Vikings Thursday injury report: Eric Kendricks returns to practice

We’ve gotten the second injury report of the week for the Minnesota Vikings as they prepare for their Wild Card weekend matchup against the New Orleans Saints at the Superdome, and it’s a bit of a mixed bag.

We’ll go through it here in a bit, but for now here is the full report from today’s session:

Did Not Practice

• CB Mackensie Alexander (knee)
• S Andrew Sendejo (illness)
• DE Stephen Weatherly (illness)

Limited Participation

• CB Mike Hughes (neck, downgrade from full)
• LB Eric Kendricks (quad, upgrade from DNP)
• DE Ifeadi Odenigbo (hamstring)

Full Participation

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

A couple of big stories from this one, both involving guys who were limited in practice on Thursday.

The first one is that linebacker Eric Kendricks practiced for the first time since the lead-up to the Green Bay game on Thursday, as he took part in some individual drills. We’ll have to see if he continues to progress on Friday when the final report comes out.

Mike Hughes, on the other hand, was downgraded to limited after being a full participant on Wednesday. Hughes is dealing with a neck injury, and I’m not sure when he suffered that injury, exactly. With Mackensie Alexander continuing to sit out of practice with a knee issue and now Hughes dealing with this, the Vikings’ cornerback group suddenly looks even more suspect.

On the bright side, it doesn’t appear that the illness that Sendejo and Weatherly are dealing with has spread. . .yet.

(knocks firmly on nearest wooden object)

That’s your injury report for Thursday, folks. We’ll have the final injury report here for your perusal at around this time tomorrow.