It doesn’t sound too serious
A day after losing one of their top cornerbacks to a season-ending injury, the Minnesota Vikings had another player at that position go down during practice. Fortunately, it looks like the team dodged a bullet as far as significant injury is concerned.
On Thursday, veteran cornerback Shaq Griffin intercepted a pass and then went to the turf with an apparent leg injury. He walked off the field on his own power but did not return to practice, appearing to have a foot or ankle injury of some sort. On Saturday, head coach Kevin O’Connell provided an update on his condition.
“He’s dealing with a left leg soft-tissue [injury],” Vikings Head Coach Kevin O’Connell told media members Saturday. “We’re kind of monitoring him and making sure, whether he’s day-to-day, or it might be a week or so this early in camp.
“We’ll get him back, get him with [Vice President of Player Health and Performance] Tyler [Williams] and the group, and hopefully we can get him back sooner rather than later. But I’ll keep you guys posted on his timeline,” O’Connell added.
The cornerback depth chart for the Vikings took a significant hit in the first practice of the year when promising second-year man Mekhi Blackmon suffered a torn ACL, an injury that saw the team place him on injured reserve, ending his season. The position was already a spot of contention on the team’s roster and they can ill afford an injury to Griffin or anyone else at that spot going forward.
O’Connell said that the team will likely have to bring in another player at the position to at least take some of the practice reps and balance things out a bit. The team has enough cap space to explore potentially adding a veteran at the cornerback spot such as Stephon Gilmore or Xavien Howard, both of whom have ties to defensive coordinator Brian Flores, but it remains to be seen if the team will go down that road.
