Vikings get time to rest, heal

The Vikings have several starters feeling the pain of the early season. This year, the bye is coming early, but the timing couldn’t be better for a few players.

Coming off their first victory of the season, the Vikings will now get a week’s rest.

A day after their 24-10 victory over the Detroit Lions at Mall of America Field at the Metrodome, Vikings players reported to Winter Park on Monday to meet and watch film.

Coach Brad Childress then turned most of them loose until next Monday. Guys who are nursing injuries will have to spend time at the facility getting treatment.

The timing of the bye certainly could be better. Last year, Minnesota had its bye eight games into the season. That created a nice split and enabled the team to come back fresh.

“I wish we could have gotten about three or four more games before the bye,” defensive tackle Kevin Williams said. “But we have to take it and get our rest to go on a run.”

The good news for the Vikings is the bye will give guys like Percy Harvin (hip), John Sullivan (calf), Visanthe Shiancoe (hamstring) and Brett Favre (ankle, right elbow) time to get some rest.

“For us it comes at just a good time with guys that that are a little bit more beat up than we’d like to see them right here this early,” Childress said. “It allows some freshness to occur both mentally and physically. When I look at it, where it hits for us to have been practicing football from Aug. 1 to really the end of September here, we get a break after two months of this.

“Yeah we’ve got a 13-game stretch to finish the regular season. That will allow us to be able to get into a routine and hopefully build momentum as we go. It has been kind of stop and start with the way the schedule is. On a Thursday, the Sunday-Sunday, stop. So we’re really not going to know who we are as a football team I don’t think here for another 8-10 weeks.”

Quarterback Brett Favre plans to be in town through Friday and will spend time at Winter Park watching film and seeing if he can help get the passing game back on track.

Meanwhile, Brad Childress and his coaches usually use the bye week to do what they call a self-scout. The time off means they can look at their games on tape and break down what’s working and what’s not working.

“We’ll do a fair amount (of self-scouting) but we’ve only played three games,” Childress said. “That’s not a lot of body of evidence right now. We kind of are who we are. We’ll see if we have any tendencies in some of those charitable spots, short-yardage, goal-line, that type of stuff.”

NOTES

Left tackle Bryant McKinnie did a nice job matched up against Lions standout right defensive end KyleVanden Bosch, who led his team in tackles through two games. “That was something that was told to me all week long: high-energy guy, very fast off the ball,” McKinnie said. “I just had to come out here and match his intensity.”

Tight end Visanthe Shiancoe remains upbeat that the Vikings will be fine despite a 1-2 start. “As long as we just see improvement, improvement, improvement, improvement every week, that’s exactly what we are looking for.”

WR Bernard Berrian caught two passes for 24 yards in the Vikings’ victory over the Lions and played the entire game despite being slowed the previous week by a knee injury.

LB Erin Henderson wasn’t active Sunday, a week after coming in to replace the injured Ben Leber (back) and recovering a fumble and returning it to the Dolphins 1-yard line that led to a touchdown. The decision likely was made on who the Vikings thought should be active to play on special teams.

Tyrell Johnson has fallen from a starter in 2009 to the last safety on the depth chart this season. That became clear Sunday when he was inactive. Husain Abdullah and Madieu Williams started and Jamarca Sanford and Eric Frampton played on special teams.

C John Sullivan left Sunday’s game after one offensive play because of an injury to his left calf. Sullivan missed most of training camp after injuring his right calf. It’s not certain how long he will be out.

TE Visanthe Shiancoe injured his right hamstring in the third quarter Sunday and was able to return only briefly.