day and it was a third-down throw. He was not targeted.
The last drive was his. It started at the Minnesota 12 with six 21 left, and Jones carried seven times on it for 25 yards, 15 of them around left end on second and five to the Chicago 24 with three oh four left. Chicago spent all three of its timeouts inside 13 seconds of game clock, Jones was stopped for nothing four times, and Will Reichard kicked the 39-yarder with a minute 12 left. The play-by-play notes his return to the game on that drive's first snap without saying when he left; DeeJay Dallas took two straight carries in the third quarter after the 20-yarder.
The split: Jones 23 designed runs, Dallas two, Wentz two — the fourth-down keeper and an aborted snap — +1 Wentz scramble. A hundred five of Minnesota's hundred 19 rushing yards, on a day of 27 designed runs against 23 pass plays.
Back in June the preview made no call on Jones: the fortieth running back off the board, a year-10 back kept at a 40-percent pay cut, framed all spring as the passing-down half of a backfield Jordan Mason would lead, with his early touch count as the thing that would announce a phase-out. Week 1 was 12 carries to Mason's 15. Then Mason went on injured reserve with a thumb fracture, per CBS Sports, and the split became 23 to two. The passing-down back had no targets and nearly all of the early-down work, which is the reverse of the June framing. 23 carries is not a phase-out, and it is also what the depth chart left him; how it looks when Mason is back is a separate question. Minnesota is at the Buccaneers on Sunday the 20-seventh.
_Data via nflverse._
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