The biggest game of the year in the NFC North kicks off in about. . .oh. . .a little less than 33 hours according to the countdown clock, and the official injury reports are now available, so let's take a look at what they tell us.  We'll start with the Bears because they're our guests, and we're polite like that.

One name that's not on this list is CB Nathan Vasher, who will miss this game (and possibly the rest of Chicago's season) with a hand injury.  He has definitely been ruled out for Sunday night's game.  Not that this is a big deal, mind you, because Vasher a) didn't play in the first match-up, either, and b) has been overrated for quite some time now.  Heck, it might almost be an advantage for the Bears if he's out.

Of the guys that are listed up there, only LB Jamar Williams is shown by NFL.com as having fully participated in practice on Friday.  Brown, McKie, Clark, and Booker are all shown as having limited participation.  Surprisingly, we've gotten all the way to Week 13 and haven't yet seen the trademark Mike Brown Season-Ending Injury, which is good news for the Bears.  He's one of the leaders of their defense.

I expected Bears' QB Kyle Orton to be on this list, but he's not there.  He clearly wasn't 100% when the Bears played Green Bay a couple of weeks ago, and the Bears got throttled by the Packers as a result.  He really didn't have to do a whole heck of a lot in Chicago's 27-3 victory over St. Louis last week. . .he had 132 yards passing on 28 attempts against a bad Rams' pass defense. . .so it's hard to tell if he's all the way back from his ankle injury.  With the way the Vikings' pass rush has performed at home this season, I have a feeling that we're going to find out pretty early on if he is.

Now, on to the Vikings' injury report.

All of the players listed on the injury report above had limited participation in practice with the exception of Letroy Guion, who didn't participate in practice at all and won't play on Sunday night anyway.

Artis Hicks is playing with a brace on his elbow, and is a 50/50 proposition to start tomorrow night.  Hicks apparently injured the elbow way back in Week 1 and has been playing with the injury all season with varying degrees of pain.  If it's decided that he can't go this week, Ryan Cook will be back committing false starts and giving up sacks at crucial times at right tackle.

Madieu Williams and Jared Allen will be out there, to the surprise of nobody.  As far as the rest of the folks on the questionable list, I'm guessing that Garrett Mills will be inactive again, but I can't get a read on either Herron or Ciurciu.  I'm guessing that at least one of the two of them will be active.

If we get more definitive word on the Vikings' injuries sometime during the day, we'll pass them along here.  Stay tuned, and continue enjoying the rest of your long weekend!