Culpepper out for the season

Well, it's definite: Daunte Culpepper is out for the rest of this season, with serious knee damage:

Daunte Culpepper's season is officially over, and when he will return remains uncertain.

Vikings coach Mike Tice said Monday at his afternoon news conference that the veteran quarterback has damage to a number of different areas in his right knee, including the anterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament and posterior cruciate ligament. Culpepper underwent a magnetic resonance imaging test Monday morning.

Tice said, "Not only has the road not been friendly to us this year or the last number of years, but we lost our quarterback for the season yesterday. He had significant injury to his knee, to a number of different areas.

"We'll have to wait a couple of weeks for the swelling to go down and get prepared for surgery in the next few weeks," Tice said. "It's discouraging to us based on everything that has transpired to this point in the season. This is just another hurdle we have to overcome as a football team."

Tice added, "He has a long rehab ahead of him, but we don't expect this to be career-ending. We expect this to be a set back for him."