Minnesota Vikings Right Tackle Phil Loadholt Out For The Season

Minnesota Vikings right tackle Phil Loadholt reportedly suffered a season-ending Achilles injury Saturday night.

Clemmings, a fourth-round pick out of Pittsburgh, replaced Loadholt on Minnesota’s opening drive, which produced a Blair Walsh 46-yard field goal and an early 3-0 lead over the Buccaneers. Loadholt crumpled to the ground and never got up, as his teammates huddled around him and the cart came out. “With a massive 6’8”, 343-pound frame, Loadholt is widely considered one of the best run-blocking offensive tackles in the entire National Football League.

Loadholt’s loss is surely to be felt on the offensive line of the Vikings.

Loadholt has been a Vikings starter since the team drafted the former Oklahoma standout in the second round of the 2009 NFL Draft.

“I think T.J. Clemmings did a good job”, said Zimmer. With just $1.75 million in dead money and a $7.75 million cap hit coming in 2016 for a player whose rehab will be long and strenuous, the Vikings may opt to go in another direction next year during training camp.

After word spread that the injury was serious, the Vikings confirmed it is a likely Achilles tear, an injury that would assuredly end his season.

Loadholt will enter the final year of his contract next season.

“I am just going to keep doing what I have been doing”, he said after the game.

Backing up Clemmings at right tackle is another rookie, Austin Shepherd, a seventh-round pick out of Alabama, who started 27 of 44 games for the Crimson Tide.