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Kevin SeifertOct 4, 2025, 04:48 PM ET<\/p>\n
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 LONDON — The Minnesota Vikings<\/a> placed center Ryan Kelly<\/a> on injured reserve Saturday, meaning he will miss at least four games after suffering two concussions in the first month of the season.<\/p>\n The decision is a long-term blow for an offensive line that will be missing a total of three starters for Sunday’s game against the Cleveland Browns<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kelly had previously sustained at least three concussions in his NFL career. He went into the NFL’s concussion protocol during the Vikings’ second game of the season and missed the following game. He returned last week against the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> but went back into the protocol at halftime.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n The Vikings signed Kelly to a two-year, $18 million free agent contract in March as part of their effort to stabilize the interior of their offensive line. But at age 32, it’s not clear when he will be ready to resume playing.<\/p>\n Asked last week whether any larger conversations about Kelly were necessary given his concussion history, coach Kevin O’Connell<\/a> said: “Clearly the health of our players is always the … beginning, middle and end. So we’ll totally defer to the doctors, and we’ll defer to the protocol, and ultimately, we’re going to want to make sure Ryan is in a good place. That’s not anything I particularly ever want to mess around with. We’ll be smart, and at the same time it’s definitely not my lane to weigh in on those things until the medical staff or we get to that place.”<\/p>\n In addition to Kelly, the Vikings will be without right tackle Brian O’Neill<\/a> (right MCL) and left guard Donovan Jackson<\/a> (left wrist) against the Browns. Kelly’s backup, Michael Jurgens<\/a>, will also be unavailable because of a hamstring injury. That means Blake Brandel<\/a>, who played last week for Jackson, will make his first start at center. Rookie Joe Huber<\/a> is the likely starter at left guard.<\/p>\n On Saturday, the Vikings signed rookie center Vershon Lee<\/a> from their practice squad to back up Brandel and elevated guard Henry Byrd<\/a> for additional depth. They also activated fullback C.J. Ham<\/a> from injured reserve and waived quarterback Desmond Ridder<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin SeifertOct 4, 2025, 04:48 PM ET CloseKevin Seifert is a staff writer who covers the Minnesota Vikings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-202435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}