Peterson Injury Will Once Again Test Vikings' Resolve
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- For two injuries to the knee, they sure feel like a punch to the gut don't they?
First Teddy Bridgewater, now Adrian Peterson. And the Vikings are once again expected to take a haymaker and get back up.
"I think this is a pretty resilient football team," coach Mike Zimmer said. "I think they're tough, I think they're determined."
Zimmer announced Monday that Peterson has a torn meniscus in his right knee, suffered late in the third quarter Sunday night against Green Bay.
He said there is no timetable for Peterson's return, as doctors are in the midst of considering which course of action is the best to take, but Zimmer did not rule out Peterson playing again as soon as Sunday.
In the meantime, the Vikings will try to move forward after yet another big blow.
"You can't, I don't want to say you just plug in the next guy, because you don't replace Teddy, you don't replace Adrian," safety Harrison Smith said. "But you don't want to hang your head and say, 'here we go again.' You just got to push forward."
The silver lining here is at least Peterson's knee injury is much less serious than Bridgewater's: The typical recovery is anywhere between two weeks to four months.
But Peterson possibly missing multiple games isn't exactly good news either.
"You have adversity through the season all the time," cornerback Captain Munnerlyn said. "People get hurt, things don't go your way. You just got to learn how to deal with it in stride. That's what this team's built on, man. We've been going through that since I got here, three years ago."
If indeed Peterson is unable to play --- and let's be honest, on a torn meniscus, expecting otherwise is pretty unrealistic --- it's fair to expect a pretty equal distribution of carries for Jerick McKinnon and Matt Asiata.
"Yeah, I have a lot of confidence in those two guys," Zimmer said. "They're both different types of runners but I think the combination of the two can help us…. So we're going to keep plugging away, and keep to do our very best to try to find a way to win."
As if they have any other choice.