Vikings activate Harrison Smith from COVID-IR, designate Patrick Peterson for return

The Minnesota Vikings have been playing a little shorthanded in the secondary over the past couple of weeks, but Wednesday brought us some good news for the back of the purple defense.

The Vikings activated safety Harrison Smith to return from the reserve/COVID-19 list on Wednesday. In addition, they have designated cornerback Patrick Peterson for return from the injured reserve list.

Smith tested positive for COVID-19 on the day the Vikings faced the Baltimore Ravens a couple of weeks ago. As an unvaccinated player, he had to isolate for ten days, causing him to miss last week’s victory over the Los Angeles Chargers as well.

Peterson suffered a hamstring injury on the Vikings’ last defensive series of their overtime victory over the Carolina Panthers back in Week 6. The Vikings put him on injured reserve during the bye week, meaning that he still had to miss three games. However, that gave him four weeks to recover and the team hopes that he’ll be back this week for the big NFC North matchup against Green Bay.

In the absence of Peterson and Smith, some of the younger players in the Vikings’ secondary have stepped up. Most notable among them is safety Camryn Bynum, who has started the past two weeks in Smith’s place and has played very well, including registering an interception against Baltimore and a sack against Los Angeles. Hopefully Bynum will not be completely relegated to the bench now that Smith has returned.

The Vikings’ secondary is getting some reinforcements, folks. . .with Aaron Rodgers and company coming to town, that’s going to be pretty important.