The Vikings’ fourth-quarter comeback win over the Bears on Monday Night Football drew a big audience.
ESPN announced that the game reached 22.1 million viewers, an 8 percent increase over the audience for last year’s Monday night opener, which was the Jets against the 49ers.
The total viewership figure includes everyone watching the main broadcast on ESPN and ABC, the ManningCast on ESPN2, the Spanish-language broadcast on ESPN Deportes and the NFL+ stream. There was no breakdown announced for how many viewers watched on each of those platforms.
ESPN also announced that its Monday Night Countdown pregame show drew 1.76 million viewers, up 39 percent from Week One last year.
Harrison Smith is on the Vikings’ active roster, but he did not play in the season opener because of a personal health issue. The safety practiced last Saturday for the first time since Aug. 11.
He said he has made progress and expects to resume playing within three weeks.
Smith, speaking for the first time since his issue began, would not elaborate on his health ordeal other than to say it’s physical and not mental.
“I’m just trying to get my conditioning up,” Smith said, via Kevin Seifert of ESPN. “I’m going to go out there and see how much I can handle and go from there. I’ve already moved around, and I’m moving around well. It’s just volume and conditioning.”
The Vikings did not place Smith on injured reserve, expecting him to return before the four-game minimum absence. He expects the same.
“We’re kind of fluid with if I’m ready to go or not, and if I am going to help the team or not,” Smith said. “That all matters. But I expect to be back before [the four-week mark.]”
The six-time Pro Bowler has missed only eight games since the start of the 2017 season. He played 16 of 17 games last season.
The Falcons are banged up at wide receiver.
Drake London, who injured his shoulder with 2:32 remaining in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s loss to the Bucs, had a limited practice Wednesday.
Falcons coach Raheem Morris said London has a chance to play against the Vikings on Sunday.
“That’s not saying that he is,” Morris said Wednesday, via Terrin Waack of the team website. “But when you ask me, ‘Do I expect him to play?’ Of course. Drake is an ultimate tough guy, and when he says he’s going to practice, that tells you a lot.”
London played 67 of 76 snaps Sunday and caught eight of 15 targets for 55 yards.
The Falcons played were without wide receiver Darnell Mooney on Sunday as he continues to work his way back from a shoulder injury. Mooney, who was injured in the first training camp practice, continued with limited work Wednesday.
Mooney was limited in last week’s practices and given a questionable game designation before being inactive.
“We’ll see as far as Mooney and playing and all those things,” Morris said. “But we’ll get him out at practice. That’s always fun, putting him back into all the stuff that we’ve been doing. And we’ll get a look and see toward the end of the week what he’s got going on.”
Wide receivers Jamal Agnew (goin) and Casey Washington (concussion) did not participate Wednesday. Safety Jordan Fuller (knee) and offensive lineman Jack Nelson (calf) also were rehabbing.
Safety DeMarcco Hellams (hamstring) edge rusher James Pearce Jr. (groin) were limited.
The Vikings could be missing several players on defense for Sunday night’s game against the Falcons.
Head coach Kevin O’Connell said at his Wednesday press conference that linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel and cornerback Jeff Okudah are both in the concussion protocol. Both players will have to pass through each stage of that protocol before they’ll be cleared to return and they have a shorter window to do that for this week because the Vikings played on Monday night.
Linebacker Blake Cashman left Monday’s win over the Bears with a hamstring injury and O’Connell said he will miss time as a result. Running back Ty Chandler is also going to be out this week because of a knee injury.
Safety Harrison Smith missed the opener with an illness and left tackle Christian Darrisaw was out as he continues to recover from a torn ACL. Both players will try to ramp up their participation in hopes of returning against Atlanta.
A weekly appearance with Paul Allen, voice of the Vikings, on KFAN addressed one item of unresolved business from the memorable Monday night matchup between Minnesota and Chicago.
The Bears, as Peyton Manning pointed out in real time, should have kicked the ball out of bounds to keep the clock on the right side of the two-minute warning. This would have operated as an extra timeout for the Bears, who at the time had only one.
If the Bears had kicked out of bounds, what if the Vikings had declined the penalty and forced a re-kick? Could the Bears and Vikings have sparked a perpetual loop of kickoff out of bounds/re-kick that, in theory, would still be going?
Fortunately, no. Per the league, the Vikings could not have declined the penalty and forced a re-kick.
The two choices for the receiving team when a kickoff goes out of bounds is to take the ball 25 yards from the spot of the kick (which usually translates to the receiving team’s 40) or to take the ball where it went out of bounds. Which means that the Vikings would have gotten the ball with 2:02 to play, giving the Bears an extra timeout, courtesy of the two-minute warning.
Of course, that would have opened the door for something daring from the Vikings. A play-action pass, for example, and a deep shot to receiver Justin Jefferson. As long as the play takes at least two seconds, it wouldn’t have mattered if the Vikings had thrown an incomplete pass.
