Jerome Simpson’s deactivation last Sunday cost him an opportunity to help the Minnesota Vikings against the Redskins. It also cost the receiver a pretty good piece of change.

Simpson recounted that every time he is deactivated from a game it costs him $60,000 in bonus money. The Vikings built that clause into his 1-year contract because the former Cincinnati Bengal was coming off a drug arrest which finally ended in a 3-game suspension to start the season.

The Vikings deactivated Simpson due to a back issue that led to numbness in one of his legs and limited him the previous week. Simpson was annoyed because he felt he was prepared to play, but Coach Leslie Frazier asserted he did not see quite enough from him in practice last week to let him play.

“You lose $60,000, you would be mad, too. You know?” Simpson asserted. “We just talked about it, and we are on the same page. I am just a competitor, man. I just want to be out there on that field. Anytime something gets taken away from you you’re obviously going to be kind of upset about it.” Basketball lines

It’s not just the money that had Simpson upset. He’s the team’s only viable deep threat on the perimeter, and he watched the Washington Redskins cram 10 players inside 10 yards of the line of scrimmage on most downs to try to neutralize the short pass to Percy Harvin and the handoff to Adrian Peterson, the Vikings offense’s 2 largest weapons.

Simpson, who practiced full go, claimed he also feels a sense of urgency to get on the field because of the suspension that took 3 games away at the start of the season.

“Just because I missed the first 3 games and I’m just a competitor and I just want to be out there playing helping my guys any way I can,” Simpson said.

Frazier asserted he accepted the emotion and hopes to see Simpson practice fully last week and return for the game against Arizona.

“The way he plays, he’s an active guy who has a passion for the game,” Frazier said. “If you take some of that away, some of his elusiveness even after the catch, you affected his game. Just needed to be smart, give him a little bit more time.”

While the Vikings have maintained all along that it was a back issue that was causing the tightness and insensibility in his leg, Simpson is insisting there’s no issue with his back. He claimed he had some tightness in his calf the night before the Vikings’ game against Tennessee, then woke up the next morning to find that it spread down his leg to his foot.

“It was very scary because I never experienced anything like it before,” he announced. “And then just to wake up with it out of nowhere was frightening.”

QB Christian Ponder has been struggling to get the ball down the field with Simpson out and veterans Michael Jenkins and Devin Aromashodu unable to get separation from defensive backs on a consistent basis. And Ponder knows Simpson wants to get on the field.