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All abouts the wideouts


Klomp

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Brandon Zylstra grew up idolizing Randy Moss, and he’s had some Moss-like catches early in his NFL career. Zylstra, a Spicer, Minn., native, signed by the Vikings after two seasons in the Canadian Football League, went high in the air during the final week of organized team activities to snag a touchdown pass over Marcus Sherels in the corner of the end zone. The rookie wide receiver might have topped that in minicamp when he grabbed a pass on the left sideline with bodies all over him, a play that earned him high praise from offensive coordinator John DeFilippo.

DeFilippo: “That guy continues to impress, we’re very fortunate he’s on our football team. People are going to have a hard time getting up in his face and pressing him. He has tremendous hands, he’s smart. He’s one of the guys that can line up anywhere. We could put him at any position.”

Zylstra wasn’t surprised by his strong spring showing. He caught 100 passes for a CFL-best 1,687 yards with the Edmonton Eskimos in 2017 and had plenty of confidence when he joined the Vikings, telling the Pioneer Press before spring drills he believed he could “compete for a starting spot.”

https://www.twincities.com/2018/06/15/vikings-rookie-wr-brandon-zylstra-turning-heads-with-acrobatic-catches/

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  • 4 weeks later...

The Vikings have an interesting crop of young players and undrafted rookies that could wind up sneaking onto the wide receiver roster and making some noise. Stacy Coley is an option heading into his second season, but former CFL star Brandon Zylstra and undrafted free agents Jake WienekeKorey RobertsonChad Beebe and Jeff Badet are all players to keep an eye on during camp as they fight for roster spots.

The Vikings kept six wideouts last season, so assuming that Diggs, Thielen, Treadwell, and Kendall Wright are safe, that leaves two spots to be battled for.

https://247sports.com/nfl/minnesota-vikings/Article/Minnesota-Vikings-wide-receivers-Five-questions-heading-into-this-year-119732812/

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5 hours ago, vike daddy said:

The Vikings have an interesting crop of young players and undrafted rookies that could wind up sneaking onto the wide receiver roster and making some noise. Stacy Coley is an option heading into his second season, but former CFL star Brandon Zylstra and undrafted free agents Jake WienekeKorey RobertsonChad Beebe and Jeff Badet are all players to keep an eye on during camp as they fight for roster spots.

The Vikings kept six wideouts last season, so assuming that Diggs, Thielen, Treadwell, and Kendall Wright are safe, that leaves two spots to be battled for.

https://247sports.com/nfl/minnesota-vikings/Article/Minnesota-Vikings-wide-receivers-Five-questions-heading-into-this-year-119732812/

I think Zylstra and Coley have a decent chance of taking the 5th and 6th WR spots. I would love to see Badet light it up in the kickoff return game. I know we have Hughes, but would love Badet with his 4.27 speed to win the kick returner job. I think the kick return game will be more dynamic with the new NFL rules.

Looks like he averaged ~22 yards per return on 30 attempts in college. I wonder if the new NFL rules will accentuate his speed/return abilities!?

https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/jeff-badet-1.html

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I kind of have been hearing that Wright hasn't shown anything special in practices so far. Heard he hasn't even been out with the first team, and wasn't even on the field during at least one day that was open to the media. Assuming some of these UDFA's and new guys are showing up well, I wouldn't be surprised if he got released in favor of some dynamic youth, even more so if Treadwell really is taking these big steps. I think Zylstra, Coley, and either Beebe or Badet could be our back 3 kept if we keep 6 WR's on the roster. If the young guys are doing this well, i'd love to get them locked up on the roster rather than have them pulled off the practice squad by a WR needed team.

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I'd be pretty surprised if that happened.

Wright has consistently been a pretty good WR through his career. He's not so old (turning 29) that he should drop off much. I wouldn't read much into his performance in OTAs, he's got a track record in the NFL. He obviously won't play with the ones as long as Treadwell is starting at split end and Thielen and Diggs are both healthy, so the fact that he didn't play with the ones isn't a knock on him at all. 

Wright is capable of backing up slot and flanker (meaning Thielen and Diggs in 3WR sets). They don't have any other backups with comparable experience. He's cheap too, so there's basically no benefit from releasing him in terms of cap space. 

Even keeping Wright, they still have room for 2 WRs among the new UDFAs and holdovers from last year (Coley, Zylstra, Cayleb Jones) to make the team, plus however many stick on the practice squad. It'd be pretty risky to rely entirely on that group to be the only backup WRs on the roster.

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Based off the entire off-season, the player EVERYONE is raving about is Treadwell.

Zim had no problem calling him out last year so to have Zimmer praising him this off-season, you know Treadwell is looking good rather than some CoachSpeak.

It will also help greatly that Tready will have Cousins throwing to him (obviously). He came into his rookie year learning with Teddy as the QB before Teddy went down and never had a camp with Brad Samford. Then when he did get a full off-season with Bradford, Sam was done after the season opener and Case took over who was 1-2 read guy and rarely progressed to Treadwell's route.

Not only that, he's also had 3 different coordinators. 

This will be Treadwell's first off-season and regular season with the same QB (hopefully....) and it seems to be paying dividends. 

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