Early Moves On A Short Week

Did some team swoop in and try to pluck a player from the Minnesota Vikings practice squad? On Monday, the Vikings signed defensive end Stephen Weatherly from their practice squad to the active roster. The move was a surprise partly because it happened so early in the week but mostly because it came at the expense of running back Ronnie Hillman. The Vikings now have only have Jerick McKinnon and Matt Asiata handling the carries. Fullback Zach Line can carry the ball if needed and receiver Cordarrelle Patterson has some fine running skills. So, it's not the two-man position that it appears to be. The release of Hillman also increased talk that Adrian Peterson might be returning soon. While I do think that Peterson will return soon I really think that some team wanted to sign Weatherly and the Vikings didn't want that to happen. They had to add him to their active roster so that another team couldn't add him to theirs. A player had to go and that player was Hillman. He wasn't out of work for long. The San Diego Chargers grabbed him as soon as he hit the street.

When head coach Mike Zimmer was asked if a team wanted to sign Weatherly, he simply replied "possibly."

This Monday move also may have happened when it did due to a ridiculously short work week. The Vikings play the Lions in Detroit on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving football is a wonderful tradition but playing two NFL games with only three days to recover and prepare is just stupid. A human body wasn't built to do such a thing. It probably wasn't built to play football in general but that's a whole other story. Everything that a team does to prepare for a game is condensed for a Thursday game. No rest. Two practice days rather than three. The Vikings even had to release an injury report on Monday for a practice that they didn't even have. They had to go through these motions so that the media, gamblers, and fantasy players can have three injury reports before the Thursday game. The Vikings had to guess the participation levels of their players for that mythical practice. I bet that's a chore that coaches enjoy while they have to slam together a game plan. It's a short week and it's an even shorter week for the team that has to travel. At least the Vikings don't have to travel far.