Minnesota's practice over the weekend looked almost exactly the same as their other spring practice formats, except for one long scrimmage session.
It was something that just started as an idea for PJ Fleck and his staff, but as Fleck stood back and watched what it was teaching his guys, and forcing his coaching staff to do, he admits that he started to think he may be on to something.
"We pulled every team period out, so our offensive and defensive lines had about an hour-and-a-half of just individual. Then I did something that I have never done in my entire life - and you want to talk about being creative - we ran a 7-on-7 scrimmage. It was interesting."
"It was amazing. We were constantly rotating receivers in and out, so you had to get that communication done, which is priceless on game day, you had to get elite communication. We had to cover and use all of our coverage techniques and coverage schemes with zero pass rush. We had to just play coverage, and just play our offense, without any type of running game."
Fleck also admits it's an idea that some coaches are going to think he's crazy for doing.
"I thought that it was priceless. I'm standing back there starting to think - 'I've never done this before. I've never seen it. Coaches are going to think I'm crazy for installing it. What are we doing?' But as I sit there and watch it, I'm going 'we're on to something. This is awesome. We might do this a lot more because we can't rely on our pass rush to get somewhere.' If the quarterback is back there for six seconds, then we have to be able to cover for six seconds."
"It was priceless today. We got close to 50 reps today of just 7-on-7 scrimmage."
Hear more from Fleck in the clip.
https://youtu.be/1WFTEQtvYZM?t=126