Minnesota Vikings QB Sam Darnold and RB Aaron Jones addressed the media from the TCO Performance Center on Thursday, March 14th. Both players became Vikings after Alexander Mattison and Kirk Cousins left during the 2024 offseason.
Minnesota Vikings training camp kicked off earlier this week, with Christian Darrisaw’s contract extension dominating headlines. The man is now attached to the Vikings’ roster for the next six seasons.
Meanwhile, the franchise lost cornerback Mekhi Blackmon for all of 2024 after the second-year defender tore his ACL. As the saying goes, the Vikings can’t have nice things.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though. Three players stood off the page in training camp’s first few days, and these are those men listed alphabetically.
The Vikings’ social media team was fully armed with content to shove highlights like this out into the digital atmosphere:
Darnold has very much looked the part of a franchise QB1 through a few days of training camp. After all, this is what the man does — plays wonderfully in spring and summer. Now, he just has to carry the theatrics to September and beyond.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport even said in May about Darnold and the Vikings quarterback battle: “We don’t always get quarterback competition, and this is a real one. The fact that Sam Darnold is in there. I have also heard he has looked good, he is going to look good. Something he has done his entire career, when it’s the spring, when it’s the preseason or when he has been unbothered, he has looked excellent. It’s really a matter of when he gets in games, is he the same quarterback when it doesn’t all go perfectly?”
That about sums it up.
Vikings offensive guard Dalton Risner said about Jones, a newcomer free agent from the Green Bay Packers: “Oooh man. I don’t know what it’s like to cut like that and move like that, but man, it’s just been fun to watch the way he gets after it.”
Jones is Minnesota’s one big hope for solving a floundering rushing attack after the Vikings have scraped the bottom of the barrel per rushing efficiency metrics in the last two seasons. The ex-Packer finished the 2023 campaign on an absolute tear, and so far at training camp, the 29-year-old still visibly has the juice for RB1.
Even Jones’ new teammates are calling it out.
Nailor has produced one notable game in two seasons with the Vikings, and that was enough for some fans to keep the faith. His situation, with different draft stock, isn’t that much different than multiple years of Irv Smith Jr.
But so far at training camp, Nailor has looked the part of the WR3, and Minnesota just so happens to need one of those to break out this summer. Head coach Kevin O’Connell said about Nailor last month, “Jalen has always been a guy that when he’s healthy and on the field, he shows up on every single opportunity he’s gotten. That’s our challenge to him. Sometimes things are out of your control, and we understand that, but for him to take that next step, we’re going to need to see him out there a lot as part of that group.”
The speedster has busted off highlights like this at camp:
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. The show features guests, analysis, and opinion on all things related to the purple team, with 4-7 episodes per week. His MIN obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band). He follows the NBA as closely as the NFL.
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.