The Baltimore Ravens descended upon TCO Performance Center for the first of two joint practices with the host Minnesota Vikings on a beautiful summer August day with a big crowd with double the media coverage and attendance by some former Vikings including Adam Thielen and Randy Moss.
The day started with a Kevin O’Connell press conference:
O’Connell was asked if J.J. McCarthy was indeed
QB2 which he answered in the affirmative but left some wiggle room for competition to play out the remainder of training camp. McCarthy took all of the second-team reps in today’s joint practice.
Team Drills
Practice began with stretching and individual drills as usual, before proceeding to team drills. Which are the focus of joint practices.
In 11-on-11 team drills, it was a tough outing for both the Vikings and Ravens offensive units. The defensive units for both teams won the team drills until the final two-minute situational drills, which the Vikings won across the board with both offensive units scoring touchdowns on deep bombs, while the Vikings defensive units stopped both Ravens’ first-team and second-team offenses.
For the Vikings’ first-team offense in 11-on-11 drills, led by Kyler Murray, there wasn’t a lot of success against the Ravens’ first-team defense. Murray had a few of his deeper passes broken up, including a couple by Marlon Humphrey that probably should have been interceptions. Most of Murray’s completions were shorter throws to T.J. Hockenson or a back out of the backfield. The Ravens defensive backs were pretty physical at times, causing Jefferson and others to look to the referees for a flag, which weren’t forthcoming.
But there was something of a theme for Murray throughout the full team drills today: targeting Justin Jefferson. It seemed like just about every one of Murray’s deeper passes targeted Jefferson, with mixed success. T.J. Hockenson seemed like Murray’s preferred target on short passes not specifically designed for another receiver like a screen pass to a running back. It seemed like Murray was intentional in targeting Jefferson and trying to build that rapport. I believe he had one target to Jordan Addison deep, but for the most part it seemed like Murray was focused on building chemistry with Justin Jefferson.
The pay-off came late, during two-minute situational drills at the end of practice, when Murray hit Jefferson on a perfectly thrown deep ball in the end zone in which Jefferson had split the double coverage, giving the Vikings first-team offense the win in that drill. Kyler Murray ran down to the endzone to celebrate what I believe was the first completed bomb to Jefferson in full team drills in training camp this year by any quarterback. It was a successful end to what had been a tough outing earlier on for the Vikings first team offense.
The Vikings’ second-team offense, led by J.J. McCarthy, struggled as well against the Ravens’ second-team defense in full team drills, largely limited to short passes and short runs. Demond Claiborne had a nice run going but got a little too fancy with a jump cut in traffic and had the ball knocked out for a fumble recovered by the Ravens. That will be an important lesson for the young and dynamic running back who had some trouble with ball security his final season in college.
For McCarthy, he seemed focused on targeting Myles Price for much of the team drills, although he hit other receivers on shorter passes and targeted Tai Felton a couple times as well. But McCarthy had the most success targeting Price, who continued to make impressive catches like he did in the preseason game against the Giants and has emerged recently as the best receiver outside of Jefferson and Addison- the latter of which has had a relatively quiet training camp so far.
Like Murray with Jefferson, McCarthy ended practice in two-minute full team drills with a couple short completions and then a deep shot to Myles Price which he came down with in the end zone to win the drill.
I had a somewhat obstructed view of the Vikings’ defensive units facing off against the Ravens offensive units as the media perch view is partially blocked by a scoreboard, but there weren’t any deep completions by either Ravens offensive unit. It was mostly or almost entirely shorter passes and short runs for most of the afternoon in full team drills against Brian Flores’ units.
It appeared that Dallas Turner was having a day as well, and I counted at least one sack that I could see, but it appeared that he was involved in a few other disruptions as well. The Ravens did appear to have some success on shorter throws and a couple intermediate ones to Zay Flowers and Rashod Bateman. But there was also a lot of pressure in the Ravens’ backfield including sacks and TFLs.
And in the final two-minute full team drills, both the Vikings first- and second-team defensive units stopped the opposing Ravens offensive units to win the drill.
Overall, I think it’s fair to say that both team’s defensive units won early, and the Vikings won late.
Other Notes
The Ravens’ starting center, Danny Pinter, was carted off about midway through the practice after getting rolled up on. He remained on the ground until the cart came out and other Ravens player reactions seemed to indicate it could be a season-ending injury.
The special teams gunner drills, which resemble vaguely a running wrestling match, tend to be a bit of a cauldron that can heat up as players and both sides hoot and holler as the one-on-one competition concludes down the field with the defender either knocking down the dummy, which is the object of the drill, or his being prevented from doing so by the blocker. The players involved are mostly the bottom end of each roster and demonstrating value on special teams may be the easiest path to a roster spot and roughly a million bucks if they can hold that spot for the season. So competition can be fierce. There were several instances of the wrestling match going off the rails to some degree, and at one point a Ravens defensive back through a punch hitting the facemask of a Viking (not sure who) and that led to players running onto the field and a brief scrum that was quickly broken up without further incident.
The Vikings won their fair share of the gunner drills, which contrasts with the first day of joint practices last year against the Patriots, when they didn’t. That speaks to a broader take-away I had from this joint practice compared to last year. This year the Vikings appeared to hold their own in the physical battles taking place in joint practices, whether team drills or elsewhere. To me that is a positive take-away. The Vikings’ offensive units may have struggled through the first periods of full team drills but still managed to work through the difficulties and ultimately win the two-minute drills. At the same time, the Vikings defensive units seemed to grow stronger as practice went on and were able to stop the Ravens offensive units, which had little success all day.
All that led me to drive away from practice today with a positive vibe and the feeling that while not everything is clicking at the moment, there is progress at a rate that could lead to a team that is ready and formidable by the time early September rolls around.
We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
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