This story will continue to develop but as of now Coach Zimmer hasn’t ruled Peterson out for Sunday’s game against the Carolina Panthers and it isn’t far fetched. After being examined on the sideline, Peterson hopped through a field-level club at the team’s new stadium toward the Vikings’ locker room.
Advertisement
The three-time rushing champion and NFL’s highest-paid running back in 2016 ($15.4 million) had just 12 carries for 19 yards at the time of his injury.
Peterson has rushed 31 times for only 50 yards in the first two games of the season. “It’s been two weeks”, Rodgers said after the Packers lost 17-14 to the rival Vikings in Minnesota on Sunday night.
Peterson was injured after a 5-yard run late in the third quarter.
Moira McCarthy, a sports medicine surgeon at Hospital for Special Surgery in NY, has operated on several National Football League players with torn meniscus injuries.
There are two main surgery options, one is to trim the affected area of the meniscus and the other is to stitch it back together. Robison said the Vikings success on the play started with the call by Zimmer and credited his teammates.
The Vikings revamped their offensive line in the offseason, signing Boone from the San Francisco 49ers and right tackle Andre Smith from the Cincinnati Bengals, and moving Brandon Fusco from left guard to right guard. Asiata said that experience could help him again in possibly replacing Peterson. While it’s likely that Peterson will miss some time, according to head coach Mike Zimmer, it appears that the news is about as good as it could be.
It is unclear when he’ll return to the field. More tests await Abdullah, who was off to his second strong start of the season.
Zimmer praised the next men up in the Vikings backfield, Jerick McKinnon and Matt Asiata, and exuded confidence in both of them.
As for McKinnon, he was a rookie in 2014, and carried the ball 113 times during Peterson’s absence.
And it was past fans packing the rails, holding drinks, that a pained Peterson, helped by two trainers, had to lurch past before he could reach the sanctuary of the changerooms. But numerous players said they’ll use that frustration as motivation.
Losing either Peterson or Teddy Bridgewater would be enough for a team with a Super Bowl on its mind to handle.
Asiata said that there’s “always something to improve every day and every week and something as a team we’re going to try to work on is our running game and go out there and try our best to clean it up”.
Advertisement
“I don’t think we’re that far off”, he added, saying about the would-be overreaction, “I don’t think this is anything to get super insane about”. We didn’t do a very good job in the run block.
