The decision by the Vikings to downgrade running back Adrian Peterson from probable with a finger injury to questionable with an illness came as a major surprise. Here’s something that should be no surprise: He’ll play on Sunday.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, Peterson will be good to go at Detroit. As the source said, it’ll take a lot more than an illness to keep Peterson out.
So why did the Vikings make him a 50-50 proposition to play? First, “probable” technically means there’s a virtual certainty he’ll play. If there’s any chance that the condition will worsen and he doesn’t play, the Vikings would have to explain why he was listed as probable but then didn’t play. Second, the Vikings scratched defensive end Everson Griffen last week with an illness even though the Vikings never disclosed any problem either through the normal injury reports or via an update, like the update provided Saturday about Peterson.
Given the circumstances, the safe approach is to simply list Peterson as questionable. Then, if for some reason he doesn’t play, the Vikings won’t have a second straight weekend resulting in an NFL investigation arising from the team’s injury report.