Minnesota Vikings: 3 Standouts vs. Cardinals in Preseason Week 3

1. Dalvin Cook

One player that certainly stood out in the Week 3 victory for Minnesota was promising young running back Dalvin Cook. Cook, who is entering his third season in the NFL after being drafted by the Vikings in the second round of the 2017 NFL Draft out of Florida State, didn’t play long in the game while only recording two carries total.

But within those two carries, the 5-10 running back showed that he is hopefully back to being fully healthy after dealing with multiple injuries early on in his career, totaling a team-best 88 yards highlighted by an 85-yard touchdown run to put Minnesota ahead of Arizona early on in the game.

Saturday’s game was the first appearance of the 2019 season for Cook after he sat out the first two games of the preseason. Although he did only spend a brief time on the field for the Vikings, it was good to see Cook back on the field and to display the type of explosiveness that he did on his breakout run.

After only playing in four games during his 2017 rookie campaign due to suffering a torn ACL in Week 4 of that season and playing in a total of 11 games a year ago while dealing with a few different injuries, Minnesota hopes to have a healthy Cook back for a majority, if not all, of the 2019 campaign this season.

His ability to catch out of the backfield and explode for big runs like we saw in Saturday’s game certainly impacts and improves the dynamic of the Vikings offense, and will in return open things up for Kirk Cousins and the passing game.

It was good for fans to see Cook back on the field and healthy once again in a Minnesota uniform. Now hopefully that will remain the case throughout the course of the regular season in 2019.