Believe it or not, Sam Bradford is a read-option quarterback here in Minnesota.

Bradford was a multisport star growing up in Oklahoma, standing out among his peers in basketball, hockey and, well, you name it. But Bradford, who has had his left knee surgically repaired twice, is not known as a runner in the NFL.

Instead, the Vikings ask him to execute plays with a run-or-pass option, also known as packaged plays, to rely on his brain, not his legs, to put defenses in a bind.

“Those, to me, are what you can do with guys that aren’t necessarily runners because he’s either handing off or throwing a quick pass,” said Scott Turner, the Vikings quarterback coach and son of Norv Turner, the offensive coordinator.

Midway through the first quarter of the Week 4 win over New York, the Vikings faced first-and-10 in Giants territory. They lined up three wide receivers on Bradford’s right with running back Jerick McKinnon beside him in the backfield. On this play, he could either hand off to McKinnon or whip the ball out wide.

Standing in the shotgun and scanning the defense, Bradford counted two Giants defensive backs to his right. With a 3-to-2 numbers advantage, his pre-snap read was an easy one — throw the quick bubble screen to Cordarrelle Patterson.

With his two fellow wide receivers tying up a pair of Giants defenders, Patterson nearly broke loose for a 41-yard touchdown but was tackled for a 21-yard gain.

“It’s a way to make the defense cover the whole field,” Scott Turner said. “You stretch them out horizontally … and if you get a look, you throw it out there. If you don’t get the look, you’re running the run. It’s really a numbers game.”

The Vikings are one of many NFL teams that are using run-pass options, or RPOs in coachspeak, to use those numbers to their advantage. While they are much more common in the wide-open spread attacks in the college ranks, he guessed that every NFL offense is now using run-pass option plays in some capacity.

Read the rest of this story at StarTribune.com...

A couple of bloody plush toys still littered the locker room Friday as a reminder of the danger in the Vikings feeling too fat and happy.

Before dismissing his 5-0 team for the bye week, coach Mike Zimmer scattered stuffed animals of the feline variety throughout Winter Park. At some point, someone in the locker room cut their throats and splattered them with red paint.

Hanging on the larger cat in the locker room was a sign that read "Fat Cats Get Slaughtered."

Two days later, in a 21-10 horror-show loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, the Vikings got manhandled up front by the Eagles, coughed up four turnovers and lost their first game of the season to a formidable but inferior opponent starting a rookie quarterback.

After the game, which Zimmer quickly called "embarrassing," he listed most, but not all, of the miscues that cost his lethargic Vikings at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday.

"I'm very disappointed," Zimmer said. "We turned the ball over offensively, we didn't block people, we dropped balls, we got the quarterback hit, we [need] 2 inches and we can't convert on third down or fourth down, we got three shots in the red zone in the first half, we throw an interception, we gave up a 98-yard kickoff return, we fumbled a punt. If you're going to do those things, you have no chance to win."

The loss, squandering another stifling performance from Zimmer's defense, exposed the plot of how the Vikings' Super Bowl hopes might ultimately get killed off in January.

Read the rest of the article at StarTribune.com...

Late Tuesday morning, coach Mike Zimmer huddled the Vikings up at midfield. The players were two days removed from their fifth consecutive victory to open the season and minutes away from being dismissed for their bye week. They would not have to be back in the building until Monday.

Zimmer’s huddle was brief, his message simple: Stay in shape and stay out of trouble.

One player, a practice-squad offensive lineman, ignored that last part. Isame Faciane was arrested early Wednesday morning by St. Louis Park police on suspicion of driving while intoxicated after he wove around construction barriers to travel the wrong way down an off-ramp.

A couple of years ago, the headlines on local news websites and national NFL blogs such as Pro Football Talk might have read, “Yet another Vikings player arrested.” But this was the team’s first known arrest since December 2014. According to a database of NFL player arrests compiled by USA Today, that was the longest the Vikings had gone between arrests since 2000, which is as far back as their database goes.

