Vikings attempting to control the uncontrollable with recent request to fans

Prior to their practice this past Saturday, the Minnesota Vikings posted a message on their video board asking fans not to record any of the session on video.

As Minnesota Vikings fans arrived on the campus of the TCO Performance Center this past Saturday, they were greeted with an odd message on the team’s video board.

In an effort to apparently prevent their opponents from gaining an edge, the Vikings thought they could convince their fans to refrain from recording any videos of the team’s practice.

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take very long for videos from fans to show up online. Not only that, others took the clips from practice and they were able to figure out the exact plays that Minnesota was running.

Will the Minnesota Vikings have fewer practices with fans in attendance in the future?

On the latest episode of “The Viking Age Podcast“, Chris Schad and I discussed if it really matters whether fans record videos of practice or not.

We both came to the conclusion that a few videos being posted on Twitter isn’t going to be the thing that determines how many wins the Vikings are going to have during the upcoming season.

No one is shocked that it was revealed that Minnesota is running concepts used by the offenses developed by Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan. Elements of these schemes have been used by offenses that new Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell has worked with in the past and him using these concepts is something that has been expected.

Plus, the plays that O’Connell has Minnesota running in front of the fans are probably some of the most vanilla plays he has on his sheet. He’s not about to showcase the entire playbook to the public in training camp.

At the same time, the Vikings made a request to their fans not to record videos, but some went ahead anyway and posted clips of practice online. Could this defiance lead to Minnesota opening up fewer training camp practices for fans to attend in the future? It may seem silly, but it’s not something that can’t be ruled out.

In a sport that is described by some as “a game of inches”, teams will look for any sort of advantage over their opponent. Someone just needs to let the Vikings know that a few video clips of their bland plays from practice aren’t going to determine the results of any games this season.