Vikings coach Leslie Frazier said Wednesday that the team expects wide receiver Jerome Simpson to be in the lineup this weekend, a little more than a week after he was arrested on DWI charges.
Frazier wasn’t willing to say that Simpson would remain a member of the starting lineup, however. Frazier said that the team is considering its options, but that they already were planning to give rookie Cordarrelle Patterson more playing time and that this might be an opportunity to do that.
“We intended to continue to get him more reps, and you saw it in the Washington game and the prior one, trying to get him more reps,” Frazier said, via Mark Craig of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “That was a part of the plan anyway, and it definitely will be a part of the plan now, with some of the concerns that we have.”
Patterson’s playing time has been on the rise and there wasn’t much reason for Simpson to remain ahead of him on the depth chart before the arrest. With that added to the mix, it’s high time to give the first-round pick more run.