The Vikings will have 11 padded practices, five below the league maximum of 16, during Kevin O'Connell's first training camp, as the new head coach continues to recalibrate the Vikings' schedule with the hope of keeping players fresher for a 17-game regular season. The team will not go more than four days without a day off during camp.
The approach, which builds on what O'Connell did in the team's offseason program, represents a departure from the way the Vikings ran camps in eight years under Mike Zimmer. But it comes with a tradeoff: O'Connell's staff still needs to teach new schemes — including a shift to a 3-4 defense — to a roster that will spend less time in pads than it has in recent training camps.