The Minnesota Vikings held their second joint practice at TCO Performance Center with the New England Patriots ahead of their preseason matchup on Saturday at US Bank stadium. It was cloudy and a bit cooler- in the 70s- for today’s practice. There were a couple skirmishes during practice today, including one that buried Mike Vrabel, but neither were particularly messy or long lasting.
Here are my notes from today’s practice.
Vikings Dominant in the Trenches
The Vikings’ defensive front continued to dominate the Patriots’ offensive line, adding at least a few more sacks against the Patriots’ first-team offense. Jonathan Greenard broke out his sack dance at one point during the first 11-on-11 drills, but his wasn’t the only one. The Vikings also got to Drake Maye a couple times in the two-minute drill later in practice- two of the first three snaps. It was really another pretty dominant performance from the Vikings’ first-team defensive front.
On the other side of the ball, the Vikings’ offensive line turned in a pretty solid performance as well. There are signs that the new unit is beginning to come together, particularly in pass protection, over these two joint practices. Even the second unit fared pretty well, giving Sam Howell and Brett Rypien, and Max Brosmer enough time to throw on most occasions- not many sacks allowed. I get the impression that the first-team offense is further along in pass protection than in run blocking as a unit, but there are signs of progress.
I really didn’t notice the Patriots having any success running the ball either.
Defensive Secondary Improved, but with Caveats
The secondary didn’t have any major blown coverages like they did yesterday, which was an improvement, and there were a few plays when Drake Maye had to pull the ball down and run for short yardage given good coverage by the Vikings’ secondary. And in both sets of 11-on-11 drills, the Vikings didn’t give up a lot of big plays, but they did give up two key ones in the two-minute drill- one by the first team and one by the second team.
The Vikings first-team defense had shut the Patriots down in the two-minute drill, leading to fourth down and a hail mary attempt to get the winning touchdown. Kayshon Boutte was targeted by Maye in double coverage, with Josh Metellus and Isaiah Rodgers covering, but Boutte came down with the ball in the end zone to win the drill. Metellus had excellent position to break up the pass, but failed to do so. He injured his shoulder on the play.
Metellus was able to walk off under his own power and from Kevin O’Connell’s comments after practice, it doesn’t sound like a major injury. However, that and a couple other plays involving Metellus does bring into question his value as a free safety or really his ability to cover wide receivers effectively in man coverage down the field. His skillset is more of a strong safety able to cover tight ends or backs out of the backfield, but against more talented wide receivers he can be exposed at times. It’ll be interesting to see how he’s used this season.
Against the second-team defense in the two-minute drill, the secondary gave up this play, with Zemaiah Vaughn and Jay Ward in coverage:
They also gave up an easy, uncovered reception by the Patriots tight-end, allowing the Pats to win the two-minute drill.
To begin practice, in 7-on7 redzone drills, both the Patriots first- and second-team offense did pretty well generating completions in the end zone. But after that, in 11-on-11 drills, anything but short completions became harder for the Patriots to come by.
So, overall, it was a better day than yesterday for the Vikings’ defensive secondary- but still some questions and things to improve.
J.J. McCarthy and Offense Deliver
It was a bit more of an exciting practice from a Vikings’ offense perspective compared to yesterday. The nature of the 11-on-11 drills may have had something to do with that as 11-on-11 drills had some deep balls included that were pretty scarce yesterday.
J.J. McCarthy again was able to operate well in the pocket, and apart from overthrows on a couple shorter out routes to T.J. Hockenson, was accurate in his pass attempts. He can continue to improve his pinpoint accuracy or ball placement, which sometimes puts the onus on the receiver to make a more difficult catch than necessary, but that may develop further in time and more reps with particular receivers.
The play of the day was McCarthy’s bomb to Aaron Jones, which came in the first 11-on-11 period.
McCarthy had some other nice passes today as well, shown below.
