Who Will be Playing for the Vikings on Sunday?
We come to the final week of the season, a meaningless game against a divisional foe, the Chicago Bears.
It’s a strange game of two teams with nothing to play for, with playoff hopes for both teams extinguished. It could also be the last game in charge for both head coaches, with Mike Zimmer and Matt Nagy among the favorites to be fired on Black Monday.
The only real interesting question for Vikings fans is, who will be playing for the Vikings on Sunday? Will we get to see the younger members of the squad get a good run out and an opportunity to showcase what they can do before next season? Mike Zimmer announced he plans to play the starters at the beginning of the week — which somewhat dampened that hope.
A Chance for Rookies?
This game offers an opportunity to give significant playing time to the rookies. A full game for Kellen Mond and perhaps Camryn Bynum. A chance to see Wyatt Davis and Chazz Surratt, who have been on the fringes all season. More opportunity for Patrick Jones and Ihmir Smith-Marsette and more opportunity to see Kene Nwangwu in the offense. Seeing how these players can perform with more responsibility is the only value this game has.
If Mike Zimmer is going to be fired after the game, then he has no real reason to want to look at the players for the future. If he isn’t part of that future, what does it matter to him?
He has every reason to want to put his best team out and win his last game and put another mark in the win column of his coaching record. Maybe he will still be the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings next season, and he just wants to win the game above all else.
There is a chance that the normal starters begin the game, and other players filter in as the game goes on. Maybe we will see plenty of the rookies — plus other players who have stepped up this season like Armon Watts, Blake Lynch, and James Lynch. Lots of rotation on the defense wouldn’t be a huge surprise.
COVID-19
There is also the issue of Covid-19 as more players are going on and off the Covid-19 reserve list every day. Currently, Camryn Bynum, Ezra Cleveland, Christian Darrisaw, Eric Kendricks, and Chris Herndon are all on the list. They all have enough time to be able to recover and play. However, there’s also time for more players to go on the Covid-19 reserve list. We are at the stage where it would rule out players from Sunday’s game now.
Who will be playing for the Vikings on Sunday? We will have to see who’s available first, but Mike Zimmer will send out his strongest available team to start proceedings. We will have to wait and see where it goes from there.