Vikings WR Justin Jefferson sidelined with minor hamstring strain [RAW]

Minnesota Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell provided an update on star receiver Justin Jefferson on Day 3 of training camp at TCO Performance Center. Jefferson has a mild left hamstring strain, and will be re-evaluated next week. He will not practice when fans return to training camp on Saturday.

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Wanted to give you guys just a little update. I know with uh Justin um you know the getting a chance to talk to you guys yesterday, we were you know he expressed some discomfort there and and to our staff and uh you know between the hamstring tightness in his left leg and just didn’t want to leave anything to chance. So we did have a little bit further evaluation done and he does have a very mild left hamstring strain. Um you know we’re going to be really cautious obviously with it. It is a It is not the same uh leg from a couple years ago. I know that question’s probably coming. Um and I credit Justin just for, you know, uh his ability to recognize how he was feeling and the fact that we were able to avoid anything major. Um you know, so we’re going to hold him out, you know, here for a bit and and then re re-evaluate him next week when we come back um later on in the week. And uh the best thing is we avoided anything serious. I see no concerns uh in regards to the opener and uh you know have no worry at all that we’ll be able to get Justin ready to go for the regular season. Um and as you guys know throughout camp you’ll see time to time we have some some of our players on some scheduled maintenance kind of days and things like that throughout. I’ll try to keep you posted to avoid you know any confusion um as I always try to do. But just wanted you to make you guys available uh of that. Do a few quick questions. Uh I do I I just know that uh you know all I worry about is the next time we’ll evaluate him and and see how we can start working them back in this time of year. The beauty of that is as you’re seeing with you know some of our other guys they can take part in bit in in different aspects of our training camp whether it be the walkthroughs, individual group periods, whatever it is. But we’re going to want to be smart with him. um you know knowing that uh you know we’ve got quite a bit of time to prepare uh you know still have a lot of urgency but Justin I thought he did a great job this off season from his participation in the program to some of the work the guys were doing leading into camp um so uh we know Justin is at this point in his career is going to be ready to roll and um it’s as much his presence and his juice and energy every single day uh regardless of you know his participation level clearly I would want him out there for every rep if I good. Uh but it’s it’s best that we’re smart and uh we’ve got some of the best in the league, you know, managing this and and Justin’s got full confidence in that. And we’ll take it we’ll take it uh a day at a time really, but when we reevaluate and I’ll keep you guys updated uh you know here and as we move forward, disappointing is the wrong word. Uh I think those guys have already developed a rapport. Yeah, there’s going to be some some reps as we finish off the acclamation period and work on into, you know, putting on the pads next week, but like I said, I have no uh no worries about this having an overall impact or effect on on that dynamic or anything with our offense. Who do you want to see step up? Yeah, I think uh even you know yesterday you saw it uh there was a couple guys, two, three guys jumping in there kind of taking reps with Jordan and Speedia in that group of 11. Rond Del Moore had a chance you know to make a couple plays. I I think we saw Lucky Jackson. I think we saw Felton uh you know Janu there’s a group there uh really the outside receivers where um you know they’re going to get a chance and then we can we can mix and match Jordan too play a little X receiver like he you know had to do in 2023 going back there and and as we’ve seen Speedy move around and really show his value at all three spots and um doesn’t change what we’re trying to do from a passing game, running game uh as far as far as installations, developing our core principles of the offense. It’s still early enough. Uh that like I said, I I have a lot of confidence that we’re going to be able to um you know, adjust anywhere we need to in the short term, but for the long term, um I’m 100% confident we’ll be able to get our team ready to go and get Justin ready to go. Last one. Yeah. Yeah. That’s Look, I I think in this day and age, uh, when you’re trying to prepare 91 guys to have a really impactful training camp, uh, you need players like Justin. He’s one of our captains. He’s one of our leaders. I think it sets the tone, uh, you know, that that, uh, you know, he was out there practicing until he absolutely felt like he uh, that it was time to to step back for a sec. And then we got to do our parts, too. Then he he did the right thing. Then let’s get him evaluated. Let’s make sure we have a total understanding and then set a great plan moving forward to attack it and uh you know have him ready to go most importantly for the regular season. Uh I’m not going to break any news. I’m sure I was not ant anticipating Justin getting a ton of time in the preseason uh football games as it was. Uh that would have been his first snap as a Minnesota Viking in the preseason uh which you know breaking news was not going to happen this year. So uh there we are on that. But I appreciate you guys getting together. Wanted to update you, not leave anything uh there for uh you know, Dr. Phillips to have to answer later on for. Okay, we’ll see you guys.