Minnesota Vikings’ wide receiver Jordan Addison caught the game-winning touchdown pass in the team’s 21-17 victory over the Cleveland Browns in London on Sunday afternoon, but if he hadn’t, there would probably be a lot of focus on what happened much earlier in the afternoon.
Addison did not take the field at all in the first quarter of the Vikings’ win on Sunday, instead finally joining the huddle in the second quarter. Nobody really knew why until the news came out after the game was over.
Kevin O’Connell told reporters during the post-game that Addison missed a walkthrough during the week, and as a result was benched for the first quarter. You’d think that it would be damn near impossible to get in trouble during something as highly regimented as an NFL trip to a foreign country, but Addison managed to find a way somehow.
After the game, Vikings star wide receiver Justin Jefferson said that he “had words” with Addison about it. But, as one of the team’s primary leaders, and in typical Jefferson fashion, he said that he was the one who needed to do better.
Jefferson said, “I definitely had my words with JA. It’s just all about growing up, and just being a part of the team, and knowing the stakes. … I’ve just got to do better keeping him under my wing, and making sure he has his head on straight.”
Now, to be perfectly clear. . .it isn’t Justin Jefferson’s responsibility to babysit Jordan Addison. Addison is a grown-up and needs to be held accountable for his actions. Hopefully, at some point, someone can get it through his head that there’s a standard that he’s expected to uphold. He’s too important a piece of the team to have to constantly deal with disciplinary issues.
But if you were wondering why it was that #3 was not free during the first quarter of Sunday’s game, we now know the reason why. Hopefully, this is the last issue like this we hear about with Addison for a long time.
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