MANKATO -- The Vikings will conclude the Mankato portion of training camp today with a morning practice followed by a special teams practice this afternoon.
The team will spend the night here and then travel to St. Louis on Friday for the preseason opener Saturday night. By the end of today, the Vikings will have held 24 practices, including ones devoted to special teams.
Coach Brad Childress will hold a final press conference after the first practice today so we should get a better idea of the plans for Saturday. Not surprisingly, the starters will only play a series or two. Tarvaris Jackson will work with the first-team offense and then Sage Rosenfels and rookie Joe Webb will handle the rest of the game.
Childress said on Wednesday that the game plan will be pretty vanilla because the coaches want to see players just react and play and not think so much.
We'll also see if Childress announces which players will sit out. E.J. Henderson wants to play but no decision had been made earlier this week. Henderson's recovery from a broken leg is progressing faster than anyone anticipated and he is taking part in all live team work.
It's highly doubtful that center John Sullivan (center) and tight end Visanthe Shiancoe (strain) will play considering they have missed considerable practice time.
