EAGAN, Minn. — Before their preseason game on Saturday night, the Minnesota Vikings hosted the San Francisco 49ers for a joint practice at the Vikings' practice facilities in Eagan on Wednesday morning.
For both the Vikes and 49ers, joint practices like Wednesday's offer the teams a chance to face some unfamiliar schemes and concepts, according to Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins and 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan.
"The joint practices, there’s always a little more juice for obvious reasons. I just think when you can go against a different scheme, teammates or players you’re less familiar with, there just is a lot of familiarity after OTAs and after training," Cousins said before practice.
Shanahan explained that his players liked the change of scenery and being able to go against new players, "and always going to get different fronts and schemes and different concepts is good for the monotony we've had."
After spending months facing familiar faces, Wednesday's joint practice also gave players the chance to get a more in-game experience.
Minnesota Vikings hold joint practice with the San Francisco 49ers
"It’s 15 weeks together of practice before you actually get to your first game," Cousins said. "You talk about nine weeks of OTAs and six weeks of training camp and preseason, so there’s a lot of familiarity by the end. You know for the 17 games you won’t have that, so you want to go against something different and that’s where I think it’s really valuable to have these practices. Kevin [O’Connell] strategically wants to make sure we get a lot out of these two days."
While in town this week, some of the 49ers players said they're enjoying the Twin Cities where they can, including getting to see the Da Beauty League, which hosts games in Edina with NHL players to donate money to hockey nonprofits.
"I mean, I think it's an incredible fact that so many NHL players live up in the same city and they can just do a summer league together," 49ers tight end George Kittle said. "So they tried to get me on skates. I was like, thinking Kyle Shanahan would rip my head off if he saw me on skates on the ice. So I've avoided that but who knows, I could slither on over tonight."
Kittle also praised the Vikings' facilities in Eagan, saying "when you have all the land like this, this is how you should be doing football."
With one fewer preseason game due to the new 17-game regular season, this week's practice is valuable to evaluate young talent.
The 49ers' new starting quarterback, Trey Lance, is taking over the reins of the offense and practicing against the Vikings. This will help him get a chance to find some rhythm with his teammates before the regular season.
"Missed the big one with George and the big one with Deebo today," Lance said. "Yeah, I think those are great things to go back and watch on tape and just talk through with those guys."
For the second-year quarterback, he said it was fun to go up against the Vikings in practice ahead of Saturday's game.
"Again, just good to go against another defense," the North Dakota State product said. "You know, one on one, seven on seven, redzone, everything against another team. I mean it's fun, fun to practice against. They get a lot of good looks, obviously a really talented defense with a lot of guys who've played a lot."
The Minnesota Vikings host the San Francisco 49ers at U.S. Bank Stadium Saturday at 6 p.m. CT.
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