Friday Mailbag: The next phase of camp

Camp is rolling and Vikings fans have questions…

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By Matthew Coller

Happy Friday, everyone! We’re about to enter the dog days of camp phase, so let’s see what’s on your minds after the early portion of camp…

Purpleswordsman…I just read an article about Vikings security personnel writing up fans for taking videos of practice !!
Major Paranoia
Is this O’Connell last season as Viking coach if he doesn’t make the playoffs

That story does need a little context. That was a closed practice and the only people who were supposed to be allowed in were friends and family of players and employees. So it wasn’t an open practice. Also the Vikings have always asked fans not to tweet the entire practice and media is not allowed to shoot the plays and publish them either, so it’s their choice if they want to toss people out for breaking their rules. They are still one of the most open teams for camp in the NFL. They could completely close it to fans if they wanted to do that.

After listening to Mark Wilf on Wednesday, I get the sense that the ownership’s belief in O’Connell as a leader and front door of their franchise is very high. His “patience isn’t infinite” comment is how I would view it. When you have a coach at this level of competence who has proven he can win and the guy is still young, you’d much prefer to give it a lot of time and believe that it will work in the long run rather than chasing your tail hiring and firing coaches all the time. What’s behind Door No. 2 would have to be really, really good to be better than KOC.

But that doesn’t mean that you can go 5-12 and have everything fall apart and just shrug your shoulders if you are the ownership.

Ben… I’m a big proponent of we gotta se how it looks in games. But McCarthy is still struggling with a lot of the same things he struggled with in games last season. Have we reached the point of “ yeah it’s almost over for him”??
Also was the o-line just bad last year or did the QB make them look worse than they really were??

We are getting closer to that point. I would say that it’s only been six real practices so far and we should really see the entire picture of training camp before we decide that he’s not going to change. However, it does remind me of when the Bills had EJ Manuel. I was doing Buffalo sports radio then and we spent an entire summer talking about how he could make big gains over the offseason and everything could be different etc. etc. and then when he got into camp he was easily beaten out by Tyrod Taylor for the starting job because nothing actually improved.

To put it Yogi Berra’s way: It’s getting late early. By Year 3, regardless of circumstances, we should be seeing progress in the areas that needed improvement.

We should never totally call it on QBs though because we have seen enough of them work out eventually. It’s just that it looks pretty far away at the moment.

As far as the O-line, PFF had them as a middling line overall last year but I do think the lows were low when they didn’t have Darrisaw and Kelly. But it’s pretty clear that McCarthy having a snap-to-release time of 3.04 seconds per PFF (34th of 45 QBs) played into it.

Roger N… Do the expected special teams players play all of the snaps in the exhibition games or is it a tryout for those teams up until the last roster cuts?

Some of the special teams guys are also regulars or backup role players on defense like Theo Jackson or Ty Ingram-Dawkins. Those guys aren’t likely to play in the preseason very much but there will be a lot of players who are likely to make the roster that use the preseason as development in that area like Chaz Chambliss, Tyler Batty, Jakobe Thomas and so forth.

Preseason has basically turned into one big tryout in general. It’s almost like a development camp rather than real games. I saw Neil Paine wrote that only 9.8% of starters play in preseason these days whereas it was up over 30% 10 years ago. So the Dillon Bells and Marcus Allens and Jacob Thomases will all have their chance to show Matt Daniels that they can shine on special teams.

When you think about the massive increase in kickoffs, guys who can be aggressive tacklers in space are going to be more valuable than they’ve been in a long time.

Evan… Loving the podcasts even though I haven’t been able to catch them live in a while. I never thought the QB competition was between JJ and Kyler. I thought JJ was competing for QB2. So, has JJ shown enough to be QB2?

Second question: last week Judd Zulgad reported that the dynamic between Kyler and JJ “looked weird” and “felt weird.” Did you get the same vibe?

If there was a game tomorrow, I’d guess that Carson Wentz would be QB2. He ran the offense about as well as he ever could have been expected to last year with very little preparation and Justin Jefferson had all of his best games when he was in. KOC could trust him. We haven’t seen anything in the first six real practices to say that that’s changed, even if he’s gotten way more reps than Wentz.

I don’t think there’s any dynamic between McCarthy and Murray. They stand off to the side and then walk in and run their plays. I don’t believe I’ve seen them talk after plays or anything like that. They are focused on what they have to do.

