As we thought would happen
As they’ve done frequently in recent years, the Minnesota Vikings will have some joint practice sessions with a preseason opponent ahead of an exhibition contest between them.
The New England Patriots are coming to town for Week 2 of this year’s preseason, and the Vikings have announced that the two teams will have joint practice sessions together in Eagan ahead of their game at U.S. Bank Stadium on Saturday, 16 August.
We passed along the news back in March that the Patriots had reached out to the Vikings about the possibility of joint practices this preseason. These practices will come right around the time of the preseason when guys get sick of hitting their teammates and want to hit someone else, and that generally seems to lead to some interesting interactions.
The game with the Patriots will be the second of the Vikings’ two home preseason contests this season. They’ll host the Houston Texans in their first exhibition game on Saturday, 9 August, and they’ll finish the preseason at Nissan Stadium in Nashville against the Tennessee Titans on Friday, 22 August. That game against the Titans will be a nationally featured preseason game that will be aired on CBS.
Hopefully, these joint practices will go better than last year’s joint practices in Cleveland did. Multiple Vikings suffered injuries in those practices, including Jordan Addison getting carted off the field with an ankle injury.