The Barr, Darrisaw Injuries Are Increasingly Concerning
K. Joudry
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The Vikings released an injury report yesterday. Injuries continue to be an issue for Anthony Barr (didn’t participate) and Christian Darrisaw, who was limited. Harrison Hand (DNP) and Nick Vigil were also listed (LP).
The question is whether Vikings fans should be concerned about the ongoing Barr and Darrisaw injuries. Both were thought to be key parts of a purple bounce back.
I was of the belief that Barr was going to come into the season highly-motivated: “Rick Spielman and Barr agreed to trim down the contract to essentially a one-year, $10 million deal. There are some void years in there to make the cap work for Minnesota, but the broader point remains the same: Barr is playing on a one-year deal. Next offseason, Barr will have what is likely his last chance to secure a long-term deal. He is 29, so he’s nearing the end of his career.” Therein lies the key, folks: Barr’s chance of getting another sizable deal is quickly coming to an end. For this reason, I expected him to be a key part of our defense this season.
Unfortunately, injury has limited his ability to do so. Zim was vague in his assessment of Barr’s recovery: “He’s feeling better than he did yesterday, so we’ll just have to see where he’s at.” Even more concerning is that Vigil is dealing with an injury. He called the plays last week, so losing him would be yet another hurdle for our Vikings to overcome.
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Darrisaw was supposed to be a solution on offense, but (like Barr) ongoing injury has limited him. The Ezra Cleveland-Oli Udoh guard duo gave us some optimism for improved play along the iOL. From there, the hope was that Darrisaw could offer us a Riley Reiff level of play at LT (or perhaps even a little better). Well, we’re quickly approaching Week 2 and it looks like we’ll again be without Darrisaw.
Earlier this week, Sean Borman wrote about the situation over at Vikings Territory: “Another media member told me that two surgeries in one year are cause for concern and that Darrisaw’s conditioning has a ways to go as well.” All the quotes and tidbits from Borman’s piece suggests that it’ll be a little while before we see Darrisaw. Dustin Baker has therefore suggested that Minnesota tries to make a move for Russell Okung.
Truthfully, I don’t know what the solution is. What I do know is that Lil’Kub needs to do considerably more to help his offensive line, as I discussed yesterday at Purple PTSD. On Sunday, we’re going to need a lot more play action, bootlegs, and screens to help neutralize Arizona’s fearsome pass rush. Let’s see where that gets us and then go from there.
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