Pickle Enjoyer…I asked Magary if I should keep my McCarthy jersey as a gag or give it to Goodwill. He said Goodwill; what do you think?

As of right now, unfortunately that’s probably true. I might say, give it some more time. If we end the summer and nothing is different than right now and Wentz is QB2 vs. the Packers, then yeah, it’s probably time. Until then, you never really know how things are going to go with quarterbacks.

Or you could keep it just to remember a place and time. When I left Buffalo to move to Minnesota, a listener to my radio station brought me a Kyle Orton jersey. I’ve never gotten rid of it because it was a reminder of the little run of games where people thought Orton could really be the Bills QB that could get them back to the playoffs. I also still have the Tim Couch jersey that I got when I was 12 to celebrate the Browns returning.

Jerseys aren’t just about how good the player was, right?

Walt K…. It’s been a common thought that the Vikings would/will sign an Edge sometime to supplement that group. Do you think the team is waiting to see how guys like TID and Golday perform in camp on the outside before they go out looking for someone, or do you think it’s inevitable that there’ll be someone else brought in?

Also, I’ll be at the preseason game against the Giants next week. What are some things that will pique your interest as the team begins matchups against other clubs?

I have thought that they were probably evaluating the young players before they made a move but they also might want to assess all of their options. You never know what player might be a camp casualty from another team and maybe they want to figure that out before signing Floyd or Reddick. Those players also might be waiting until the end of camp to find a home.

The thing for me is that Golday and Ingram-Dawkins have both looked great but neither is a pure pass rusher like Dallas Turner. I think they need someone to play more of his role. It would still be my guess that another OLB arrives eventually.

For preseason games, my strong suggestion to you would be to enter the gates the minute they are open so you can see all the best players go through their warm-ups because you won’t see them in action.

What I’ll be looking for most is any rookies playing from this very intriguing draft class and the battle for WR depth. Tai Felton, Myles Price, Dontae Fleming, Jeshaun Jones… those guys should be all getting a chance. And some of the guys that we basically haven’t seen at all during camp getting a shot to see the field.

Brandan… how would you compare Kyler’s first practices to Sam Darnold’s?

We saw the arm talent from Darnold right away. It’s different with Kyler because he’s more of an anticipation thrower and is more about accuracy and touch than the firepower that Darnold put behind the ball. I would say that Darnold looked a little less comfortable than Kyler has. Not that the practices have been perfect for Kyler or anything but Darnold was pretty rough when the pads came on and then it took until the middle of the summer until the light seemed to come on. His connection with Jefferson didn’t really click until later in camp. We’re seeing it connect with Kyler right away.

Ryan B… Enjoying your training camp reports! In pretty much every daily recap I’ve been reading (yours, Krammer’s, Judd’s), JJ’s continued lack of timing and anticipation comes up, more than any of the mechanics or footwork problems we saw last season. In the run-up to last season, I would scoff at some of your comments about JJ needing to relearn quarterbacking things after the knee injury, but it feels like that’s exactly what’s happened and he’s still playing catch up. Or else a coach who bases his scheme on timing and anticipation drafted a QB who needs to see a guy is open before he’ll pull the trigger, which is a really bad match.

Did he have these same timing issues in his first camp or did missing nearly a year of football screw him up way worse than we could’ve imagined at the time?

It’s a little hard to compare his first camp to this one because he was really locked in as the backup QB and we were looking for positive signs from him. So even if he had tough reps, we would brush those off and look for the highlights because we knew he was a rookie and was working on development. I will say, by the end of the first camp, we all felt like it was going in an very, very positive direction and that he was getting the command and the timing and all that.

If we end up doing all the retrospectives on this thing, we’re always going to go back to the injury. The injury stole an entire year of development from him and forced him to really start at square one again. Coming directly from that recovery right into a situation with a veteran 14-win team that was expecting him to be ready right away turned out to be a lot to handle. You add the criticism from outside, KOC’s comments about him toward the end of the year and then adding Kyler, it’s really hard to maintain the same type of confidence and self belief when that happens.

I’ve continued to see all of JJ’s tools on a daily basis and there have been some really positive throws, but I haven’t felt the same confidence that he had in 2024 before he went down. Last year that definitely flashed during the joint practices but it turns out that we made too much of one big day.

Also, sometimes there’s no perfect explaination for these things. It’s probably a combination of everything that’s happened and it doesn’t have to be over just because this is rock bottom. We saw Bryce Young bounce back and other QBs turn corners. It’s just starting to feel like something has to get rolling soon. Maybe having Kyler named the starting QB will take the pressure off and he’ll get into development mode and start rebuilding things.

