Most of the attention being paid to wide receivers in Minnesota this offseason was directed toward Justin Jefferson and that makes sense given the importance of getting his contract extension done.
While Jefferson was away from the team hammering out a deal, there was another member of the receiving corps going through workouts. 2023 first-round pick Jordan Addison had 70 catches for 911 yards and 10 touchdowns as a rookie and head coach Kevin O’Connell said that he’s seen steady improvement from Addison as he moves into his second season.
“Jordan Addison had as good of an offseason program as really you can ask for,” O’Connell said, via Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com. "[He is] a guy that had a ton of success in Year One. And really, from a standpoint of getting a little stronger, getting a little bit more comfortable playing through contact and still playing with that great burst and transition that he has, you saw some real growth there.”
Addison played without Jefferson for a big chunk of last season because of the elder wideout’s hamstring injury, so the prospect of teaming them for a full run is an appetizing one in Minnesota. The same could be said of an upgrade on their post-Kirk Cousins quarterback play from last season, although it remains to be seen if Sam Darnold or J.J. McCarthy is going to be tasked with trying to provide it.
It’s been more than six years since Case Keenum and Stefon Diggs connected on the Minneapolis Miracle. They had one more game together as Vikings teammates, overlapped for a year in Buffalo, and are reunited again in Houston.
Keenum, speaking at a youth football camp, recently gave a glowing endorsement of his past-and-present teammate.
“Yeah, it’s really cool to get back out there and see Stefon on the practice field and to watch him absolutely do some dirty things on some routes that I haven’t seen anybody be able to do,” Keenum said, via KPRC 2. “He’s a dynamic player and he hasn’t lost a step. If anything, he has gotten more savviness and can put some extra sauce on some routes when he needs to and win. He’s done a great job of continuing to build his craft and work his tools, his tool set, and I’m excited to see what he can do in the fall.”
There’s still a story to be told about what went wrong in Buffalo. Keenum was on the team during the home playoff loss to the Bengals, when Diggs showed frustration on the sidelines. Last year, when everything came to a head, Keenum was gone.
Still, with two prior seasons as a Diggs teammate, Keenum surely knows what makes him tick. He can be a great resource for the coaching staff and quarterback C.J. Stroud regarding what it takes to get the most out of him.
Cutting a first-round draft pick after he played just 10 career games would be a major admission of a draft mistake, but that’s what the Vikings might do with safety Lewis Cine.
Cine, a 2022 first-round draft pick, was working with the third string during offseason practices and has a tough path toward earning a roster spot, according to ESPN.
It just hasn’t worked out for Cine in Minnesota. He was barely playing at the start of his rookie year before he suffered a compound fracture in his leg in Week Four that caused him to miss the rest of the season. In his second season he played in only seven games, almost exclusively on special teams.
If Cine makes the team, it may be mostly because his $1.75 million salary is guaranteed, and cutting him doesn’t save the Vikings any salary cap space. If the Vikings are picking their best players, though, it doesn’t look like Cine will be one of the 53.
The betting odds says the Vikings are long shots to make the playoffs this season, but safety Camryn Bynum doesn’t see it that way.
Bynum says that after looking across the field at offseason practices, he saw so much talent that he believes the Vikings are going to the Super Bowl.
“I expect a Super Bowl. Everybody says that, and everybody should say that,” Bynum said on NFL Network. “But you look at the guys on the team, you look at the locker room, all the experience we have. Look how much depth we have, especially on the defense. So many guys. It’s almost weird looking around, you’re like, OK how are we all going to get on the field? There’s just so many ballers. You look at the offense. There’s a baller at every position when you look across the whole board. That’s why I’m confident when I say I expect us to be a Super Bowl team. But really, our preparation has to tell it all. You say that every year. Every team says that every year, but we have to put all these names and everything. We have to make it real.”
Not many people share Bynum’s enthusiasm about this year’s Vikings. If Bynum and his teammates can back up his words, they’ll be proving a lot of people wrong.
“Joey, do you like commercials about gladiators?”
If you do, you’re soon to be in luck.
Via Terry Lefton of Sports Business Journal, several major NFL stars recently traveled to Canada for a “gladiator-themed” Pepsi commercial. (“Drink Pepsi, you’ll feel like you’ve been stabbed impaled by a spear in the stomach”?)
The NFL players in the spot include Bills quarterback Josh Allen, Ravens running back Derrick Henry, Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, per the report.
Lefton suggests that Pepsi has some sort of arrangement with Gladiator II, which will debut later this year. The commercial comes before that, just as the 2024 season gets started.
So Pepsi is getting paid to push the sequel to Gladiator, and various NFL players are getting paid to push Pepsi as gladiators.
Whether we are not entertained by the commercial remains to be seen.