The Minnesota Vikings made a splash on the free agent market last month Youth Isaiah Oliver Jersey , with their fully guaranteed contract for quarterback Kirk Cousins and the signing of defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson for another instant upgrade for the starting lineup.

There's another addition coming, too.

Running back Dalvin Cook, his promising rookie season cut painfully short at four games because of a torn ACL in his left knee , has passed the six-month mark in his rehabilitation and remains on track for full action when training camp begins.

He'll be a limited participant in practices this spring and minicamp, head athletic trainer Eric Sugarman said, and has impressed the team at each stage of his recovery. There's no reason why he won't be ready to play in the season opener on Sept. 9.

"Dalvin's knocked the rehab out of the park," Sugarman said. "He's done a great job. He's been here every day since the injury occurred, post-surgery."

The Vikings started their offseason workout program last week at their sparkling new training facility, with state-of-the-art equipment that certainly hasn't hurt Cook's quest to come back as the same dual-threat player who was briefly on display last season after being drafted in the second round out of Florida State .

Cook took part in strength and conditioning activities on the indoor turf with the rest of his teammates on Tuesday, when the Vikings opened a portion of the workout to reporters.

"You've got to trust yourself and know that you did everything in your power to get your knee back to where it's at," Cook said.

"I attacked this thing every day, and I did what I needed to do to get to this point, so I had no doubt when I first touched the field that it was where I wanted to be at."

Cook had reconstructive surgery on Oct. 9. The first two weeks were the toughest part, with Sugarman pushing hard on his knee in the early struggle to regain that critical range of motion in the joint.

"You're ready to hit him across the head," Cook said. "It's a lot. It really is Ryan Switzer Jersey Raiders , man. It's the injury that can make you or break you. I chose the route that it wasn't going to break me, so I'm going to move forward."

There will be several more hurdles to clear, particularly those that involve a live defense across the line and ready to take Cook down to the turf. For now, three months before the toil and sweat of training camp arrives, there's plenty to celebrate.

"This is kind of the fun part again for him to get back on the field to feel like a football player again," Sugarman said.

As for Cousins, the past week has been about beginning the process of learning the offense and more importantly his new teammates.

He recently hosted wide receivers Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs for a couple of days in the Atlanta area, where Cousins spends most of his offseason.

Becoming the leader can't be forced, even though this will unquestionably be his team come fall.

"Everybody's been very down to earth. There's a humility there. There's a formula there for success, and I sit in the team meetings and I see the organization," Cousins said.

"I see the attention to detail and I see the professionalism, and it's just no surprise why there was success last year."

Jerry Kramer has basked in the attention on his key block on the winning play in the Ice Bowl for more than half a century.

He sure was uneasy, though, when Vince Lombardi told Bart Starr to run ”31 Wedge” from a yard out, the Green Bay Packers‘ dynasty dangling by a thread with 16 seconds remaining on that 1967 New Year’s Eve afternoon so frozen in time.

It was a play Kramer himself had suggested Authentic Mason Rudolph Jersey , almost sheepishly, to Lombardi after finding a flaw in Dallas’ short-yardage defense during film study 72 hours earlier.

He noticed that while Bob Lilly was so close to the ground ”you couldn’t move him with a D-9 CAT” bulldozer, fellow Cowboys defensive tackle Jethro Pugh stood too high in his stance, making him vulnerable.

”Coach,” Kramer blurted out, ”we can wedge Pugh if we have to.”

Come again?

”We can wedge Pugh if we have to.”

”Run that back,” barked Lombardi.

”So, we run the film back about four different times and he watched Pugh and he said: `That’s right. Put in a wedge on Pugh,”’ Kramer recalled recently as he prepared for his long-awaited Pro Football Hall of Fame induction on Saturday.

Like the star pupil earning brownie points with his teacher, Kramer was proud of his suggestion. But when the Packers were trailing 17-14 with 16 seconds and no timeouts left, he found himself wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.

Starr called his last timeout after halfback Donnie Anderson’s second straight slip, trotted over to the sideline and suggested to Lombardi that he run a sneak because of the poor traction.

”Then run it and let’s get the hell out of here,” Lombardi replied.

Starr called out the play in the huddle.

”31 Wedge.”

Kramer’s heart sank.

It’s one thing to suggest a play. It’s another for it to get called in a do-or-die situation with an NFL championship on the line.

”You really wish they’d call something else maybe,” Kramer recalled. ”Maybe we’d rather run a sweep. Or maybe we ought to run over there.”

Lilly kicked the ice away from the goal line. Pugh pondered calling a timeout to have someone from the Cowboys sideline bring out a shovel.

”The other guys were slipping and sliding because it was icy,” Kramer recalled.

Not him.

”There was an area almost like a golf divot where my left foot went Authentic Jeremiah Attaochu Jersey , it was about an inch deep, three-quarters of an inch deep,” Kramer said. ”And my left foot just snuggled down into that divot and gave me like a starting block.”

Pugh thought Kramer false-started.

Years later, Kramer would admit he moved a split-second before Ken Bowman’s snap, taking some of the heat off Pugh, who died in 2015, and was long blamed by Cowboys fans for the loss in the Ice Bowl.

Kramer hit Pugh first and Bowman spun him around as Starr knifed into the end zone behind them, followed by fullback Chuck Mercein holding his hands high, not to signal touchdown but to show the officials he hadn’t aided his quarterback into the end zone.

CBS had a monitor in the Packers’ locker room afterward and showed Kramer’s block in slow motion, sparking whooping and hollering from his teammates and praise from his coach.

“That’s a fine block,” Lombardi said .

The Cowboys flew home in silence while the Packers prepared for their second Super Bowl, a 33-14 rout of the Raiders in Lombardi’s final game as their head coach.

Pugh would go on to win two Super Bowls with the Cowboys.

Kramer played another season and in 1969 was the only guard voted to the NFL’s 50th Anniversary Team, something he expected would be a prelude to a hasty call from the Hall of Fame.

That invitation finally came this year, making him the 14th member of Lombardi’s Packers to make it into the hall.

At first he was bitter over his repeated snubs, but he grew to accept that he might not ever make it into Canton.

”I’d been through the emotional package that Terrell is going through Baltimore Ravens Jerseys Womens ,” Kramer said of fellow 2018 inductee Terrell Owens , who is skipping Saturday’s ceremonies in Canton, Ohio, miffed that he wasn’t a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Kramer can relate.

”I went through a period where I didn’t want to hear about the Hall of Fame,” Kramer said. ”I wanted nothing to do with it. I literally drove by the Hall of Fame three or four times and I wouldn’t go in because I was not invited in.”

Kramer said he eventually found peace by counting his blessings, which included five titles in his 11 seasons as the anchor of Green Bay’s line.

”It just occurred to me that if I was going to be angry over one honor that I didn’t get and trash 100 honors that I did get, that would be stupid,” Kramer said.

At 82, he finally has pro football’s highest honor.

”There was such a range of emotions as deep as you can go into the Earth, and then cloud high,” Kramer said. ”So, it’s been a fascinating journey.”

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