McCarthy also ran a couple times for some yards and had a number of shorter completions as well. In general the Vikings first-team offense was able to move the ball well against the Patriots’ first-team defense and won the two-minute drill. Overall, a productive day for the Vikings’ offense.
Receiver Depth
It was interesting that sometime around halfway through practice, Jalen Nailor suffered a hand injury and did not return (Kevin O’Connell didn’t seem to think it was serious). He was replaced by Thayer Thomas, who was a part of Vikings’ training camp last season and on the practice squad last season. He got more targets in a half of practice than Lucky Jackson did over the entire two-day joint practices and probably more than Nailor would have got. I’m guessing that Thomas, like Lucky Jackson, was tapped to fill the role of an injured starter not because he’s next on the depth chart, but because he’s one of the receivers like Lucky Jackson who know the offense well enough to step in and allow the offense to operate efficiently. Still, it says something that Thomas was getting targets where Lucky Jackson, and even Jalen Nailor really, were not.
It’s also a missed opportunity for a receiver like Tai Felton, who had he been able to learn the offense well enough by now, could be out there with the first-team instead of Jackson or Thomas.
Overall, I’ve seen some nice catches by Myles Price, Tim Jones, Thayer Thomas, and a couple by Jeshaun Jones among those on the bottom half of the wide receiver depth chart. I’ve not seen as much from Robert Lewis, Silas Bolden, Dontae Fleming, and Lucky Jackson over the two joint practices in team periods. Myles Price in particular has been impressive in limited team reps and in wide receiver drills- and today Thayer Thomas as well. Unfortunately for Myles Price, he muffed a punt today which doesn’t help his chances to make the roster.
Max Brosmer Won the Joint Practice Competition for QB3
Max Brosmer had another pretty good day in more limited reps, but once again clearly looked better than Brett Rypien, who also didn’t have many reps. The thing is, Rypien hasn’t really looked any better than he did at the beginning of training camp, while Brosmer most definitely does. His passes are crisper, he seems to be reading the field well, calm in the pocket, and just looks more confident.
I would imagine both Brosmer and Rypien would get a quarter or so of work on Saturday, with Sam Howell potentially getting the first half. I have no insight on Kevin O’Connell’s plans for quarterback on Saturday, other than Howell will start and J.J. McCarthy will not play at all, which was announced after practice today.
Punt and Kick Returner Update
It was Silas Bolden, Lucky Jackson, Tai Felton, and Myles Price fielding punts today. Each had at least two reps. Myles Price muffed one of his, however, which doesn’t help his chances. Felton was the only one to actually attempt a return against coverage, but didn’t do much to move the needle.
In the kick returner competition, there were two kick return tandems fielding kickoffs today: Tai Felton and Zavier Scott, and Silas Bolden and Ty Chandler. Felton and Chandler had kickoff returns, but again nothing to move the needle.
My guess is Tai Felton remains the favorite to be kick returner, while punt returner is still pretty open at this point.
Bottom Line
I’d give the Vikings the ‘win’ in this joint practice, in the sense that they generally looked the better team overall today. They also improved over the first day with the Patriots, so that was good to see as well. But there remain questions about the defensive secondary, not least of which is how those depth charts will shake out, and also questions about the wide receiver depth chart beyond Jefferson and Addison. I was expecting a better training camp from Jalen Nailor than I’ve seen, and the rest seems to be a mixed bag or worse. There are some promising players too, but what that means for this season remains to be seen.
To me, the defensive secondary seems the most cloudy- both corner and safety. Harrison Smith didn’t participate in joint practices, and there seems like a lot of ways the defensive secondary could go both in terms of depth chart and performance. The one thing that seems clear so far is that it isn’t the strength of the defense and may be the weakest link on the team at the moment.
I believe this was the last Vikings training camp practice open to the public, but I’ll be back at TCO Performance Center for one more next week.
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You can also find over 100 clips from today’s practice on my X timeline.
