Vikings Wednesday injury report: Eric Kendricks continues to sit out

The Minnesota Vikings held their first practice of the week on Wednesday as they prepare for their Wild Card Weekend matchup against the New Orleans Saints. There are quite a few names on the first injury report of the week, and one very important member of the defense that remains on the sideline.

Here is the full report from Wednesday’s practice session:

Did Not Practice

• CB Mackensie Alexander (knee)
• LB Eric Kendricks (quad)
• S Andrew Sendejo (illness)
• DE Stephen Weatherly (illness)

Limited Participation

• DE Ifeadi Odenigbo (hamstring)

Full Participation

• RB Dalvin Cook (shoulder)
• CB Mike Hughes (neck)
• S Jayron Kearse (foot)
• RB Alexander Mattison (ankle)
• CB Xavier Rhodes (ankle)
• DT Shamar Stephen (knee)

Kendricks is continuing to fight the quad injury that caused him to miss the second half of the Green Bay game and last week’s season finale against Chicago (though he likely wasn’t going to play in the Chicago game anyway). If he’s not able to go on Sunday, the Vikings’ odds of winning would decrease drastically, I would think.

Alexander was listed with a knee injury prior to the regular season finale. Despite that, he played about 90% of the snaps against Chicago, and it appears he might be dealing with the effects of that now. No word on what sort of illness Sendejo and Weatherly are dealing with at this point, but hopefully it isn’t one of those things that gets spread around the locker room and catches more players as the week progresses.

On the bright side, the Vikings’ primary running back tandem of Dalvin Cook and Alexander Mattison are both back to being full participants in practice. Both of them have missed the last two games, but it looks like both of them are on track to make their return on Sunday afternoon.

That’s your first injury report of the week for the Vikings. Obviously, the Kendricks situation is incredibly important and one that we will continue to monitor over the next couple of days.