"Their Vision is Bigger Than That." Vikings Decided to Practice After Emotional Meeting

After some uncertainty, the Vikings ultimately decided to continue with their scheduled practice.

For a while on Thursday, it was unclear if the Vikings would take the field at TCO Performance Center for their scheduled afternoon practice. 

Zoom press conferences with Mike Zimmer, Kirk Cousins, and others – all scheduled for the morning or early afternoon, prior to practice – were moved back an hour and then eventually postponed to later in the day. With other NFL teams choosing not to practice and games being cancelled in every other major American sports league, there was some uncertainty over what the Vikings would do.

According to KFAN radio, Vikings players didn't show up for their scheduled walkthrough on Thursday morning. News eventually came out that the team held an emotional two-hour meeting on Thursday morning, in lieu of attending walkthrough. The end result was that they decided to practice.

"A lot of the players expressed their opinions, their thoughts, and I think that was probably more important than sending people home today," Zimmer said. "There really wasn’t much discussion about not practicing. The thing that came out of it is we want to make change and us missing practice one day is a 24-hour shock value. We feel like we can do more things with our football team and with our voices as we continue to move forward."

Last Sunday, 29-year-old Black man Jacob Blake was shot in the back seven times by a police officer in Kenosha, WI. Blake miraculously survived, but is paralyzed from the waist down. The incident led to protests in Kenosha, Minneapolis, and other cities across the country. Notably, it has also inspired strikes and cancellations across the sports world.

The Detroit Lions were the first team to act, declining to practice on Tuesday and addressing reporters as a team in front of their facility. The NBA's Milwaukee Bucks refused to play in their scheduled playoff game on Wednesday, which eventually led to all three of the league's games being cancelled that day (with further cancellations on Thursday). Games have also been cancelled in the WNBA, NHL, and MLB, including the Twins' game in Detroit on Thursday evening.

Nine NFL teams chose not to practice on Thursday, including the Bears and Packers. Across the NFL and other sports leagues, the message has been the same: that certain things are more important than sports right now. The players in these leagues have a platform, and they're using it to send a message that things need to change.

There is clearly a great deal of value in the message that has been sent by the wave of strikes from sports teams across every major league in the country. It has sparked conversation and drawn further media attention to the Blake shooting, which is a very good thing.

However, I also understand the explanation given by the Vikings when it comes to why they decided to practice. Attention and conversations are important, but there has been plenty of that after the killings of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and so many others. And yet, unarmed Black people continue to be killed by police (or in Blake's case, severely wounded).

What the Vikings are trying to do is come up with ways to bring about real change, starting in the Twin Cities community. That was the main subject of the meeting on Thursday morning, and remains the purpose of the team's social justice committee, which was formed a few years ago and is led by players like Eric Kendricks, Anthony Barr, Anthony Harris, and Ameer Abdullah.

"There was a wide range of topics that were discussed," said co-defensive coordinator Andre Patterson, who is heavily involved in helping lead the social justice committee. "Helping low-income families, helping with education, helping with rehabilitation for people who come out of prison, being able to talk about voter right laws. There were all kinds of things that were said there."

"I think the biggest team that our team was trying to say is that it’s not a one issue thing. They didn’t want to make a statement that would only be listened to for a 24-hour period that we were just another team that decided not to practice today. Not putting anybody else down but their vision is bigger than that. They’re really involved in trying to make change happen and what they can do to make the community here in Minnesota better."

The Vikings could've chosen not to practice on Thursday, but how much would that have really accomplished? With so many teams in various sports having taken those stances, the awareness had already been spread. There's value in saying the right things and making symbolic gestures that get people talking about these injustices, but there's also a serious need for real, actionable ideas and movements to bring about change.

Bucks players getting on a conference call with the lieutenant governor and attorney general of Wisconsin is a great example of that. So is the powerful and important statement released by the Ravens, which details steps that need to be taken to end this endless cycle of police violence without accountability.

Statement from the Baltimore Ravens: pic.twitter.com/Q8kOzQ8qAZ

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) August 27, 2020

The meeting held by the Vikings on Thursday morning – and the steps being taken by their social justice committee – is another example.

After Zimmer and Patterson spoke to reporters, Kendricks and Kirk Cousins joined the Zoom call. Kendricks, wearing a shirt that read "ARREST THE COPS WHO KILLED BREONNA TAYLOR," spoke about how players can make a tangible difference.

"It’s about us going out into our community — as a team or individually — and seeking out how we want to give back and what we’re interested in giving back in," Kendricks said. "It’s finding those nuances where we can help on a micro level. Those little micro influences create changes and create ripples that can affect a lot of lives."

"It’s important for us not to feel discouraged. During this whole process, I know myself included, I get overwhelmed like, ‘What can I really do and who can I really help?’ But it’s important for me and my teammates that we can make a difference slowly. It’s going to take time. But we will chip away and we will get these things on the docket. We’ll accept them as a team, accept them individually and we will bring change on a small level that will affect a lot of people for the better."

The Vikings aren't just talking the talk here. Back in June, in the wake of Floyd's death, Kendricks and Barr called out the NFL for a vague statement and urged the league to take real action. Both men are among many Vikings players who are very involved in the local community. Other actions that happened in early June were the organization creating a scholarship in Floyd's name to help African-American students afford college, and the team's ownership pledging $5 million to social justice causes. Kendricks said the team is still in the process of finalizing how those funds will be allocated. 

Regardless, one thing is clear: the Vikings are very serious about doing whatever they can to create tangible change. The fact that they chose to practice on Thursday doesn't negate that in the slightest.

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