Image Courtesy of Dustin Baker
A ‘takeaway’ in itself, the coronavirus found its way into the Minnesota Vikings locker room, sidelining Kellen Mond, Kirk Cousins, and Nate Stanley (yes, three quarterbacks). Mond tested positive for the virus while Cousins and Stanley — perhaps not vaccinated; that is unclear — entered the tracing protocols outlined by the NFL.
Jake Browning was the team’s quarterback for the event.
Saturday welcomed the first night-practice of the season, complete with fireworks (real ones, not figurative) and a crowd north of 4,000 in attendance.
Here are four takeaways from the fourth day of Vikings 2021 training camp.
Fears were confirmed on Saturday as Bisi Johnson was lost for the season due to a torn ACL. The day before, he was injured at practice but later returned with a brace.
Johnson tabulated 483 receiving yards during his first two seasons after joining the Vikings from the 7th Round of the 2019 NFL Draft. That isn’t otherworldly, but it’s a nice little stat total for a player not tickled with high expectations.
He was theorized in the mix for WR3 this preseason, trailing Dede Westbrook for the job based on reputation. Nevertheless, he had a puncher’s chance at occupying the job he held — by default — in 2019.
Now, Johnson must focus on recovery, hoping for a clean comeback and return to the roster in 2022.
Glance at ‘Vikings Twitter’ for a few moments, and the masses championed Browning, who played quarterback all night for the Vikings sans Cousins, Mond, and Stanley.
And he performed rather well. His wide receivers — particularly Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, and K.J. Osborn — “bailed him out” frequently. On the whole, though, he was decent. Hell, he was the only thing stopping the Vikings from outright rugby without a quarterback.
Others see this outing from Browning as the smoking gun for QB2 contendership.
Unless the coaching staff sours on Mond for the vaccine stuff, don’t let this be the stake in his QB2 coffin. He was impressive, too, before this COVID fracas. Too, it is unknown if Mond was vaccinated but still contracted the virus.
By implication, folks confirmed that Kirk Cousins is likely not vaccinated — to each their own.
Yet, Saturday was the first example of Vikings players — Rick Dennison underwent COVID vaccination hubbub last week — intersecting the individual-versus-team fallout for the vaccination debate. The NFL is strongly urging players to get vaccinated — and a sect of players is flatly disregarding the suggestion.
If Cousins, Mond, and Stanley worked from home, this would not be a controversial ordeal. But they don’t. The comeuppance of opting out of the vaccination process will now be front-and-center for Minnesota hereafter.
And head coach Mike Zimmer — a straight shooter never labeled a diplomat — pulled no punches in expressing the opinion on his desire for the team to mass-vaccinate:
This matter will continue to percolate for the Vikings and other NFL teams, so be prepared.
Oli Udoh experienced first-team reps on the first day of camp, signaling to Vikings enthusiasts that he might be the RG1 in September. That could still be true, but the battle is far from over.
If you considered Dakota Dozier, rookie Wyatt Davis, Mason Cole, or Udoh the frontrunner for this gig — back to the drawing board you go.
From the horse’s mouth, Zimmer point-blank notified the public that this job is totally up in the air. The players receiving first-team attention — in this case Udoh and Dozier — can slightly be interpreted as leaders of the pack, but training camp is only four days old.
The RG tug-of-war will be won in preseason games.
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Anyone know what Udoh looks like compared to the 4th worse rated guard in the NFL Dozier? Can't help but think this is nothing but a ruse to make it look like a competition but in reality it's gonna be Dozier again. They were careful not to use their favorite words regarding drafted OL of Davis needing to develop but I think that's the plan. How did we go from Udoh being mostly inactive last season in favor of Samia to possibly starting? ?
2016 - There appeared to be a real competition between Berger and Sullivan for the starting Center job.
2017 - There appeared to be a real competition between Elflein and Easton for the starting Center job.
2020 - There appeared to be a real competition between Dozier and Collins for the starting Left Guard job (neither of whom should have ever been competing for a starting job, I absolutely agree, but reports from camp were that they were competing for the job until Dozier pulled away from Collins).
I don't get why you think there isn't really a competition for the RG job. I DO get why you think some of these people (Dozier and, I assume, Samia) shouldn't be in this competition (I agree!), but I don't get why you think it's a ruse.
Udoh had one "lowlight" clip appear two or three days ago where Sheldon Richardson supposedly drove him four yards backwards in a one-on-one drill, but some folks dismissed it as just one drill among many, and others watched it more closely and said it was only two-and-a-half yards.
Udoh being inactive for most of last year isn't too surprising, since I believe the Vikes only activated eight O linemen for most games last season. Versatility was and is key for the OL bench. Hill was the swing OT, Jones the swing C/G, and Samia gave them another IOL back-up who could at least play both guard spots, so that gave them one back-up for the two tackles, and two back-ups for the three interior O linemen. And in a pinch, Dozier has played both LT and RT, so he could be shifted outside to finish a game. Udoh, still mostly if not exclusively a RT, was only activated for six games missed by other O linemen: Games 1 (Jones and Cleveland), 6 (Samia), 9 (Samia), 10 (Samia and Cleveland), 11 (Cleveland), and 16 (Reiff). Samia, of course, stunk up the joint mightily last year (causing a lot of people to step back from "It can't get any worse than X" comments), which opened the door for the competition for the spot.
I wonder if it's a ruse because I know how much Denison loves Dozier and the Kubiaks love Denison. Last year Dozier and Elflein had no real competition as you mentioned. Journeyman Aviante Collins weighed around 290 and only the coaches seemed to have any confidence in him. Elflein had competition, after a poor outing in 2019, from whom? Samia? Udoh? 275 lbs Hinton?
It's speculation of course but given their history of choosing favorites I DO wonder if the Wilfs told Spielman to address IOL early so they took Davis with no real desire to unseat Dozier. The fact that he was even re-signed signaled this for me. I've been hearing nonsense about him being able to provide veteran leadership as a backup or whatever. The only time you do something like that as if you have a highly skilled player in front of him and he can come in in a pinch but it shouldn't be for us given how terrible he has played since he got here. It wasn't just last year he looked bad the year before that as an that as an injury starter starter fill in. So just like with Pat elfline, we once again will probably cross our fingers and hope the guy knows how to block was how to block while, even though they didn't use the words again, why and, why Davis has to "develop" ?. Remember last year we were told Cleveland had to develop too. A stupid continued flawed approach when we're continually one of the worse pass blocking OLs in the league needing immediate help. Spielman said years ago he doesn't want to spend on top vet FA OL. Instead we've had to look forward to the offseason signings of 285 lb Cole, Dozier, Collins, etc.
Ok so you mentioned Samia and Dozier's roles and this alleged versatility. Just because they supposedly know how to play these positions doesn't mean we should ignore how bad they are. I highly doubt they held up against Joseph 2 years ago. Maybe last year they were fair against Stephen, Jaleel Johnson, and Lynch which ain't saying much. The fact that one of literally the worse DTs in the NFL, J. Johnson, could be cut right away in the offseason yet TWO of the worse guards can remain tells me their priorities are skewed. Wanting a guy to really work out (Dozier) shouldn't be more important than improving the terrible pass blocking during the Spielman tenure.