Injuries. Injuries will always be an unfortunate part of football. Five Vikings players arrived at camp unable to practice and were placed on the physically unable to perform (PUP) or Non-football injury (NFI) lists. The PUP list is generally for players that are rehabbing injuries from the previous season. The NFI list is for players with injuries that happened outside the scope of football. Players can be removed from either list at any time.
PUP
Mike Hughes, CB
David Morgan, TE
Brandon Zylstra, WR
Mike Hughes tore his ACL, and at least one other ligament, early last season. He's been rehabbing all offseason and his return is eagerly anticipated and widely speculated. The "more than one ligament was torn" news wasn't known until last week when Mike Zimmer casually mentioned it in a press conference. The fan and media reaction was as expected. It was as if he'd suffered the injury all over again. His condition now is the exact same as it was before this was known. David Morgan injured his knee late last season and had some surgical procedure during the offseason. The procedure was more likely of the scope variety than the far more invasive reconstruction variety. It's been reported that Brandon Zylstra is dealing with hamstring issues from OTAs. Even though hamstrings can be quite problematic and lingering, I expect Morgan's and Zylstra's PUP time to be fairly short. But then I thought that center Pat Elflein would return to practices long before Week 3 last season. Hughes will obviously return as soon as he's able.
NFI
Shamar Stephen, DT
Tashawn Bower, DE
As far as I know, Shamar Stephen's reason for being on the NFI hasn't been released. According to Zimmer, Stephen's time away from practice should be short. Tashawn Bower is a whole other story. He injured an Achilles tendon while working out on his own. While the severity hasn't been released, Bower's status for the season is easily the most in question of the five players placed on these injury lists.
Other injury notes.
Nose tackle Linval Joseph isn't participating in team drills as he recuperates from an offseason surgery, or more. Seeing as he wasn't placed on any of the injury lists it shouldn't be long before he's available for full practice work.
Receiver Jeff Badet is, of course, on the sideline for practices. Everyone wants to see that speed but he always seems to be hampered by some injury.
In Saturday's practice, defensive tackle Jalyn Holmes limped off the field. It reportedly didn't look serious.
Other than Bower's Achilles injury and Hughes well into continuing to rehab his knee injury, none of the Vikings' injury issues seem to be long-term.
That's enough with the injuries.
Holder Tryouts!
You know it's a quiet start to training camp when the biggest news is a holder competition. It's been so long since the Vikings have used a player other than a punter to hold for place kicks that I can't even remember the last one. Hall of Fame safety Paul Krause was the holder of my youth. I'm sure that a quarterback or two or more have done it since then but I can't think of any. Kicking has been a disaster in Minnesota since Blair Walsh missed that kick in the playoffs. The Vikings have juggled kickers since with little consistent success. Now, they are looking at the entire place-kicking battery. They selected long snapper Austin Cutting in the seventh round of April's draft. The early days of training camp have brought a holder tryout. Receivers Adam Thielen and Chad Beebe gave it a whirl on Saturday. They were at it again on Sunday along with tight end Kyle Rudolph and quarterbacks Sean Mannion, Kyle Sloter, and Jake Browning. Of those, the thought of Thielen doing the job is the most appealing. He's certainly got the hands but his football awareness and general athletic ability feel like nice qualities to have in a holder.
Vikings beat writer Ben Goessling wrote a terrific article about undrafted rookie fullback Khari Blasingame. I highly recommend checking it out.
The Vikings are looking at a bunch of punt returners too.
Ameer Abdullah, RB
Jordan Taylor, WR
De'Angelo Henderson, RB
Chad Beebe, WR
Craig James, CB
Holton Hill, CB
Adam Thielen, WR
Stefon Diggs, WR
I believe it's a long shot that either of the last two gets the job.
Kick returner is another open competition. I hope that Vikings fans realize how fortunate we've been over the past decade with the quality of returners the Vikings have had on the field. Cordarrelle Patterson is arguably the best kick returner in league history. The sad fact that he's in Chicago now costs me needed sleep. Percy Harvin was nearly Patterson's equal. Marcus Sherels was always reliable and sometimes explosive as a punt returner. All three were a blast to watch play for the Vikings. It feels a little weird to have the return game a complete unknown. Maybe something fun will come out of the competition.
"Laquon Treadwell has been amazing in special teams drills so far." Someone said it. I still have nearly every fan's favorite "punching-bag" making the roster. Despite much evidence to the contrary he has quality receiver talent and he might be the team's best gunner.
