7 reasons why the Vikings shouldn’t panic about Danielle Hunter’s injury
By Dustin Baker
Timing — this is early in the season
Although far-fetched, if it was preordained that Danielle Hunter would miss time this season, the first part of the schedule is not a bad time for it to happen.
Of course, it is advantageous for a football team to get off to a respectable start, but would the Vikings rather have Hunter miss, say, a wild-card game, a divisional-round contest, and the NFC Championship? No, that would be a foolhardy opinion.
It’s not ideal for Hunter to miss any time. But if he has to endure an injury, it is better to go through it now and get it out of the way than to mitigate his absence during the lead-up to the postseason or actual playoff games.
During the first three weeks of the season over the last five years, Minnesota is the fifth-best team in the NFL. They are 10-4-1 (.700) in contests that take between Week 1 and Week 3 since 2015. So there is a reasonable chance that the Vikings will chug along with competence with Yannick Ngakoue and Ifeadi Odenigbo flanked on the ends of their defensive line.