Aaron Jones Reportedly “Likely” To Play Against Lions

And an update on T.J. Hockenson as well

With a big matchup looming on Sunday against the Detroit Lions, it certainly sounds like the Minnesota Vikings will have their best running threat on the field at U.S. Bank Stadium.

On this morning’s episode of Good Morning, Football on the NFL Network, insider Ian Rapoport reported that running back Aaron Jones is on track to play against the Lions this week.

“. . .one that I would say is likely to include Aaron Jones, the strong running back for the Minnesota Vikings, went down with a hip injury, turns out it was a hamstring injury. Obviously they had the bye week last week, that helped. Didn’t practice earlier in the week but was at practice yesterday. This actually goes all the way back to the London game, sounds like he hurt it in pre-game, tried to play through it. . .”

Jones went out late in the first half of the Vikings’ 23-17 victory over the Jets in London in Week 5. He does have a history of injuries, which the Vikings knew when they brought him in this offseason, and he missed a number of games during his time with Green Bay. With Jones off the field, the Vikings’ running game struggled mightily against a very good Jets defense.

The Vikings have been pretty good in recent years about not rushing guys back from injury so if they think that Jones is good to go for Sunday, I think we can be reasonably sure that Jones will be ready to resume his role in the Minnesota backfield.

Rapoport also said that the status of tight end T.J. Hockenson is a bit “murkier,” and it still isn’t known if he’ll be back on the field for Sunday’s game. It’s worth noting that Hockenson has not yet been a full participant in practice for the Vikings and the team could be targeting the Week 8 Thursday Night Football matchup with the Rams or the Week 9 game with the Colts at U.S. Bank Stadium as the date for his return. The team will need to put him on the active roster by 25 October at the latest, which is the day after the Rams game.

Those are a couple of updates on a pair of key Vikings offensive weapons. If anything changes between now and when the final injury reports drop this afternoon, we will update you.