EAGAN, Minn. — When you think Minnesota, you think dark and cold, don’t you? Even the NFL’s crown jewel, the Super Bowl, couldn’t escape the ruthless bite of frozen-lake frigidity some seven years ago, when the City of Minneapolis somehow managed to become the culminating destination of the football season. Nobody and nothing is spared the wintry curse.
Minnesota didn’t get the memo on Monday. As the Vikings trotted onto the grass at TCO Performance Center, they ushered in their first padded practice of 2025 training camp in a sweltering current of 90-degree sun. Not only that, but the defense proved as suffocating as the late-July heat, shining bright for thousands in the stands while consuming Kevin O’Connell’s offense whole.
The man at the heart of this blistering breakout? Who else but Josh Metellus?
“Offense sells tickets, defense wins championships,” the three-time captain and veteran safety told CBS Sports after practice. “We pride ourself on our offense being explosive, making big plays. … The offense is electric, it is explosive. But I think people are a little bit underrated about the Vikings [defense]. … We’re gonna show ’em soon enough.”
Metellus has reason to stand tall: He’s freshly paid, with the ink still drying on a three-year contract extension. General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who’s unafraid to draw lines in big-money negotiations (see: Kirk Cousins, Sam Darnold), championed the deal while deeming Metellus a “program player.” But he’s not exaggerating when he touts the Vikings defense, which had new quarterback J.J. McCarthy — so far a unfussy mark of calm collectedness — ducking and dodging steady pressure in pads.
“In the last couple periods we had at practice, I feel like I didn’t even break a sweat, man,” Metellus laughed. “You get back there, you get to your drops, the next thing you know, you just see the pocket collapse.”
This isn’t an indictment of McCarthy, to be clear. The Vikings’ 2025 hopes may ultimately ride on the untested sophomore, with more seasoned arms like Darnold and momentary offseason consideration Aaron Rodgers now employed elsewhere. But Metellus, who like McCarthy came up under coach Jim Harbaugh at Michigan, already sees the seasoning in the young man.
“Harbaugh brought that pro mindset, instilled it in us from 18 years old,” Metellus explained. “When [J.J.] was able to come in here, learning how to be a pro wasn’t his focus. It was more about learning the scheme and learning how to develop as a quarterback. … He’s a leader, he does things the right way.
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“A big thing about J.J. is a mindset of, it doesn’t have to be perfect every day, but you have to get better every day,” Metellus continued. “I don’t think we’ve had a time where the offense can’t line up, or a snap-count issue. Everybody’s been pretty much dialed in, and that’s a testament to the quarterback. … When you’ve been around guys like Kirk Cousins, Sam Darnold, to see a young guy who’s 22 years old and have that same mindset … it’s honestly special.”
Even more special, Metellus argues, are the resources at McCarthy’s disposal. The Vikings are often national afterthoughts in the crowded NFC North, which produced two other 2024 playoff contenders in the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. Still, Minnesota won 14 games in that same division, and it’s hard to find a glaring hole across the rest of its fortified lineup.
“When you’ve got a guy like that, you don’t want for him to feel too much pressure,” Metellus said of McCarthy. “So the roster is built for him to not feel like he has to be Superman. We got Justin Jefferson. We got Jordan Addison. We got T.J. Hockenson. We got an amazing O-line. We got two great running backs. We got great special teams, great defense. So he just has to go out there and do what ‘KO’ tells him to do and let his personality, his play, elevate the offense, not go out there thinking he has to make everybody miss and throw the ball 90 yards down the field. He just has to stick to the scheme, trust his coaches and let everything else take over.”
Including, primarily, Metellus’ own unit, which remains one of the NFL’s most unpredictable alignments under defensive coordinator Brian Flores. It’s not just blitzing that does it. It’s blitzing and pretending to blitz from all angles at all times. Metellus is quite literally the embodiment of Flores’ simultaneously physical and versatile orchestration, famously taking snaps at virtually every defensive position over his last two seasons as a starting safety opposite six-time Pro Bowler Harrison Smith.
The fact his No. 44 also marks the roster’s loudest talker is just a bonus: “I can be that chirpy guy, that guy that leads from the front lines” because “KO and his staff allow us to be our own selves while getting our jobs done,” Metellus explains.
Also emboldening Metellus as a Vikings mainstay, and giving the defense its emotional backbone in the process? The fact he’s a true Minnesotan, even if not by birth. And not only because he’s eyeing bacon and funnel cake at the Minnesota State Fair.
“I went from Miami to Michigan, Michigan to here, and this is my sixth year, so I’ve been in the Midwest for 10 years, a decade now. I’m a Midwest baby at this point. … [I love] the peace of mind you get out here. I spent the last three offseasons living full-time out here. My wife and kids never feel uncomfortable going anywhere. Even when we do see the fans, it’s always all love. Nobody’s ever bashing us for not winning a ring yet or anything like that. And it’s very beautiful. I think the summers are the most underrated thing about this place, because you get that Miami kind of heat, but you don’t get all the extra stuff that comes with it.”
So maybe Minnesota’s Monday weather was just right, after all. Dark and cold? Not while Josh Metellus is here.
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Author: Cody Benjamin
July 29, 2025 | 8:56 am
