Final Vikings Injury Report Raises Christian Darrisaw Concerns
On Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings will meet their second consecutive NFC East franchise. After defeating the Washington Commanders, the Dallas Cowboys await the Norsemen. This week’s Vikings injury report raised some questions.
2 Players Questionable in Vikings Injury Report
First of all, running back Ty Chandler is questionable. The organization opened the runner’s 21-day practice window last week, but he ended up skipping the Commanders contest. This week, he logged three consecutive full practices, and there’s no reason to hold him out any longer, unless they can’t figure out who to cut for him.
Chandler is buried on the running back depth chart, behind the top duo of Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason. Jones, by the way, is good to go for Sunday despite still dealing with his shoulder injury. Zavier Scott also got reps over Chandler early in the season, and a change there shouldn’t be expected.
The 2022 draftee Chandler, however, could support rookie Myles Price as a returner. He returned kickoffs in the season opener. Chandler can be activated at any time, but the franchise must make room on the 53-man roster.
All the other guys enter the weekend without any injury designations, which is certainly good news, given that half the team was listed on the report at some point this week. Well, all but Christian Darrisaw. The star left tackle is still not back to 100% and is questionable.
The Christian Darrisaw Injury Remains a Concern
Suffering a torn ACL in October of last year, the star blindside protector hasn’t been at full strength all year. He was forced to sit out the second half of last year’s campaign and the first two contests this year. Darrisaw returned in Week 3, but since then, he has had to sit out another game and has left several matchups early.
Unfortunately, he still hasn’t fully recovered from the significant injury and has to continue monitoring the knee. With only four weeks left, it’s unlikely to change before the offseason and extensive rest.
Darrisaw has skipped Thursday practices all year for rest purposes, but participated in most sessions on Wednesdays and Fridays. This week, he missed Wednesday and Thursday entirely, but logged limited work on Friday. Given the Vikings are barely playing for a playoff spot, it would hardly be surprising to see them take the cautious approach and rest their franchise cornerstone on Sunday. Giving him an early offseason could also be a decent idea.
Head coach Kevin O’Connell said about his star blocker, who is listed as questionable: “We’ll see how he feels coming off of today. At this point, it’s about managing the weeks based upon how he comes out of the previous game, where that (knee’s) at, and then try to put together a plan for the week that gives him the best chance to help us on Sundays.”
If Darrisaw is out, the Vikings and quarterback J.J. McCarthy would once again rely on backup Justin Skule to get the job done. The good news is that Micah Parsons isn’t employed by the Cowboys anymore, and they actually lack a premier rusher on the outside. The bad news, of course, is that Parsons will hunt Minnesota’s passers twice per season for the foreseeable future.
It’ll be another chance for J.J. McCarthy to show promise in primetime.
Editor’s Note: Information from PFF, Over The Cap, and Sports Reference helped with this article.