WARE, England — An NFL routine stops for no one. So on Tuesday, the Minnesota Vikings did their best to follow a typical day from a temporary headquarters that sits about 4,000 miles from home.
In the midst of a 10-day, two-country international road trip, Vikings coaches holed up in meeting rooms at the Hanbury Manor Marriott hotel, working on game plans for Sunday’s matchup against the Cleveland Browns at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (9:30 a.m. NFL Network). Players scattered for their weekly day off, some jumping on trains to explore London. Others headed to a hotel the team designated for family members who made the trip. Others played golf.
The front office, meanwhile, examined a roster depleted by injuries and considered possible moves — an additional challenge when any new player would need to have a passport and be in position to make an overnight transatlantic flight to be in place for Wednesday’s first practice of the week.
Coach Kevin O’Connell got his own shock to the system Tuesday morning, as a bird managed to fly into his room at about 7 a.m. local time.
“I had to try to figure out a way to help it out,” O’Connell said, smiling at the memory as he sat outside a pastoral greenhouse that will host the team’s media access this week. “It was very small, and it did not understand. It had to fly out the same window it came in, but it just kept hitting the window over and over again. It was a nice wakeup call.”
Otherwise, O’Connell said: “It should feel as normal as possible to our guys while dealing with not sleeping in your own bed and all that stuff, but that’s kind of little stuff to me.”
The Vikings’ early-season excursion combined a long list of little stuff into one big logistical challenge. Much of the organization’s planning focused on providing its football operations with its typical amenities, from the infrastructure necessary for players who are recovering from injuries to a local tailor who could sew nameplates on the game jersey of any player who might be added midweek.
A series of injuries, especially to the offensive line, were testing the bounds of their planning. Right tackle Brian O’Neill sprained the MCL in his right knee during Sunday’s 24-21 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Ireland. He had an MRI on Sunday night in Dublin, and while the injury isn’t serious enough to put him on injured reserve, he isn’t likely to play again until at least Week 7.
With center Ryan Kelly in the concussion protocol and left guard Donovan Jackson sidelined for at least one more week after having surgery on his left wrist, the Vikings are down three linemen who were still part of the 53-man roster as of Tuesday morning. The Vikings’ entire practice squad is with them in London, as are most of the players who are on injured reserve, but NFL teams routinely tweak those designations to compensate for those who can’t practice.
O’Connell said general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and his staff were “working through” adding a player “potentially for practice squad numbers, making sure we have enough to be able to have quality work on the practice field.”
Another sign of the Vikings’ continued business overseas: Two players on injured reserve, fullback C.J. Ham and linebacker Tyler Batty, will have their 21-day practice windows opened this week. The team is also “evaluating every avenue and all options” to spark a full recovery for linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel, who missed the Steelers game because of a neck injury that has bothered him since training camp. Van Ginkel won’t practice this week or play Sunday against the Browns.
Quarterback J.J. McCarthy, meanwhile, will start to ease into the practice routine after sitting out the past two weeks because of a high right ankle sprain. Carson Wentz will make his third consecutive start against the Browns, but McCarthy could be recovered in time to be an option in Week 7 against the Philadelphia Eagles, following their Week 6 bye.
There were some other tweaks to the typical routine as well. The Vikings remained in Dublin after Sunday’s loss, rather than flying to their next location right away. Players had meetings and film work Monday morning before the team traveled to London in the afternoon. That 24-hour period was a first for an NFL team. In the 18 years since the NFL began playing regular-season games outside the United States, no team had played consecutive games in two different countries.
One of the benefits, O’Connell said, was that the team is now well-adjusted to the six-hour time difference from Minnesota. Players and coaches who were with the team for its 2022 visit to London also stayed at Hanbury Manor, where the estate is big enough to include practice fields. There will be no need to take busses — and fight London traffic — until Sunday’s game.
“It’s really now a normal week process from here,” O’Connell said. “We’re just not at home. We’re just not at our facility, but it’s been good, and this place, we’ve been here before. We know the surroundings, we know the practice field. A lot of the players are staying in the same rooms they probably stayed in 2022.”