Kris… With all the new defensive front 7 pieces, and development of the young guys, has there been any unique packages that you have noticed? B Flo is so creative at using multiple linebackers, extra edgerushers, or even bringing a safety in the box, so I was wondering if anything unique stood out. Love your content as always!

We probably won’t see anything from Flores’ deep bag as long as fans are allowed at practice. Once it closes and they start turning toward preparation for Green Bay, those things will really come about.

I just find it interesting the way they are using Jake Golday. He has my complete attention. They trained him in the offseason at inside linebacker so he could really start to see the complete picture of the defense and then start shifting over to outside linebacker. The fact that he’s taken some work with the 1s at OLB is a clue that he’s getting it. And I’m very impressed with how he moves. So I’m curious to see if there’s mixing and matching with him when the season starts or if it’s just Wilson/Cashman and Golday if someone gets hurt or if he could get 15 plays per game to start.

CMBoourns… With the new second tier of QB contracts and our continual bad luck at keeping good qbs, would the best case scenario be Kyler balling out enough that we consider him our QB for the next couple of years?

I know Teasley has a great draft track record but the Seahawks also have made a habit of finding their QB outside the draft.

Yeah. The best case scenario is that Kyler Murray is absolutely fantastic, produces at top-10 offense, clicks with Jefferson and KOC and they sign him to a three-year, $150 million extension that has reasonable cap hits.

I don’t think many folks really look at contract structures when they’re talking about being afraid of signing Kyler because he’s “too good.” There isn’t a single QB in the NFL with a $50 million cap hit. If you look at the Daniel Jones deal, he got $44 million per year on a two-year deal but his cap hit for this year is $19 million and they can restructure it down to $19 million in 2027 if they want. He is scheduled to have a void year with dead cap but if they love him they can do another extension and kick it down the road. Yes, eventually the bill comes due but these deals are not like what we saw from Kirk Cousins when he was taking up 20% of the cap. Jones’ deal is 6.3% of the cap this year.

Having a locked in QB would allow them to draft the heck out of other positions rather than spending a first-rounder on QB and possibly having to trade up in order to do so. In The Athletic, Mike Sando’s QB Tiers had Murray as a Tier 3 quarterback. The other Tier 3 guys before Murray are Bo Nix, Aaron Rodgers, CJ Stroud, Daniel Jones, Bryce Young. All of them made the playoffs last year.

Anyway, we’re a long way away from really knowing what it’s all going to look like. The future QB question is totally fair, but predicting where it’s going to go is essentially impossible.

All I know is that Kyler Murray’s 2024 looked like this: 12th by PFF grade, 12th in Completion % Over Expected, 9th in ESPN’s QBR.

If he does that with Brian Flores running the defense rather than the defense ranking 28th in plays per drive and 21st in points per drive, as Arizona’s did that season, then this team is going to seriously compete.

Jack R… Will Reichard mentioned this offseason trying something different with how the ball comes off his foot. Have you noticed anything different with his accuracy during camp?

We haven’t seen Will kicking during practice yet, it’s been all individual stuff off to the side. I don’t think I’ll be able to tell whether the slight adjustment that he mentioned (trying to reduce the fade on his ball) is going to be totally evident to us standing on the side watching practice. Maybe we’ll be able to see it on the TV copy of the preseason games.

Every great golfer or kicker is always looking for perfection. How crazy is it that Reichard has kicked a football as a Viking 134 times and made 126. I’ll trust whatever he thinks the right way is.

Bradley P…. Can we get a breakdown of the Brian O’Neil contract? Is it a true two year opt out? I saw it has quite a bit of dead cap if they do, no?

Sorta. So the first two years are set in stone with cap hits of $14 million and $17.2 million. In Year 3 it goes up to $28 million but they can get $12 million back if they cut him or restructure to chop it down to $14 million.

After that, it’s pretty much up in the air. It would be a $10 million dead cap hit if they cut him in 2029 but they’d get $18 million in space and there’s only a $5 million dead hit in 2030.

Layman’s terms: He will absolutely be here through 2027 and very likely 2028 with some adjustment. After that they can move on without much damage.

Florian K…. I hope a a slight break from camp questions is OK. Are there any stats on how often an offensive play gets changed at the line of scrimmage during a game? Is that something that gets tracked?

Of course!