Not to dig back into the injury situation, but with Shamar Stepehen and Jalyn Holmes presently out (hopefully for little time) it gives everyone's favorite underdog Hercules Mata'afa some time with the first team. With Mata'afa being an undersized defensive tackle (listed at 6'2" and 254 but reportedly up to the 280s) seeing him compete against the first team offensive line will be very interesting. As an undrafted free agent in 2018 he tore his ACL during OTAs so he hasn't seen any NFL-level contact.
One of the immediate positives of this Vikings training camp is a set offensive line.
| LT | Riley Reiff |
| LG | Pat Elflein |
| C | Garrett Bradbury |
| RG | Josh Kline |
| RT | Brian O'Neill |
The above line was set the moment Garrett Bradbury was selected in the first round of the 2019 NFL Draft. In recent training camps there was a lot of mixing and matching of players along the line. When there was a fairly settled line injuries often took it apart. Let's hope that last apart stays away the current line. Training camp competitions are always a good thing. Allowing a set offensive line the time to get comfortable with each other is a better thing. No other position group on a football team requires as much coordination with the players next to them as the offensive line. I look forward to this offensive line working together this season.
Through three days of full squad practices, observers have seen no quarterbacks in shotgun.
It's still early but it sure looks like the Vikings are going to find ways to get rookie tight end Irv Smith Jr. on the field. That's really no surprise as they selected him in the second round to add some versatility to the offense. In an 11 personnel formation, Smith was seen bunched with receivers Adam Thielen and Chad Beebe to the left and Stefon Diggs split wide to the right. In 12 personnel, Thielen and Diggs were wide right, tight end Kyle Rudolph in line to the right, and Smith split wide left. It looks like there's going to be a decent amount of "Where's Irv?" this season. That should be fun.
Vikings football is back. That's a very good thing.
I was saddened to see that former San Diego Chargers running back Keith Lincoln passed away on Saturday. He was one of the best running backs in Chargers history and might be better remembered if he hadn't played in that other league, the AFL. In the 1963 AFL title game against a stout Boston Patriots defense, Lincoln put on one of the most ridiculous offensive performances at any level. He amassed 329 yards from scrimmage (206 rushing and 123 receiving) and two touchdowns (a 67-yard run and 25-yard reception) as the Chargers blasted the Patriots 51-10. In the AFL's fourth season the Chargers put a team on the field that had some people felt could compete with the best in the NFL. A lot of that had to do with Lincoln's ability and versatility. In the 1964 AFL title game it looked like Lincoln and the Chargers would do the same thing to the Buffalo Bills that they did to the Patriots the year before. The Chargers opened the game with a touchdown drive that included 58 yards from scrimmage from Lincoln. On the Chargers second possession Bills linebacker Mike Stratton leveled Lincoln with a hit so hard that it came to be known as "the hit heard round the world." The hit was the AFL's version of Chuck Bednarik's destruction of Frank Gifford in 1960. Stratton's hit broke Lincoln's ribs, knocking him out of the game. The Bills would go on to win 20-7. Lincoln's play was never quite the same after that injury. After his playing career, Lincoln was an assistant coach at Idaho and Washington State, his alma mater. After coaching, he worked as director of alumni relations at Washington State.
RIP Keith Lincoln.
I was saddened to see that former San Diego Chargers running back Keith Lincoln passed away on Saturday. He was one of the best running backs in Chargers history and might be better remembered if he hadn't played in that other league, the AFL. In the 1963 AFL title game against a stout Boston Patriots defense, Lincoln put on one of the most ridiculous offensive performances at any level. He amassed 329 yards from scrimmage (206 rushing and 123 receiving) and two touchdowns (a 67-yard run and 25-yard reception) as the Chargers blasted the Patriots 51-10. In the AFL's fourth season the Chargers put a team on the field that had some people felt could compete with the best in the NFL. A lot of that had to do with Lincoln's ability and versatility. In the 1964 AFL title game it looked like Lincoln and the Chargers would do the same thing to the Buffalo Bills that they did to the Patriots the year before. The Chargers opened the game with a touchdown drive that included 58 yards from scrimmage from Lincoln. On the Chargers second possession Bills linebacker Mike Stratton leveled Lincoln with a hit so hard that it came to be known as "the hit heard round the world." The hit was the AFL's version of Chuck Bednarik's destruction of Frank Gifford in 1960. Stratton's hit broke Lincoln's ribs, knocking him out of the game. The Bills would go on to win 20-7. Lincoln's play was never quite the same after that injury. After his playing career, Lincoln was an assistant coach at Idaho and Washington State, his alma mater. After coaching, he worked as director of alumni relations at Washington State.
RIP Keith Lincoln.
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