The Minnesota Vikings are getting work done during OTAs, which will be more important this year than in years past with J.J. McCarthy taking over as the starting quarterback.
While the focus is on the second-year signal caller, there are other factors that are interesting to follow, including the safety position.
Josh Metellus might be holding in
One thing that has been interesting with the Vikings in OTAs is the participation. Head coach Kevin O'Connell has called the participation level "near 100%" which is always a good thing.
One player who hasn't been participating 100% is safety Josh Metellus. He is due a new contract after two excellent seasons with the Vikings, and there is the chance he could be holding in. The Star Tribune's Ben Goessling alluded to that on the latest episode of Access Vikings.
"Yeah, and we don't know this for sure yet, but it's easy to connect the dots there and think, Okay, this is a guy in the final year of his contract. There have been conversations about an extension to this point, and I think there's interest, certainly from both sides. We'll have to see if they find the common ground of pricing, but I think there's interest from both sides in continuing that relationship, and that he continues to be an important piece of the defense in Minnesota. But as of now, that contract is not done, and I don't think there's really much in terms of guaranteed money for him at this point. So when you do see guys, whether we've seen it with Danielle Hunter or T.J. Hockkenson, when they're talking through those contract things, it's maybe not that they're holding out, but the hold-in has kind of become the modern approach to this, I guess. And this is still an optional phase of OTA.
"So you may, you may be saying, I'm going to be here so I can get my workout bonus, but I'm going to mitigate some of what I do so that I'm not putting myself at more risk when I don't have a guaranteed contract going forward beyond this year. And I want to see something get done. So it's one of those things to keep an eye on. I don't know for sure that that's the only reason for it. I mean, it's possible, I suppose, that he's coming back from something, but the Occam's Razor there would suggest that the contract is at least a factor in some of the way he's going about it, practices that we see at least to this point."
There are a couple of things that are interesting here. First, Goessling isn't saying that this is a certainty, but it sure feels like it.
Second, this is something that I wrote about last week when it was reported that he didn't participate in the first open practice of OTAs.
Metellus is set to be a free agent after the season. There have been rumors that Metellus will get an extension before the season starts, but that has yet to happen.
Could Metellus be holding out from OTAs for a new contract? It's not a certainty right now, but it's definitely something to consider. Metellus does have a $50k workout bonus that he can earn with offseason workouts, but holding out could end up netting him more money.
Holding in is the new way to "protest" to get a new contract, as the new collective bargaining agreement makes it nearly impossible to hold out once training camp starts. Hockenson "held in" two years ago when he wanted a new contract, essentially reporting every day, but working out to the side with a reported "ear infection."
Will this end up being a big deal for the Vikings and Metellus? Time will tell here, but it's certainly not nothing right now.