I’m sure that’s something the coaches track but we have no way of knowing, unfortunately. Because even if you tried to use the QB signaling something, they will often use dummy signals to try to throw off the other team.

That’s the tough part about football, man. We don’t always know the things that went into a play succeeding or failing.

Bradley P… What is the ceiling Gavin Bartholomew? Any current or former player comparison?

I could see him being like a Tyler Conklin in terms of career. A guy who develops over a couple of years and then has it work out. He has really strong hands and is a pretty natural/good athlete that might have some limitations as a blocker. He’s a little different than Conklin because he’s so tall. He’s a similar size to Pat Freiermuth. I could see something like that being his ceiling. He’s had a really strong camp.

Wade M… Okay, so I know it’s early in camp yet. But how good do you think this team can be, honestly?
I feel like they’re potentially an above-.500 team, perhaps even good enough to win the division.
But a championship contender? I have serious doubts.

They can win the division as long as some things go wrong for the other teams, specifically the Lions. They have the most top-end talent and the most continuity of every team and the last-place schedule. If they end up winning like 12, I could see the Vikings right on their heels if things go right. It will depend on Murray’s consistency

Anglo V… Have you had any feedback from OL experienced people on how Brandel and Donovan Jackson are doing? I’m interested to see if Jackson steps up another level this year. Also want to get a feel on how Brandel is handling the center job- will he get an extended run in the preseason games to gain more experience?

I am always hesitent to comment on O-line stuff without the help of PFF grades or fellow players/coaches or former players/coaches because the technical stuff is so hard. That’s especially true in training camp because it’s so tough to see the finer details.

I will say that there’s a ton of belief from the team that Donovan Jackson is going to take big steps forward and I’ve felt like he’s come back looking stronger. I could see him elevating with consistency to being a top-notch player.

As far as Brandel, there’s been a few snapping issues that can’t happen in the regular season. I wouldn’t expect him to play in the preseason more than one drive though.

At least we have a sample size of Brandel playing last year and outside of the games against Philly and Cleveland he was fairly solid. He has the mental chops to do it and that’s really important with a new quarterback. The physical stuff may disappoint at times but it was better than getting a random guy and making him learn the entire system from scratch.

Jordan D… Pie Chart request: Vikings offensive ranking this season. 1-5. 6-10. 11-15. 16-32.

I’ll go with 10% they are top five, 25% 6-10, 30%, they are top five and 35% they are 16-32.

It just seems that there is a pretty wide distribution of outcomes here and so many variables that play into it with a new QB and a rushing attack that they seem excited about and have invested a lot in. If things come together, Murray has shown that he can lead a top 15 offense but he hasn’t been able to elevate a team into the top five. Health is a big issue and consistency.

The playmakers are there though.

Jimmy B… I have heard from Vikings fans and other NFL fans talking about Trading JJM. To me it’s a bad move. Who else is left on the market is worth grabbing? I would be okay with a mid level trade for someone like Jalen Milroe who was brought into Setttle as a potential starter in a few seasons. Sam has the job locked up, Jalen has little upward mobility with Sam on the roster. This way the Vikings may have another option at the end of the season. I would not wait to see how it goes. What is your thoughts and what other QBs of that nature are available?

I don’t think Seattle would trade Milroe if they like him. That’s a free capable backup that they can keep developing i.e. Malik Willis with the Packers.

My thought about trading McCarthy is this: Only if he’s miserable to the point where it’s a net negative for the entire team. If he’s working hard and developing behind the scenes and preparing to go, you never know what could happen. Would it be a shock if Kyler got hurt in Week 8 and they decided to see what JJ could do the rest of the way? I’m always for hanging onto quarterbacks longer and pouring more into them. But if the relationship has gone bad and it seems like he’s just done here, then it’s never going to turn around.

I also can’t see the return being much. It’s basically the Anthony Richardson situation.

Evan… So Travis Etienne for $12mil sounds pretty good right now… I know we didn’t have the cap during free agency. What do you think of these new RB contracts going over $20mil?

These are very reasonable deals for Robinson and Gibbs considering their share of the offense and the fact that they are truly exceptional. If they were 27, I’d be singing a different tune but they are in their primes and still have plenty of elite play ahead of them. Also, when you think about other positions, the Lions got Gibbs for the same ballpark as a very good cornerback. That seems right to me.

You’re right about the Etienne deal. I thought he’d be a good fit but it did sound like he always wanted to go to New Orleans.

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