The Minnesota Vikings took to the field again today in shells and shorts for another training camp practice at TCO Performance Center. It was hotter and sunnier than yesterday and the pace of practice was a bit slower. There was more special teams work early and another install period later in practice which also slowed things down.<\/p>\n
This is probably the point to remind everyone that the Vikings defense allowed the second-fewest passing yards and touchdowns last year, and the passing defense ranked third overall in DVOA. I mention that now because in the competition between Kyler Murray and J.J. McCarthy today, the defense won. Neither quarterback completed anything particularly impressive today. Most completions (and attempts) have been short- under ten yards- and routine throws. And with a relatively few exceptions, that\u2019s really been the case since the start of training camp.<\/p>\n
Murray has the only successful over-the-top throws against the defense- both against the first-team defense- in Wednesday\u2019s full-pad practice. Murray had a nice deep back-shoulder pass to Jauan Jennings at the sideline today, but Jennings was unable to keep his feet in bounds- but was in position to do so- in team drills. Murray had another deep attempt to Jefferson during team drills where he might have been sacked- it was close- but the throw fell incomplete. It was a couple yards ahead of Jefferson but Murphy got flagged for either a DPI or holding call. So probably not a bad pass by Murray if he got it off in time, given the penalty on Murphy. Murray also had an intermediate pass broken up by Charles Demmings (see below).<\/p>\n
One other point of interest in today\u2019s practice was that Murray and Justin Jefferson, together with Kevin O\u2019Connell, were trying to sync a back shoulder throw. The first attempt happened in a red zone drill and didn\u2019t connect, which led to O\u2019Connell getting involved and some conversation between Murray and Jefferson after the play. The red zone drill had ended, but Murray and Jefferson tried the same play one more time and connected. But later, in team drills, Murray once again targeted Jefferson on a back shoulder throw which Jefferson got a hand on but was unable to catch. It was difficult to tell if it was Murray\u2019s pass that was a bit off or if Jefferson took an extra step in his route before coming back for the ball, but it didn\u2019t connect. Jefferson was upset that he didn\u2019t make the catch after the play, so perhaps it was on Jefferson. Anyway, that is something Murray and Jefferson are working on as part of developing a rapport during training camp.<\/p>\n
For McCarthy in 11-on-11 team drills, he had one attempt in which he scrambled and may have been sacked but threw down the field to Tai Felton, who made the catch though the ball was low. However, a flag on the play negated it. He had another attempt to Felton- roughly 15 yards- that was broken up by Charles Demmings. I couldn\u2019t tell if ball placement was an issue or not, but Demmings looked to have pretty tight coverage. Other than that, there really wasn\u2019t anything beyond short passes from McCarthy today, and not all of those connected either.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fair to credit Murray for making more attempts downfield in 11-on-11 team drills, even though they didn\u2019t connect for one reason or another, but overall credit the Vikings\u2019 defense for making it difficult for either quarterback to connect on anything but short passes.<\/p>\n
There was also two periods of install today, with Murray working with the first team receivers on screen passes, and another where McCarthy mostly stood around while O\u2019Connell was coaching receivers on route patterns.<\/p>\n
Other 11-on-11 Team Drill Notes<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all I have for today. Tomorrow is the Vikings\u2019 night practice, which I will not be able to attend. I will return to Vikings\u2019 training camp next week.<\/p>\n
Follow me on X\/Bluesky @wludford<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Minnesota Vikings took to the field again today in shells and shorts for another training camp practice…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[342831,99],"class_list":["post-807699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-minnesota-vikings-training-camp","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807699","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=807699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}