I made my annual trip down to Mankato to watch the Minnesota Vikings training camp practices today. I really enjoy heading down there to watch the practices. Well, I should clarify that. I really enjoy watching the last part of the practices, the first part of their practices are not exactly fan friendly. I'll explain later in this post.
I was planning on being on the road by 6:45 AM as the drive usually takes an hour and forty-five minutes and the 1st practice starts at 8:45 AM. Well, that didn't happen as I was a wee bit sluggish this morning. I 
finally made it out to my truck around 7:10 AM, and then I went back in to the house to grab something that I forgot, made it back out to the truck and realized again that I had only grabbed one of the two things that I had forgot the 1st time. Yeah, maybe my "wee bit sluggish" thing was a little understatement. But traffic was light heading down there and I made it a few minutes early. I immediately noticed how much they have changed everything down there. It is all set up to get more money out of us now. The very 1st thing you do when you get there is walk through a large air-conditioned tent that is stocked to the rafters with Vikings merchandise. you have to walk through this room to get in and out of there now. Once you get through that, there are a bunch of local vendors there looking to peddle their information on you. When you get past that, you get to the rows of food and beverage merchants. Then you finally get to the bleachers where I found a spot up in the back row so I didn't have to worry about anyone behind me so I could stand up whenever I wanted. Just a few years ago all that was there was a fence between the fans and the practice fields, they didn't even have bleachers to sit on.
The players were just warming up when I sat down. The 1st part of each and every training camp practice that I have been to are just boring. There are three fields that they practice on. 
The furthest one away from us usually has all of the defensive players going through their drills. You'd have a better shot of watching the astronauts in the space shuttle moon us as they flew overhead than you would actually seeing what the defense is doing. The middle field has the offensive players doing their thing. You usually have running backs in one area, linemen in another, and the QB's and WR's working together somewhere else on that field. Every once in a while they mix and match the different offensive positions together to do different drills, but again, they are pretty far away, so it's not the best entertainment around. The field closest to the fans has none other than the punters and field goal kickers kicking the ball! Whoot! Punt after punt after standing around talking to each other for a while, after punt. Field goal kickers using a tripod-like device to hold
the ball in place so they can do their kicks without needing anyone to hold the ball for them. Oh the joy and excitement. Every once in a while they spice things up by bringing over the long-snapper so he can hike the ball to the punter or to the holder on the field-goal unit (which in the Vikings case is the punter).
Then the last third of the practice always makes up for how mind-numbingly boring the first part is. The whole team comes over to the field closest to us and they run full squad (11-on-11) or seven-on-seven drills. Yeah, it is your teams defense against your teams offense, so it's no where near as exciting as an actual game. But now you get to watch up close and 
personal how different players are doing. You can see when a player makes a mistake, and then also hear the coaches call that player out for the mistake. You can watch the new rookies and see how they are coming along. You can also watch the new free-agent additions to see if they are going to fit in. But most importantly, you are watching football again. You hear the the defensive players yelling out their reads and adjustments, you hear the QB and center calling out signals, and you hear the thunder of the lineman colliding together when the ball is snapped. You see the running backs cutting through the holes, the receivers running their stop-and-go's and slant routes. That's what makes football so exciting, there are 11 guys on offense and 11 guys on defense and on any given play any one of those players could make a game breaking play, or any one of them could miss their assignment and ruin the play.
Over-all, it wasn't a very 'exciting' practice. Things were kept kind of basic and there were no big 
plays on either side of the ball, but that's alright. With the end of todays practice it means that we are one day closer to the start of the season. If all of the Vikings new defensive players learn how to work together as a unit, this could be an exciting season for us Viking fans. The only concern I have is despite finally getting rid of Red McCombs as the teams owner, we still have the leagues lowest paid head coach, and the leagues lowest paid assistant coaches, which can only mean we will most likely be out-coached in every game. I like Mike Tice, but he was obviously well under-qualified for the head-coaching job, and then you throw in the lowest paid assistant coaches, and throw in a team of players that was put together by spending enough money to just barely get over the league minimum, it's a wonder that the team competed like they did to start off each of the past couple of seasons. Tice has managed to improve each season, and we now have a good roster of players. And the last time the team changed ownership, they went 15-1. Here's hoping Zygi's new ownership brings the same kind of good fortune!
I took one video while there. This is Brad Johnson throwing to a receiver that I can only assume will not be with the squad when they announce the final roster. Click here to watch the video.
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