Vikings show far improved ball security in three preseason games

PHILADELPHIA – Last season, the Vikings turned the ball over 34 times, more than all but one team in the NFL, and finished with a minus-12 turnover differential. If careful attention to Kevin O’Connell’s news conferences last season didn’t reveal how much those statistics bothered the Vikings coach, the clip from Netflix’s “Receiver” of his heated postgame speech after a Week 2 loss to the Eagles should do the trick.

The Vikings returned to Lincoln Financial Field on Saturday for the first time since that four-turnover, six-point defeat, and wrapped up an undefeated preseason with a 26-3 victory over the Eagles. Jaren Hall’s early interception was overturned by a Cooper DeJean illegal contact call, and J.J. McCarthy threw an interception in his first series in the preseason opener against the Raiders. But the McCarthy pick was the Vikings’ only turnover of the preseason, and after a year where the Vikings lost 15 fumbles, they didn’t lose one in the exhibition season.

Twice in his postgame news conference Saturday, the coach pointed out the contrast.

“When you have your entire roster able to carry the football, catch and get yards after the catch with great ball security, that’s a lot of things we drill every single day as a huge emphasis, especially coming off last year,” he said. “Those are all positives I can reinforce with the team.”

Most of the Vikings’ starters played no more than a few series in the preseason; some of the players who saw the most work in the preseason could be on other teams after Tuesday’s roster cutdown deadline. O’Connell, though, still believed the preseason discipline could carry over to the regular season.

“I’m definitely going to put weight on it in my messaging to the team. We’ve got some examples now of playing the way we want to play,” he said. “It might not be [the starters], but those guys are sitting right alongside the young players that did play and heard a lot of those messages. And that’s what practice has been like.”

Andre Carter II didn’t play in the Vikings’ Thursday night game against the Eagles last year. Even so, there was no way his trip to Philadelphia on Saturday would be the most significant of his career.

“We weren’t playing Navy, so it’s kind of different,” he said.

The West Point product had four tackles and a pass breakup in Army’s 2022 victory over Navy, which turned out to be his final college game. Though his return came in a relatively pedestrian environment, Carter used it to make a case to stick around with the Vikings.

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He had the Vikings’ only two sacks Saturday, registering a strip sack of Tanner McKee on the Eagles’ first play of the third quarter to set up a field goal. Carter finished with three quarterback hits, and he joined Bo Richter as the only Vikings players with two full sacks in the preseason.

“I got in the weight room this offseason; I feel like that helped me a bit,” he said. “I feel a lot stronger taking on blocks. And obviously, when you have more experience, you just see things quicker.”

The Vikings guaranteed $300,000 of Carter’s base salary last season, in one of their most significant commitments to an undrafted free agent.

“I feel good about my camp and what I did. I feel like I got better,” he said. “It’s out of my hands at this point. I’m just happy that I improved.”

Had Hall not taken a third-down hit from Julian Okwara on the series after Carter’s strip sack, the Vikings planned to leave the quarterback in the game through the third quarter. But Hall came back to the sideline with “a little bit of a leg contusion,” O’Connell said, so the Vikings decided to give Matt Corral more than the one quarter he was scheduled to play.

“He had a really good day,” O’Connell said of Hall. “Let’s go ahead and put Matty in there and let him finish the game.”

Hall was rubbing his left leg on the sideline for several minutes after the hit but stood on the sideline for most of the second half and seemed unbothered by the hit after the game. O’Connell talked to officials after the hit to Hall’s head and neck.

“The hit seemed a little high,” O’Connell said. “I’ve got to go watch it. But yeah, the thought was to try to get three quarters for Jaren, but we made the decision to take him out.”