Kyle Rudolph upgraded from doubtful to questionable

When we brought you the final injury report for the Minnesota Vikings yesterday, the purple had used the “doubtful” injury designation for the first time all year on two players. One of them was offensive tackle Riley Reiff, and the other was tight end Kyle Rudolph. Both of them sustained injuries in the loss to the Carolina Panthers, with Reiff missing much of the second half and Rudolph missing the final six plays.

On Saturday, according to Ben Goessling of the Minneapolis Star-Tribube, the Vikings upgraded Rudolph’s status from “doubtful” to “questionable.” While a “doubtful” status indicates that a player has about a 25% chance of playing in that week’s game, “questionable” makes them a 50/50 proposition.

When asked on Friday, head coach Mike Zimmer told reporters that he did not expect Rudolph to play on Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals, and the fact that the Vikings have changed his injury designation does not automatically mean that he’s going to play. But, as I said earlier, it does give him a better chance of doing so.

With Rudolph’s ankle injury, the only two healthy tight ends on the roster are David Morgan, who is fresh out of the concussion protocol after missing last week’s game, and newly promoted Kyle Carter. Carter was promoted when Blake Bell was placed on injured reserve on Friday.

So, there’s a bit of good news for the Vikings on this Saturday morning. We’ll see what it develops into as we get closer to kickoff.