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Farewell, Offseason…Hello, Training Camp

In the latest twist in the Brett Favre saga, Favre has professed his desire to play for the…

…just kidding, folks. I’m done with the Favre talk. Under normal circumstances, I would have moved on to other things a long time ago — but you’ve gotta consider that it’s the only thing the media has been talking about, and frankly, there hasn’t been any significant Vikings news over the past week that has been unrelated to the tampering charges. But with training camp underway, Favre talk will be taking a major backseat to your regularly-scheduled training camp coverage.

And with that said, today marked the opening practice session of training camp. Chip Scoggins has a few notes from this morning’s practice:

Quarterback Tarvaris Jackson looked mostly solid in team drills. On the first play of team work between the first-team offense and first-team defense, Jackson avoided the rush from the outside, stepped up and dumped off a pass to fullback Thomas Tapeh for a nice gain.

All eyes will be on T-Jack throughout training camp — there’s no question about that. We’ve heard reports that he’s had an outstanding offseason, and it’ll certainly be interesting to see if that becomes evident in the first week or two of camp.

Safety Darren Sharper had the highlight of the first practice in one-on-one drills with wide receivers. Nate Jones ran past Sharper off the line and had five-yard separation on a 60-yard pass from Jackson. But the ball hung the air and Sharper closed out to knock the ball away at the last second. Sharper jumped up and pumped his fist at the crowd.

Closed-circuit to T-Jack critics, eager to point out the young quarterback’s failings: A poor deep ball on the first day of training camp is not sufficient reason to suggest that John David Booty or Gus Frerotte should usurp Jackson.

Of course, there’s little question that Jackson’s margin for error in camp and the preseason is just as small as it’s always been. Not because his job is in any sort of danger — but because of the sheer amount of controversy that’s surrounded the quarterback position ever since Jackson was handed the starting job late in the 2006 season. The members of the roster have offered virtually unanimous support of the kid in public, but if Jackson stumbles out of the gate, things will get messy in a hurry.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.