Minnesota Vikings linebacker Blake Cashman left Monday night’s game against the Chicago Bears with a hamstring injury that is likely going to impact the team well into the season.
Cashman put together a strong performance throughout the Vikings’ 27-24 comeback win in Chicago on September 8, tallying three tackles and a pressure through three quarters.
However, he was sidelined for the fourth quarter after sustaining a non-contact hamstring injury from chasing Caleb Williams.
On Tuesday, September 9, the Minnesota Star Tribune’s Ben Goessling reported that Cashman will undergo a MRI and is expected to miss “several weeks.”
Goessling said he agrees with a fan who speculatively wrote, “wouldn’t surprise me at all if Blake was out till after bye in week 6.”
It’s wise for the Vikings to use the luxury of a bye week to give Cashman more time to recover, but if that’s the case, Cashman could be a candidate to land on the injured reserve list to create an extra roster spot.
It’s an unfortunate blow, just one game into the season, for Brian Flores’ defense, which was dramatically different without Cashman for three games last year.
Vikings’ First 2 Losses Last Season Came With Cashman Out
Last season, the Vikings jumped out to a 5-0 start on the efforts of Sam Darnold and a revamped Vikings defense that welcomed Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel and Cashman to the starting lineup.
As an inside linebacker, Cashman has the impossible task of covering the middle of the field that Flores sacrifices to create pressure with his scheme. Few linebackers have the speed and instinct to cover it fully, but Cashman handled the job with poise a season ago.
He tallied a career-high 112 combined tackles, 28 pressures, 4.5 sacks, eight tackles for loss and eight passes defensed while missing three games with a turf toe injury he sustained in Week 5.
In the following two games, the Vikings defense allowed nearly 400 total yards of offense in their first losses to the Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions. Cashman’s absence was evident. Savvy play-callers like Sean McVay and Ben Johnson continued to pull the right levers to open up receivers in the middle of the field.
On Monday against the Bears, backup Eric Wilson stepped up in Cashman’s place. Wilson tallied five combined tackles, a tackle for loss and deflected a punt that was tantamount to the Vikings’ comeback — all while handling the cognitive load of communicating the defensive play call from Flores.
An undrafted rookie free agent of the Vikings’ in 2017, Wilson returned to Minnesota this offseason after five seasons elsewhere in the NFL.
He will surely be leaned on while Cashman is on the mend.
Blake Cashman’s Injury History is Becoming a Concern for Vikings
A native of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, Cashman signing a three-year, $22.5 million contract with the Vikings in March 2024 was a welcome homecoming.
However, the durability concerns that plagued Cashman early in his career are continuing to show up in Minnesota.
A fifth-round pick by the New York Jets in 2019, Cashman played in just 14 games in his first three seasons, landing on injured reserve four times before a fresh start with the Houston Texans.
Cashman has had a much cleaner bill of health since then, playing 44 games the past three seasons.
Dan Quinn Reveals Strategy to Contain Micah Parsons in Week 2 Clash Against Packers
Dan Quinn knows Micah Parsons as well as anybody in the NFL, and the Washington Commanders head coach is already putting schemes in place to stop the roving All-Pro pass-rusher against the Green Bay Packers in Week 2.
Quinn coached Parsons to some of his best football with the Dallas Cowboys, but he knows the Commanders need two things to keep his former protege quiet when they visit Lambeau Field for Thursday Night Football. Namely, recognition and numbers.
Without those things, the Commanders risk franchise quarterback Jayden Daniels getting overrun by a fearsome Packers front seven. It’s a group built on more than just Parsons’ explosiveness and versatility.
Unfortunately, Washington’s offensive line struggled to contain a New York Giants unit with similarly dynamic playmakers in Week 1.
Dan Quinn Has Answers for Micah Parsons
Quinn made Parsons a star by shifting the former Penn State stud all across the front. This roaming blueprint stressed offensive lines to identify Parsons’ starting point and react to how he rushed the pocket.
The first priority for the Commanders is knowing where Green Bay’s No. 1 is before every play. As Quinn told reporters on Tuesday, September 9, “like Micah and other great players, you want to, you know, know where they are to how to go play, and if you have vulnerability in a spot, you want to make sure you can fortify that to his strengths. You don’t just leave it to chance.”
Those words imply the Commanders will commit extra blockers to Parsons once they zero in on his position. It makes sense, especially when Washington’s offense is home to a powerful supplementary force, rugged tight end John Bates.
The latter usually shows his true value in the running game, but Bates also made his presence felt as a pass-protector last week. Notably on this play against 2025 NFL draft third-overall pick Abdul Carter (51), highlighted by Last of the Fullbacks.
Carter is another flexible pressure specialist who shares many similarities with Parsons, but the rookie lacks the veteran’s elite speed around the corner. It’s a quality Quinn talked up when he revealed “in Dallas he was one of our fastest players, so that’s the hardest thing to simulate for an offensive tackle to see the first couple, two or three steps. It’s not at a speed that you can simulate in a practice rep. I think there’s been some rushes that he could surprise some people if you haven’t faced him, knowing that he can really jump off the ball,” per Commanders.com Senior Writer Zach Selby.
Slowing Parsons down will mean putting another body in his path. Either by keeping a tight end over him on the line of scrimmage or by chipping with a running back.
There is some good news thanks to the offseason trade that acquired marquee left tackle Laremy Tunsil. The five-time Pro Bowler kept Parsons under wraps as a member of the Houston Texans last season, when the multi-faceted edge defender “matched up against Tunsil for three snaps and had zero pressures,” according to Selby.
Tunsil can handle his end, but Parsons is most likely to slide across to rookie right tackle Josh Conerly Jr. This year’s 29th pick impressed on his debut, but Conerly needs help to avoid being left on an island and losing.
He did lose against Brian Burns, when the Commanders slid a double team toward Kayvon Thibodeaux on Tunsil’s side of the line, per Bleacher Report’s Brandon Thorn.
The play highlighted the difficulty the Commanders face tying to slide protection when there are multiple gifted pass-rushers on the field. It’s an issue that won’t go away against Parsons and the Packers.
Commanders Can’t Ignore Protection Problem
Daniels took three sacks and was pressured as many times by the Giants, per Pro Football Reference. Some heat was inevitable when the Giants put Carter, Burns and Thibodeaux into the lineup, but Quinn won’t have enjoyed seeing his QB1 taking enough punishment to appear on the injury report for this week.
Quinn should be particularly unnerved by how easily Carter got to Daniels from a standup alignment rushing over center Tyler Biadasz, highlighted by Talkin’ Giants.
Parsons regularly caused havoc with this same scheme on Quinn’s watch. Stopping a repeat will be tough enough for the Commanders when the Packers can also unleash skilled edge disruptors Rashan Gary and Lukas Van Ness, as well as versatile defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt.
This group combined with Parsons for a quartet of sacks against the Detroit Lions last week. Every member of the contingent is talented, but Parsons demands special answers.
