Ezra Cleveland, the Vikings’ left guard, will not play on Monday Night Football. Cleveland missed the entire week of practice after suffering a foot injury last week against the Bears.
Cleveland will miss his first game since his debut season in 2020 as a result of the injury.
The team will start Dalton Risner, who was signed to a one-year, $3 million contract late last month. After Cleveland was hurt last week, he took the final 10 snaps.
Jalen Nailor, a receiver, and cornerback Akayleb Evans, a cornerback, are both doubtful with hamstring injuries.
Cornerback Akayleb Evans (oblique) and receiver Jalen Nailor (hamstring) are questionable.
Evans was limited in practice this week, and coach Kevin O’Connell said he was “cautiously optimistic” that Evans would play against the 49ers.
Nailor remains on injured reserve, but the team could activate him back to the 53-player roster Sunday.
The Vikings won’t have defensive line coach Chris Rumph, who will miss the game with a leave of absence. Assistant defensive line coach Pat Hill will assume Rumph’s duties, with assistance from assistant head coach Mike Pettine and defensive assistant Imarjaye Albury.
The Miami Gardens For the most part of the last two decades, the Miami Dolphins haven’t had the words “potential Super Bowl preview” mentioned about any game they’ve played – possibly not since Dan Marino quarterbacked the team.
It refers to Sunday night’s matchup between the Dolphins and Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. And it’s not an overstatement. Regardless matter the outcome of this Week 7 matchup, these two clubs may play again.
Over the past week, a topic from this game has been the opening of every national sports talk show: Whether the Dolphins are for genuine after suffering a four-touchdown defeat to the Bills, the last challenger they encountered on the road. What went wrong for the Eagles during their shocking loss to the Jets last week? The quarterbacks Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts, who were rivals while playing for Alabama’s collegiate squad, have found success in the professional sphere. They each run the No. 1 and No. 2 offenses. Which team still has most to prove?
The game will be featured nationally on NBC Sunday night. Yes, the Dolphins have experienced that in the past, but the games against the Patriots in Week 2 or the Steelers or Chargers in 2017 weren’t anything close to this heavyweight contest.
As much of a big-game atmosphere as an NFL game in Week 7 can muster. Super Bowl preview, some suggest. Some claim that the Dolphins need to win the Super Bowl to demonstrate their superiority to the competition after the Eagles won it last year. This is especially true given that the teams they have defeated have combined records of 5-24. However, some may only claim that it is just another regular-season game along the way.
“I don’t think of it as a Super Bowl preview or anything like that,” said Tagovailoa, who once entered the 2017 college title game for Hurts to lead a comeback win over Georgia, throwing the winning touchdown to current Eagles wide receiver DeVonta Smith. “I just think that this is another team that we’re preparing for and in order for us to get to where we want to go to, we’ve got to play this game.”
Said defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who is a Philadelphia-area native and spent time with the Eagles as a consultant last season: “It’s one of 17. It’s no different than our last two games (Giants and Panthers) in that it’s an NFC opponent. So, the weight on the schedule and standings is the same. It just happens to be played on a bigger stage on Sunday night. But in the final analysis, it’s game 7 of 17.”
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