We are a little less than three weeks away from the 2026 NFL Draft, and after that, we have the long, dark stretch of nothingness between the end of draft season and the start of Training Camp in late July. There are a couple of potential oases in that desert in the form of offseason workouts, and the team announced exactly when those are going to happen on Friday.
For the Minnesota Vikings, the offseason program officially gets underway on Monday, 20 April, which is just three days before the Draft.
They will have Organized Team Activities (OTAs) on 26, 27, and 29 May, 1, 2, and 4 June, and 15-18 June. The team’s mandatory mini-camp will take place from 9-11 June.
As always, it’s important to point out that the offseason program takes place in phases, per the NFL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.
- Phase One takes place during the first two weeks of the offseason program and consists entirely of meetings, strength and conditioning work, and rehab activities.
- Phase Two happens over the next three weeks of the program. This can consist of individual and group instruction and drills, as well as plays with offensive players lining up across from offensive players and defensive players lining up across from defensive players, conducted at a walk-through pace. No contact is allowed during Phase Two, nor can teams conduct offense vs defense drills.
- Phase Three consists of the next four weeks of the program, where teams can have up to ten days of OTAs. No contact is allowed, but teams can run things like 7-on-7 or 11-on-11 drills. If a team is going to hold a mandatory mini-camp for players, it has to be held during Phase Three.
Teams with new head coaches are entitled to an extra voluntary mini-camp, but since the Vikings aren’t in that category, we’re not concerned about that.
So, that’s a look at when and how the Vikings will be conducting their offseason program this spring and summer. It’s not earth-shattering news or anything, but it’s the sort of news that we’ll be pretty much dying for in a few weeks.
