The definition of bittersweet
On this Friday afternoon, we’ve got what might be the ultimate “good news, bad news” for your Minnesota Vikings. Actually, let’s start with the bad news first.
As a follow-up to the story about Christian Darrisaw’s injury that we posted earlier, the team has officially placed the star offensive tackle on injured reserve. At his press conference on Friday, head coach Kevin O’Connell revealed that Darrisaw has both a torn ACL and a torn MCL, and placing him on IR will, indeed, end his 2024 season.
Speaking of torn ACLs and MCLs, the Vikings used the roster spot that was opened up by Darrisaw being placed on injured reserve to officially. . .finally. . .activate tight end T.J. Hockenson from the Physically Unable to Perform List. Hockenson suffered his own torn ACL and MCL on Christmas Eve last year and is now ready to get back into the lineup for the purple, which he’ll do a week from Sunday when the team hosts the Indianapolis Colts on what is now a prime time contest on Sunday Night Football.
It’s natural to draw parallels between Hockenson’s injury and Darrisaw’s injury, but there are so many variables that it’s difficult to do that. Everyone heals differently and the process for Darrisaw’s recovery will be different from Hockenson’s. One thing that is worth noting is that the timeline will be set at least somewhat by when Darrisaw’s surgery actually takes place.
Hockenson suffered his injury on 24 December of last year but, because of the swelling that accompanied the injury, did not have his surgery until 25 January, a month later. If the doctors can get in and get Darrisaw’s surgery completed in less time than that, it could give him a head start on any potential rehab that he’ll need to do to get back into the swing of things.
Basically, Hockenson needed nine months to get from the point where he had surgery on the knee to getting activated and brought back to the roster. Even if Darrisaw has to wait a month for surgery like Hockenson did, that would put him in late November for surgery and potentially give him an opportunity to be ready for the start of the 2025 regular season. He would almost certainly start Training Camp on the PUP List but he would be much closer to a return by that point than Hockenson was by the start of Training Camp this year.
So, now that we’ve finally gotten the news that we’ve been waiting for quite a number of weeks for, we can’t even properly celebrate it because. . .well, I can’t even give you a good reason why these things happen. They just do.
