Vikings at Panthers: Final injury reports

We’ve gotten our hands on the final injury reports for the Minnesota Vikings and the Carolina Panthers, as we are approximately 48 hours away from kickoff in Charlotte. Let’s see what each team has put out there as far as their injuries are concerned and what it could mean for Sunday’s contest.

Only two players with injury designations for the Vikings this week. Pierce is set to miss his second consecutive game with an elbow issue, meaning that the Vikings might have some difficulties against the run this week. . .again. Ellefson has provided some really solid blocking since the team brought him in and we’re not totally sure how the team will replace him. The team did protect Brandon Dillon from being poached from the practice squad this week and signed veteran Luke Stocker, though I can’t imagine that Stocker would be familiar enough with the offense at this point to merit a call-up.

Other than that, though, things appear to be going well for the Vikings. Dalvin Cook will make his return after missing two of the last three games (and being limited in the one he did play in), and Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson are both full-go for Sunday as well. Hopefully there won’t be any more significant injuries in this one for the team to deal with during the bye week.

For the Panthers, Christian McCaffrey will miss his third consecutive game with his hamstring issue, meaning that the Vikings’ defense has caught a bit of a break going into this one. Still, as we’ve mentioned, the Vikings have had some issues stopping the run regardless of who has been in the backfield so far this season, so they’re not going to be able to let up too much.

The Panthers will be missing two starters with Thompson set to miss his second consecutive game. Brown, Henderson, and Martin are listed as third-stringers on the Panthers’ depth chart, while Erving is their starter at left tackle and appears to be all systems go after not being given an injury designation on the team’s final report.

Those are all of the injuries for the Panthers and the Vikings heading into Sunday’s game at Bank of America Stadium, folks. We’ll continue bringing you coverage of this one as we get closer to kickoff.