Jones Is Back. The Backfield Still Isn't.

Aaron Jones Sr. has been cleared and is active, which is genuinely good news after the knee injury I flagged earlier this week. He gives the Vikings a functional starter again—someone who has shown he can carry a real workload when needed. But his return doesn't fix what's behind him.

Jordan Mason remains on injured reserve with the fractured thumb that's kept him out since mid-September, and the depth chart at running back is now DeeJay Dallas and a pair of names—Demond Claiborne, Max Bredeson—who weren't part of this team's plans when the season started. Dallas has been the nominal starter in the rotation, but he hasn't produced at anything close to a level that would ease the pressure on Jones.

So the situation is this: Jones is the backfield. If he tweaks that knee again, or takes a hard hit and misses time, Minnesota has no real fallback. That's a fragile place to be for a team already managing a quarterback room that has cycled through three players in less than a month.

The Jones news is the first update in a while that doesn't make things worse. That's about as much as can be said for it.