Final Thoughts: Vikings Set to Open Preseason at New Orleans

[Viktor]

The Vikings will fly home from New Orleans immediately following Friday night’s game, per usual. Saturday will be a players’ day off from training camp and then on Sunday the team will return to the practice fields at TCO Performance Center to being a full week of practices leading up to the second game of the preseason – a home contest against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, August 18


I am excited to see how the battles for backups at linebacker and safety unfold. I would love to see some of those backup guys come in and play at the same level as the starters. So who are some players you see coming in as backups and being able to make an impact?


-- Vincent Newcomb


Richmond, VA


The ideal scenario is that you have backups who, if called upon, can come into the game and not represent a significant dropoff from the starter. The Vikings saw this with Anthony Harris over the past couple of seasons. The starter was Andrew Sendejo and he was a very good player for the Vikings. But when he was unable to play, Harris consistently stepped in and played at a starter-caliber level. He may have had different strengths than Sendejo, but the level of play was similar. I will give you four names to watch this preseason who have a chance to follow Harris’ path. At linebacker, it’s rookie Cameron Smith and veteran Eric Wilson. At safety, it’s rookie Marcus Epps and veteran Jayron Kearse. These players may not have the identical skill sets or strengths as the starters ahead of them, but they have their own strengths and style of play that may allow them to develop into the caliber of players who won’t represent a steep dropoff from the starter who is ahead of them on the depth chart.


Broadcast Information


Friday night’s preseason game is slated for a 7:00 p.m. CT kickoff. The broadcast will be a television/radio simulcast. FOX 9 (Channel 9 in Minneapolis/St. Paul) will handle the television broadcast and KFAN-FM 100.3/KTLK-AM 1130 will handle the radio broadcast. Voice of the Vikings Paul Allen will handle play-by-play duties while former Vikings linebacker and coach Pete Bercich will be the in-booth analyst. Greg Coleman and Ben Leber will handle sideline reporting duties.


The Vikings Radio Network pre-game show will be hosted by Mike Mussman and will begin at 5:00 p.m. CT.