EAGAN — The Minnesota Vikings will start Sam Darnold at quarterback in their exhibition opener, before giving rookie J.J. McCarthy his first NFL game action.
Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell kept almost all of the starters out of preseason games over his first two years, but he said on Thursday that the majority of the healthy players on the roster would see time in the exhibition game on Saturday against the Las Vegas Raiders at U.S. Bank Stadium.
Superstar wide receiver Justin Jefferson and 13-year veteran safety Harrison Smith will not be among them. Neither will tight end T.J. Hockenson, the most notable player on the injury watch list who’s still working his way back from a torn ACL and has yet to take part in practice.
But for the first time under O’Connell, the Vikings will play their starting quarterback in the preseason. Kirk Cousins never left the sideline in 2022 or 2023.
“Every year is a new year,” O’Connell said.
Darnold won’t have the opportunity to carry over the deep connections he’s made with Jefferson in practice to the game, but the newcomer will have some valuable turns with the first team offense.
McCarthy, of course, will be the featured attraction as the 10th overall pick in the draft. O’Connell declined to specify how many series each quarterback would take, leaving room for flexibility based on game flow, though he said Nick Mullens would not play and second-year player Jaren Hall would get some time at the end of the rotation.
“Now we’re reaching the point where we get to see a good barometer of where we’re at, not only at that position but a lot of competitive positions right now on our team,” O’Connell said.
As meaningless as exhibition outcomes are, O’Connell hinted at a desire to end the team’s 10-game preseason losing streak. The last exhibition game the Vikings won was against Arizona on Aug. 24, 2019, when Mike Zimmer was in his sixth of eight seasons.
With a daunting start to the regular season next featuring San Francisco, Houston and Green Bay on the schedule, O’Connell and his staff have been especially focused on ramping up the intensity in a way that will have the Vikings as ready as possible out of the gate. The joint practices at Cleveland next week will provide another valuable opportunity.
For now?
“Most eager thing to see is just a vanilla defense, honestly,” McCarthy said, referencing the aggressive and unorthodox looks he and his teammates regularly receive from defensive coordinator Brian Flores in practice. “Out of myself, it would be just making sure the things we harp on: all the little details, all the little intricacies that go into each and every rep show up on game day.
When there’s a lot of noise and there’s a crowd, just being able to lock in to the level of my training that I’ve been doing on a consistent basis since I got here, and to be able to do it when the time matters.”
Defensive lineman Jerry Tillery, who’s listed as a starter in the basic 3-4 alignment when only four defensive backs are in use, has been sidelined with a severe cut on his leg that required stitches. Tillery, a 2019 first-round draft pick by the Los Angeles Chargers who played last season for the Raiders and signed with the Vikings as a free agent, was hurt in practice last week.
Another newcomer even more vital to the defense, veteran cornerback Shaq Griffin, has been out since early in training camp because of a hamstring injury and likely won’t play on Saturday.
Hockenson’s likely replacement for the beginning of the season, Robert Tonyan, has been dealing with back spasms.
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