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A week where your team has a short turn-around before playing their next game probably isn't the ideal time to have (seemingly) half of your team miss practice, but that's the situation that the Minnesota Vikings found themselves in on Monday in preparation for Thursday night's contest against the Arizona Cardinals.
The following players did not practice for the Vikings on Monday:
-S Antone Exum
-S Harrison Smith
-DT Linval Joseph
-LB Anthony Barr
-S Andrew Sendejo
-S Robert Blanton
-LB Brandon Watts
Yes, if you're scoring at home, that's every safety on the Vikings' active roster that sat out of Monday's practice session.
In the case of Exum, it was revealed that he will miss two to three weeks with a fractured rib and a sprained AC joint in his shoulder. He suffered those injuries in the first quarter of Sunday's loss to the Seattle Seahawks, yet only missed one play as a result.
Veteran cornerback Terence Newman had to stand in at safety for one play against the Seahawks, but head coach Mike Zimmer said that he wasn't worried about Newman having to do so on Thursday. I'm not sure if that means that Zimmer thinks he can find two healthy safeties between Smith, Sendejo, and Blanton, or there are going to be some other moves made. The Vikings do have two safeties on their practice squad in Anthony Harris and John Lowdermilk, the latter of whom was signed all of one week ago.
Things were already looking a little bleak for the Vikings heading into Thursday night's contest. This. . .this doesn't help.