EAGAN, Minn. - Kyler Murray gave the Vikings’ offense the kind of reminder it can live on a highlight and a heartbeat. On his final snap of Wednesday’s joint practice against the Ravens, he drifted left, threw on the move and dropped a pass into Justin Jefferson’s hands for a touchdown from about 40 yards out. The TCO Performance Center lit up.
“Baller,” center Blake Brandel said afterward. “I think it was off his back foot. That was awesome.”
That play showed exactly why Murray can flip a practice in one throw. It also came after a day that felt uneven for Minnesota’s passing game, especially once Baltimore’s defense started throwing different looks at it.
Marlon Humphrey nearly jumped one Murray throw for an interception. Later, Murray tried to squeeze a pass to Jordan Addison, and Nate Wiggins got a hand on it to break it up. The larger picture was hard to miss: the Vikings’ passing attack was a little out of rhythm in its first real test against another defense.
That kind of result did not send up alarms. It did, however, underline how much work is still ahead.
“It’s good to see different looks,” Vikings right tackle Brian O’Neill said. “It was good to see the way (Jesse Minter’s defense) played different blocks, different structures.
We’ve gone against very difficult defenses every day, but there’s a certain style they like to play. So, it’s good to see a different style.”
Baltimore leaned on pressure and movement, with safety Kyle Hamilton among the players helping disrupt Minnesota’s protection plan. Early in an 11-on-11 period, Murray rolled out on a bootleg and Hamilton came straight at him, forcing him to throw the ball into the ground. That pressure appeared to bother Murray’s accuracy during the first two team periods as well.
The final Jefferson touchdown gave the day a clean finish, but Thursday will be the real chance for Minnesota to make adjustments against the Ravens’ speed and style.
The run game, meanwhile, got a blunt evaluation from one of the line’s most vocal voices. O’Neill praised the unit’s work against Baltimore’s stunts and games, but he was clear that the ground attack fell short.
“I think there was a lot to be desired in the run game today,” O’Neill said. “I think we were playing a little slow. Trying to be perfect, rather than going on attack mode.”
Brandel said the same thing more simply: “I think we wanted to be better in the run game today.”
That fits with the Vikings’ bigger push to improve the run in 2026. The old system asked linemen to make a lot of post-snap decisions, which meant plenty of thinking.
The revamped approach changes that. Now the emphasis is on firing off the ball with less concern about sorting out defensive alignment before the snap.
That creates a real timing test. Everything has to sync - the handoff, the back’s track, the line’s movement - or the play can stall out.
O’Neill said it almost exactly that way after practice.
“It gets easier the more you do it,” he said. “Hopefully, it gets easier tomorrow after seeing this kind of front, if that makes sense.
There’s different tells and indicators you learn from our defense. Personally, I thought we were a tick slow.
We’re trying to attack. And I felt like we were playing not to mess up.”
The line agreed with the diagnosis, and that kind of self-scouting is part of what makes the new direction feel clearer, even if the results Wednesday were uneven.
There were other notable moments too. J.J.
McCarthy closed his day with a gorgeous 40-yard touchdown strike to Myles Price, drawing the same kind of reaction from teammates that Murray got on his final throw. McCarthy handled all of the second-team reps and had his ups and downs: he sailed one throw to his left, had multiple hitches end with a ball getting batted at the line, and completed several passes to Price, though he rarely worked the middle of the field.
Jordan Mason kept flashing even with little room to run. He and Aaron Jones split carries most of the day, but Mason still found creases with burst, showing why the staff has taken notice of his progress in a system that mirrors what he knew in San Francisco.
Rookie back Demond Claiborne also flashed. He hit a run between the tackles, hop-stepped through traffic and showed the kind of burst and vision Minnesota liked enough to draft him in the sixth round.
But the ending was a problem: the ball came loose. That matters, especially because Claiborne fumbled five times in 179 attempts last season at Wake Forest.
The upside is obvious, but the Vikings will need much more reliability before he becomes part of the offense once the season starts.
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Justin Jefferson Just Gave Vikings Fans A Reason To Believe Again
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For Vikings fans, it was the kind of camp clip that can spark optimism about what the offense might look like heading into the 2026 season, and it also gives fantasy players another reason to keep Jefferson near the top of their boards. The chemistry with Murray was a particularly interesting wrinkle in a practice filled with attention-grabbing moments, even if the bigger question is how much of that connection carries into the games that count. [Read more 🡒]