During training camp and the preseason, caution is the word when it comes to any kind of injury that could linger if it's not handled carefully. So when Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson was being held out due to a "mild" left hamstring strain, it wasn't a big deal as long as he would be ready for the start of the season.

After the Vikings' second preseason game against the New England Patriots, head coach Kevin O'Connell offered a small word salad when he was asked if Jefferson would return to practice the following week.

"He's definitely going to hopefully start doing more and more. I can't say what that's going to look like from a practice standpoint yet."

Since then, even with caution and his history (he missed seven games in 2023 due to a right hamstring issue) still surely in mind, there has been no question about Jefferson's availability for Week 1 against the Chicago Bears.

So Vikings fans, and fantasy managers who drafted Jefferson, could breathe a sigh of relief.

But now, a phrase a recently fully-retired college football broadcasting legend had as a core part of his lexicon is coming to mind.

"Not so fast, my friend."

Ben Goessling of the Minnesota Star Tribune was on KFAN radio on Tuesday. He had updates on the health of multiple Vikings' players, including Jefferson.

"I think this is going to be a long-term maintenance thing. He's had enough hamstring stuff at this point that I would not be surprised — he practices hard and he does not like to miss practices — I wonder if they will mitigate any of that.

If there are weeks coming up where you see that he was limited in a practice and he shows up (on the injury report) with a hamstring, I don't know that that will mean that there's anything new."

Goessling did pull back a bit, honing in on how Jefferson showing up as limited on a practice report during the week would not necessarily be a huge red flag.

"I don't know that that's going to happen. Just kind of putting pieces together, it wouldn't shock me if there are weeks where they say, 'Hey, we gotta pull this back' just a little for maintenance perspective, because you don't want those things to become regular issues.

"We're going to see him continue to get stretched out, I imagine. There will be a lot of practices where, during the brief open period for the media, it'll be, 'OK, where is he?' — and he's inside getting stretched out, or he may be outside in the side tent doing those things.

I would expect this is something they continue to keep a pretty close eye on because hamstrings seem like they are a consistent enough issue for him at this point that I think they're going to treat it with quite a bit of attention."

Treating Jefferson with attention and care to prevent a recurrence of his hamstring injury would be one thing. But Goessling almost made it sound like, despite sitting out as long as he did, he's still dealing with some level of an issue with an injury he suffered five weeks ago on the second day of training camp.

At this point, Jefferson is seemingly not in danger of missing any games. But the idea that his latest hamstring issue might be subject to "long-term maintenance", with an undetermined end date, is enough to harsh the buzz Vikings' fans are feeling with the season opener less than a week away.