{"id":302210,"date":"2025-11-22T21:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T21:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/302210\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T21:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T21:22:08","slug":"vikings-activate-center-ryan-kelly-concussions-off-ir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/302210\/","title":{"rendered":"Vikings activate center Ryan Kelly (concussions) off IR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=\/i\/columnists\/full\/seifert_kevin.png&amp;h=80&amp;w=80&amp;scale=crop\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Kevin SeifertNov 23, 2025, 08:12 AM<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"icon-font-after icon-close-solid-after\" href=\"#\">Close<\/a>Kevin Seifert is a staff writer who covers the Minnesota Vikings and the NFL at ESPN. Kevin has covered the NFL for over 20 years, joining ESPN in 2008. He was previously a beat reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Washington Times. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia.<\/p>\n<p>EAGAN, Minn. &#8212; The <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"3db556c9-ed76-a7a5-4ccb-a92fc6db4334\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/min\/minnesota-vikings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Minnesota Vikings<\/a> activated center <a data-player-guid=\"2a6694a5-680c-71a9-c843-8f83cd1ebb04\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/2578475\/ryan-kelly\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ryan Kelly<\/a> from injured reserve Saturday, completing his nearly two-month recovery from a pair of concussions that seemed to threaten his career.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly, who signed a two-year $18 million contract with the Vikings in March after spending his first nine seasons with the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"582d14eb-da61-e505-cc40-d972a1b60ed1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/ind\/indianapolis-colts\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Indianapolis Colts<\/a>, has suffered a total of five documented concussions since entering the NFL. The Vikings diagnosed him with concussions during their games in Weeks 2 and 4 this season before placing him on injured reserve. He has played a total of 113 snaps in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Upon his return Sunday for the Vikings&#8217; game at the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"06cd3bcf-7a86-53d4-28e7-aa049dd36261\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/gb\/green-bay-packers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Green Bay Packers<\/a>, Kelly will wear a new helmet model and is also likely to use a Guardian Cap, according to coach <a data-player-guid=\"0f4f77e1-8802-396b-9c31-7e473833ceeb\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/2146711\/kevin-oconnell\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kevin O&#8217;Connell<\/a>. It will be the first game this season when all five members of the Vikings&#8217; starting offensive line have played together.<\/p>\n<p>The Vikings opened Kelly&#8217;s 21-day practice window November 12, and he followed with six symptom-free days of practice over the ensuing two weeks. O&#8217;Connell said this week that the Vikings were waiting until Kelly was &#8220;essentially banging down the door to get back on the field.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You never want to go on IR,&#8221; Kelly said upon returning to practice. &#8220;But I think in the grand scheme of things it was the best option to give me time to see specialists and do what I needed to do, and I&#8217;m grateful [the Vikings] had the had the foresight to do it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Vikings had already created a roster spot for Kelly by waiving cornerback Dwight McGlothern Jr. on Thursday. McGlothern re-signed Saturday to the Vikings&#8217; practice squad and was then elevated to the active roster for Sunday&#8217;s game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin SeifertNov 23, 2025, 08:12 AM CloseKevin Seifert is a staff writer who covers the Minnesota Vikings and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-302210","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}