Tai Felton is making his case as Vikings' deep threat

Felton talks improvement and 10 players to watch in preseason action

Photo courtesy Minnesota Vikings

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By Matthew Coller

EAGAN — When the Minnesota Vikings lost Jalen Nailor to the Las Vegas Raiders in free agency, they replaced the WR3 role with veteran Jauan Jennings.

On paper, the addition of Jennings put the Vikings in the conversation for the best receiving units in the NFL. The forgotten man after Jennings came aboard was 2025 third-round draft pick Tai Felton, who spent his rookie season playing on specail teams. Because the Vikings had a health receiving room, he only saw 46 offensive plays.

Despite not getting in-game development as a receiver in his debut season, Felton has returned to training camp showing significant progress. The former Maryland standout has taken the top receiver reps on the second team throughout and filled in for a couple days with the first team when Jordan Addison was out with a thumb injury. On a daily basis, he got open and made plays.

“He’s been really good at the top of routes in transition… Tai is working every single day on catching the football because he’s going to get open,” head coach Kevin O’Connell said. “He’s going to have some opportunities, especially knowing the other guys he’s in the huddle with and how much coverage that they dictate. He’s off to a really good start. Now… it’s about putting it all together and continuing to show up because he’s showing up every day in some capacity.”

Felton’s strong camp has given him a potential opportunity to carve out a role in a very crowded receiving room. Over the last two years, Nailor was used as a downfield receiver who caught a number of deep shots and used his speed to clear out space for Jefferson and Addison. That could be Felton’s job as he ran a 4.37 40-yard dash in last year’s NFL Combine and Jennings has been more known as a possession and yards-after-catch receiver.

After practice on Wednesday, Felton chatted with Purple Insider about his focus this offseason was maximizing what he can do with his speed by understanding details of route running better.

“Coach McCardell definitely been putting a bit emphasis on attacking edges, getting on that outside shoulder, using my speed to put a threat on the DB [defensive back], that’s definitely something I’ve been working on for sure, putting that full speed threat on DB’s, because when you have speed and stuff like that, DB’s gonna tend to back up, you have more space to work,” Felton said.

The Vikings’ second-year speedster said that last year was not a lost season by any means when it came to his development as a wide receiver even if he didn’t see offensive plays. His role as a punt gunner has elements that cross over from chasing down returners to beating cornerbacks downfield.

“One thing I like about our special teams coach [Matt Daniels], is that he lets us go to a receiver stance at gunner,” Felton explained. “If I’m in a [one-on-one], I’m using it as I’m beating press [coverage] so that definitely helped me into this season. This offseason I was learning my what releases I like, what are my go-tos, what are my plan Bs and stuff of that nature. But that definitely helped me all last season going to this season.”

The Vikings’ preseason opener on Saturday acts as an opportunity for Felton to show how far his game has come in an actual game setting. If he can prove reliable, chances are that the latest depth receiver development project will work his way into the lineup when the regular season arrives.

“I feel like I’ve definitely learned and I definitely gotten better from last year, so now that we gotta see a different jersey,” Felton said. “I just want to be as dominant and help the team win as possible. I know it’s preseason, but my biggest thing is winning. So whatever I can do to help the team.”

10 players to watch in the preseason opener