Dan Johnson details his top Quentin Johnston player prop for the NFL Week 8 matchup between the Chargers and the Vikings on Thursday Night Football.
Week 8 drops a live-wire pivot at SoFi—the 4-3 Chargers hosting the 3-3 Vikings on a short week—after Los Angeles was stung 38-24 by the Colts and Minnesota fell 28-22 to the Eagles. Justin Herbert still ripped a career-high 420 yards and three touchdowns in that Colts loss, proof the air game can surge even as the defense frays. Carson Wentz countered with 313 yards but two interceptions as the Vikings settled for five field goals, a red-zone sputter they can’t bring west. With Brian Flores’ blitz-laced identity shaping the coverage math, outside shots and rapid answers will decide rhythm. Into that pressure cooker steps Quentin Johnston, who opened 2025 with 79 yards and two scores vs. Kansas City and flashed a 13-catch, 186-yard ceiling last January—exactly the archetype who can flip a primetime script in one blaze. Given the matchup, there’s plenty of prop value to be found in Johnston’s market tonight, and I’m hacking for the fences.
To wit—below, check out one of my favorite Oronde Gadsden II props to consider from this Thursday night tilt.
Quentin Johnston to log the most receiving yards in the game (+600)
is a live, leveraged long-shot. The portfolio screams spike potential. Johnston sits at 407 yards in 6 games (67.8 per) with 14.5 yards per catch and five touchdowns, and his arc is rising—79 and two TDs in Week 1, 71 and a score in Week 2, 89 in Week 3, 98 and a TD in Week 4, then 40 and 30 with a TD in the last two. That pattern isn’t empty noise; it’s usage volatility that suits this exact market, where one haymaker plus a follow-up dagger wins the room. Minnesota’s coverage philosophy under Brian Flores pours fuel on the idea: this defense lives in disguise and brings heat at some of the league’s highest clips, which forces single-high rotations and isolates outside routes—the precise runway for Johnston’s posts, fades, and deep overs. Justin Herbert has a proven counterpunch to that approach; in their last meeting he became the first QB of the NGS era to clear 300 yards vs the blitz in a single game, carving 32-of-38, 307 yards, three TDs when Minnesota sent pressure.
The matchup inputs stay friendly. The Vikings’ pass defense has been hittable this year, and Johnston’s 14.5 YPR profile is built to punish coverage rotations that arrive a beat late. The competition for “most yards” is real—Justin Jefferson paces the field at 528 yards (88.0 per)—but Johnston’s role gives him a plausible route to the top on any given night: one max-protect shot off play-action to flip the script, then another deep intermediate off a switch release when the corner bails. His early-season ledger already shows he can stack chunk gains when the offense leans into him, and the red-zone gravity of Keenan Allen plus the seam stress from Oronde Gadsden II only widens the boundary alley. Layer in the Vikings’ low ball-disruption profile so far and you get the right ecosystem for a volatile outburst. This ticket correlates neatly with Johnston Longest Reception Over 21.5, if you like that as well. But it doesn’t need volume to cash—just the right two swings in a pressure game built to create them.
