Vikings Camp Journal: The Night Practice

The annual night practice was full of bumps for the passing game but the run game and defense shined

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By Matthew Coller

EAGAN — The Minnesota Vikings held their annual night practice at TCO Stadium on Monday night. Here’s everything we learned…

What I heard

Prior to the team getting on the field, head coach Kevin O’Connell chatted with the media. He addressed the health situation, particularly tight end TJ Hockenson, who left practice on Saturday.

“Day-to-day normal training camp kind of bumps and bruises, no issues whatsoever there,” O’Connell said.

Josh Metellus and Ryan Kelly were also lumped into the “day-to-day” comment as well. Neither player practiced on Monday night.

News of Hockenson’s injury not being serious is a sigh of relief for the Vikings, who have struggled to find a clear-cut TE3 with rookie Gavin Bartholomew sidelined with a back injury. Veteran Giovanni Ricci and UDFA rookie Ben Yurosek have taken more reps with Hockenson banged up and the team added 32-year-old Nick Vannett. He spent last season with Tennessee and caught 17 passes and has 108 career receptions.

Was the signing related to Hockenson’s injury?

“No, it was not at all,” O’Connell said.

O’Connell announced that JJ McCarthy will be playing in the preseason. Will he play in all the preseason games?

“I think you'd love to play him as much as possible,” O’Connell said. “But I think with those two days of joint practice, the type of repetition that the other guys on the offense will get from a physicality and workload standpoint, we'll more than likely use those two days as our real days, obviously subject to change based upon how those practices go.”

How much McCarthy plays will be interesting to watch. In the past, KOC has only played his starting quarterback for a single series but he seemed to indicate that he wants to see a lot more QB1 this year. Does that mean all the veterans are going to play along with him? Or will it be the backup O-line? Will his total rep count depend entirely on performance? We shall see.

One player also likely to play a lot in preseason is first-round pick Donovan Jackson. He has taken all of the first-team reps at left guard since the beginning of camp and O’Connell had praise for the way he’s responded to tough competition.

“I think Donovan's having a really good camp. I really do. Maybe one of the more consistent guys just kind of showing up every single day up front….[we’re] throwing a lot at him, trying to get it to slow down for him,” O’Connell said. “The coolest thing is when you know he's not comfortable yet, you get a lot of the natural reactions of a player. And that's been good to watch from a standpoint of, ‘holy cow, Jonathan Allen's got him in a pretty vulnerable spot or Hargrave on some movement that he wasn't expecting and just watching the way he not only plays out that down, but then applies it moving forward has been really exciting.”

O’Connell also addressed questions about QB2 and RB3. There is no question that Sam Howell has not yet looked the part — and they have tossed Brett Rypien in with the 2s from time to time — but O’Connell said that there is still a learning curve from his previous experience.

“When you really peel back the layers on what Sam has done from an experience standpoint, schematically, really nothing close to what we run here and that's not taken away from anybody else's offense, just different verbiage, different variations of how we want to try to move the football and what we ask the quarterback to do and how we coach the position,” O’Connell said. “So in many ways, there's a lot of things that are just flat out new for Sam. I think he's really flashed his armed talent throughout the different phases of practice. What I'm looking for is just consistency.”

Whether the Vikings would look for another backup is up in the air. In 2022, they traded for Nick Mullens after Sean Mannion and Kellen Mond struggled. That move happened on August 22.

In terms of the battle for RB3, O’Connell again mentioned Ty Chandler’s pass protection.

“I think his vision, his sight lines, his discipline of his tracks has been fantastic,” O’Connell said. “He's shown up in... in multiple ways in the pass game. I think he's had one bust where he missed a strong safety pressure when I was going fast one time. And that was, you know, as I told Ty, ‘that's your one right there. So we're not at this point there's grace.’”

O’Connell shouted out Zavier Scott, a former WR/RB from Maine, who has made a number of good plays in camp thus far. Does that mean there is a competition between them for RB3? Possibly but Chandler does have a strong case as the best option as a kick returner.

What I saw

The practice opened very well for JJ McCarthy. He was accurate during the 7-on-7 drill, hitting intermediate completions to Jalen Nailor and Jordan Addison but the 11-on-11 periods did not go anywhere near as smoothly as Saturday’s stellar practice for QB1.

In the first 11-on-11, McCarthy had a miscommunication with Jordan Addison where the receiver seemed to stop but the QB led him as if he was going to keep running across the middle. He then managed a completion to Josh Oliver as Dallas Turner created pressure. If it seems like I’ve mentioned Turner getting pressure every day, that’s not your imagination. McCarthy then had a chance to find Addison on a “hole shot” between the corner and safety and overthrew him.

After that, KOC put the offense in its toughest situational drill of the year: Starting at the 1-yard line. McCarthy had to scramble on one play and threw inaccurately over Nailor and the ball was nearly picked off. Three-and-out.

They ran another 11-on-11 with the first teams facing each other on a long drive that featured a lot more scrambling and checking down than you would expect for the situation. McCarthy struggled all night to find his receivers. Those keeping stats in the stands would have had Jordan Mason as the night’s leading receiver.

When they got to the red zone drill, McCarthy did have a positive play when he rolled out and found Addison just barely in the end zone, but not before he nearly threw an interception to Zemaiah Vaughn, who jumped in front of a bad decision from McCarthy as he was rolling out.

Overall, it was the opposite of Saturday’s strong showing. However, we do have to factor that McCarthy was practicing with out his starting superstar receiver, superstar left tackle, Pro Bowl tight end and Pro Bowl center. That’s a lot of missing talent for one night. It also represents what practice has been like for the summer. McCarthy has had more good moments than bad but there have been some practices where he isn’t sharp throwing the ball and is getting so much heat from the defense that he’s taking sacks or struggling to get through progressions.

Other things that stood out…