![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1753315808_107_seifert_kevin.png&h=80&w=80&scale=crop.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kevin SeifertJul 23, 2025, 06:21 PM ET<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Kevin Seifert is a staff writer who covers the Minnesota Vikings and the NFL at ESPN. Kevin has covered the NFL for over 20 years, joining ESPN in 2008. He was previously a beat reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Washington Times. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia.<\/p>\n EAGAN, Minn. — It’s one thing to sit out part of spring practices. It’s quite another, Minnesota Vikings<\/a> safety Josh Metellus<\/a> said Wednesday, to miss even a portion of training camp.<\/p>\n Metellus, one of the team’s key defensive players over the past two seasons, decided he would not extend his spring hold-in into the start of summer work. Despite not having an agreement on the contract extension he has been seeking, Metellus was a full participant in the Vikings’ first training camp practice on Wednesday.<\/p>\n “The dialogue’s been going good,” Metellus said, “so I am not too worried about what’s going on. I’m just doing my part, being here for the team, trying to be a leader, a captain, and I can’t do that on the sideline. A big part is that the guy I am in this building is the guy who’s out in front leading the way, so it makes no sense for me not to [participate].”<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n Metellus signed a three-year contract extension in 2023 that will void after this season. This spring, he sat out 7-on-7 drills, which were the most intense periods of the Vikings’ practice plan.<\/p>\n His approach left open the possibility he could continue to scale back his participation until the sides agree on a new deal or a salary upgrade for 2025, but he said it’s too close to the start of the season, in his mind, to do that.<\/p>\n “I did the work, man,” Metellus said. “The past two years, I played 2,000-plus snaps, and that’s all I got to go on. People can say whatever they want, up and down, about the kind of player I am, but at the end of the day, the tape don’t have no sound.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin SeifertJul 23, 2025, 06:21 PM ET CloseKevin Seifert is a staff writer who covers the Minnesota Vikings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-32437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}