As the Minnesota Vikings make their final roster decisions on Aug. 30 before the deadline, news emerged about their Week 1 opponent, the Green Bay Packers.
On Aug. 30, the NFL announced that they are placing Packers running back Josh Jacobs on the Commissioner’s Exempt List. As a result, Green Bay won’t have their running back for the Week 1 game against the Vikings.
“The National Football League today placed Josh Jacobs of the Green Bay Packers on the Commissioner Exempt List. Jacobs may not practice or attend games while on the list,” the NFL said in a statement (h/t NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport).
Moreover, that’s not the only news the Packers have ahead of their game against Minnesota on Sept. 13. On Aug. 30, Green Bay officially moved Micah Parsons to Reserve/PUP, ruling him out for this season’s first four games (h/t ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter).
Green Bay will be missing two big pieces on offense and defense, which would be good news for the Vikings as they look to get off on the right foot in the NFC North.
KOC on Vikings QB Kyler Murray Ahead of Week 1
Heading into this contest against the Packers, the Vikings will have a new QB1 after naming Kyler Murray their starter during training camp. After that decision, Murray has had first-team reps in practice, and now it’s go time against Green Bay.
While Week 1 is still a few days away, Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell shared his thoughts on his starter.
“When you really study him and watch him over the years in Arizona, there was just a lot of times where he was asked to do a lot to move the football, whether it was plays off schedule, extending plays, we really have talked a lot about just the simplicity of throwing completions because he’s really accurate and he should be,” O’Connell mic’d up during the third quarter of the Broncos-Vikings game.
“He’s career-wise a very high-completion type of thrower. We just feel really good about him peppering completions, putting the ball in play, and then allowing the game to come to him a little bit. Pairing that with the way we hope to run the football when we get our ones out there.”
Kyler Murray Gets Promising Outlook From Adam Thielen
Meanwhile, ex-Vikings wideout Adam Thielen shared his thoughts on Murray as the former No. 1 pick looks to bounce back after the Arizona Cardinals cut ties with him this past offseason. Furthermore, the Packers game will be his first major test to prove that he can still be a starting QB.
“I think from him individually, I’ve just seen and heard a lot of confidence since they named him the starter,“ Thielen said during an Aug. 28 appearance on “Good Morning Football.“ “It was kind of this battle, and I don’t think really anyone was sticking out as the guy before that. And then they named him the starter.
“You just see this confidence, leadership, and kind of swagger as he continued to just, I think Paul Allen mentioned it on the radio and told me that he went, I don’t know what it was, like 16 or 18 in the next seven-on-seven and team periods the next day after he was named the starter.”
Vikings-Packers Week 1 Game Receives Two Key Updates