An ankle injury, apparently, won’t stop him
The Minnesota Vikings currently only have two players listed on their injury report heading into Sunday’s season opener against the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium. One of those two players has, apparently, already determined that his injury isn’t going to stop him from taking the field.
Wide receiver Jordan Addison, who has been dealing with an ankle issue for the past few weeks, has said he’s definitely going to play on Sunday, per Dane Mizutani of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Addison suffered a high ankle sprain during the team’s joint practices with the Cleveland Browns back on 14 August. The recovery period for such an injury is generally a few weeks, and so Addison appears to have had enough time to recover.
“I’ve had them plenty of times,” Addison said. “As soon as it happened, I’m like, ‘I already know what it is. It ain’t no biggie.’ I already knew I was going to be back for Week 1. It wasn’t nothing serious.”
Addison figures to be a big part of the Minnesota offense during the early portion of the season, given the injury status of tight end T.J. Hockenson. With defenses likely focusing a bunch of attention on Justin Jefferson, Addison should be able to take advantage of some matchups in the early going.
The Vikings have been a steady 1.5-point favorite throughout the week heading into this one. You would think that if there was any real indication that Addison was going to be out of this one that number would shift a bit. To this point, that hasn’t been the case, so I would expect him to be given a clean bill of health when the final injury reports come out on Friday afternoon.
In the event that Addison can’t go, for whatever reason, the Vikings might have to give significant reps to either Trishton Jackson and/or Brandon Powell. That’s because the only other player on the team’s injury report to this point is Addison’s potential replacement, Jalen Nailor, who is dealing with an ankle injury of his own. Hopefully Nailor will be cleared to play on Sunday as well, giving Sam Darnold a full complement of receivers in his return to MetLife Stadium.
