The end of last season was not kind to a pair of offensive players for the Minnesota Vikings on the health front.
Before Christian Ponder suffered a bad contusion to his throwing arm that required an emergency trip to the hospital after the season, left tackle Matt Kalil came down with an illness that forced him to miss practices leading up to the Vikings Week 16 victory over the Houston Texans.
Kalil wasn’t very forthcoming over just what the illness was at the time but, according to Tom Pelissero of 1500ESPN.com in the Twin Cities, it was a battle with pneumonia that hit Kalil late in the season. The illness caused Kalil to drop nearly 20 pounds in weight over the final weeks of the season.
Kalil played most of the season at 310 pounds but was down between 290 and 295 pounds while battling the sickness."I couldn’t eat anything for about three days,” Kalil said. “So, that wasn’t really good."His weight continued to drop down to 280 after the season come to a close before Kalil resumed working out. He’s back up over 300 pounds and sets his sights get up to 315 pounds for the start of the season.