Kevin O'Connell answers important question about T.J. Hockenson's return
The Minnesota Vikings are getting excited about the return of tight end T.J. Hockenson. They activated his practice window the Friday before their 23-17 win over the New York Jets. The idea of activating his practice window ahead of the Jets game was to give them maximum opportunity to see him on the practice field […]
The Minnesota Vikings are getting excited about the return of tight end T.J. Hockenson. They activated his practice window the Friday before their 23-17 win over the New York Jets.
The idea of activating his practice window ahead of the Jets game was to give them maximum opportunity to see him on the practice field multiple times before activating him to play in his first game after tearing his ACL. When he does return is still up in the air.
T.J. Hockenson's return isn't contingent on a short week
One of the difficult parts about Hockenson's return is the upcoming stretch where the Vikings play their next two games across five days. Head coach Kevin O'Connell was asked about whether or not that would factor into Hockenson's return and he was blunt in his answer.
"I don't think so. I think we're just going to let T.J. get some good work in this week and see where he's at and got a lot of football left. So we want to make sure he's done everything from the standpoint of what we've asked him to do, from his rehab, he's in a great spot. I mean, he's moving around great, but he's got to get acclimated back into football a little bit. And we asked him to do a lot in our offense, and we want him to feel like he's working his way towards doing that, because we know there's a lot of football ahead. He's going to be a huge part of it that we have not had with us through these first five games or whatever."
It's interesting how O'Connell approaches the answer. He doesn't just talk about the fact that Hockenson needs to show that he's healthy but also football-ready when it comes to running the offense at a high level.
The activation from the practice window coming so soon after his January 26th ACL reconstruction surgery shows how confident the Vikings are that he's at a healthy point. Getting comfortable and up to speed with everything the Vikings will ask him to do is a different thing completely.
When Hockenson returns to the field, we can be certain that he's ready to roll.
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