Update: Vikings Place Safety Jamarca Sanford on Short Term IR
By Dan Zinski
The first of what will be many many roster moves for the Vikings today has leaked out to the world via Rand Getlin of Yahoo!. Mr. Getlin reports from a league source that the Vikings have pared down their secondary by placing safety Jamarca Sanford on injured reserve.
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Sanford would have been in the mix for a roster spot had he been able to get on the field in the final preseason game, but an injury prevented that and now Sanford’s season is over.
So the two men who battled for a starting safety spot in 2012, Sanford and Mistral Raymond, both end up in IR their first year under Mike Zimmer.
Sanford’s trip to IR is good news for Andrew Sendejo, Robert Blanton, Antone Exum, Kurt Coleman and Chris Crocker. Four of those five men figure to make the team at safety alongside Harrison Smith.
Exum was injured late in the preseason finale but I don’t expect him to get stashed on IR as the injury was not believed to be serious. He could still end up on the practice squad.
It stinks for Sanford that an injury had to decide things for him, but that’s the way it goes in the NFL. Sanford’s long-term career prospects are a subject we can discuss at another time. He is set to be an unrestricted free agent after the season.
Update: Getlin has updated his report with the information that Sanford has been placed on short-term IR which means he will be cut when healthy. This is not the same as IR-to-return which means a player can be brought back from IR after 8 weeks.