Some members of the organization were more proud of that off-the-field streak than the five consecutive wins that have made the Vikings the NFL’s lone unbeaten team.

In an effort to make the Vikings an organization that fans will be proud of for what their players do away from the football field, too, their top decision-makers say they have been more selective about the type of characters they bring in to their locker room.

And their player development staff continues to try to put all of their players in position to thrive once they walk out of Winter Park — whether it is for the bye week or for good upon their retirement from football.

Of course, it’s up to the players to steer clear of trouble. But the current regime believes that incidents like Faciane’s arrest will not be the norm under their watch.

“I know it’s important to me that we represent the fans and the Twin Cities [the right way],” Zimmer said in June, at the start of a second straight quiet summer.

Read the rest of the story at StarTribune.com...

Before strapping on the pads and applying eye black, before his head hits the pillow around 10 p.m. for a long night of slumber, before even the Vikings' final walkthrough every Saturday morning, Harrison Smith starts his preparation for his mentally draining and physically punishing Sunday afternoons with a donut.

The hard-hitting Pro Bowl free safety prefers a no-frills glazed croissant.

"It's kind of like the first step," Smith said. "You've done most of your work and you're starting to gear up for the game. You know it's almost time to play."

At around 7:45 Saturday morning, nearly 28 hours before the undefeated Vikings play host to the Houston Texans at U.S. Bank Stadium, Smith and about two baker's dozens of teammates will gather in Eric Sugarman's modest-sized training room at Winter Park. For about a half-hour, they will share stories, laughs and, well, donuts.

The aptly named Donut Club was first established in that room in 2008. Since then, it has quadrupled its membership and adopted a short but strict list of rules, and last year Sugarman, the team's head athletic trainer, had gray T-shirts printed for "card-carrying" members, of which there are between 20 and 30.

The club is all about team bonding and a mutual love of donuts. But the devouring of donuts means something different to each member.

Read the rest of the story at StarTribune.com...

Sack by sack, a dominant Vikings defense pieced together an extended highlight reel for the postgame shows during last weekend’s 22-10 beatdown of Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers. The one that got the most exposure was Danielle Hunter’s safety, which came after he put Panthers left tackle Michael Oher of “The Blind Side” fame on his backside.

Those watching the clip likely focused on Hunter as he quickly pancaked Oher on his way to Newton in the end zone. But Hunter’s highlight probably doesn’t have a happy ending if not for the unheralded work of the refrigerator-sized man next to him.

At the snap of the ball, nose tackle Linval Joseph was immediately blocked by a pair of Panthers linemen. Carolina center Ryan Kalil was named a first-team All-Pro for the second time last season. But on this play, and many others, he could not handle Joseph alone.

Left guard Andrew Norwell had to linger longer than he would have liked and was slow to release and help Oher. He desperately tried to shove Hunter wide of Newton but was a step late. Hunter toppled the reigning MVP for a tide-turning safety.

“That shows how good Linval Joseph is. When you, as a left guard, don’t trust a guy like Ryan Kalil to be able to block him one-on-one? That’s a lot of respect you’re showing that guy,” said former NFL defensive end Stephen White, now an analyst for SB Nation. “It kind of changed the complexion of that game. Little stuff like that doesn’t show up on the stat sheet, but it makes Linval Joseph such an asset for Mike Zimmer’s defense.”

In 2014, Joseph was the first significant free-agent signing of the Zimmer era. The New York Giants, whom the Vikings host Monday night at U.S. Bank Stadium, let Joseph walk because they felt they could simply plug another space-eater into the middle of their line. Two and a half years later, Joseph might be Minnesota’s most indispensable defender.

In his first two seasons here, Joseph, who enjoys doing the dirty work like he did on Hunter’s safety, was a 330-pound difference-maker hidden in plain sight. But with three sacks in his first three games this season, the former high school point guard is finally getting the attention he deserves as arguably the best nose tackle in the NFL.

Read the rest of the story at StarTribune.com...