Baker echoed that mindset after practice, “If they say go to special teams, go to kicker, whatever, I’m gonna do what they want me to do,” he said.<\/p>\n
He’s also putting in extra work to master the offense. “My mindset going into camp was just honestly getting a good grasp on the offense,” Baker said. “Every morning at eight o’clock, I meet with Coach Todd [Downing]. We go over where I’m gonna go and what plays we’re gonna run. That’s been huge for me.”<\/p>\n
Rookie Craig Woodson Learning on the Fly<\/p>\n
It was a busy night for rookie safety Craig Woodson against Washington: 40 total snaps, two tackles on defense, and three more on special teams. He’s also been seeing increased reps alongside former Cal teammate Jaylinn Hawkins, a connection that goes back to his freshman year.<\/p>\n
“We’ve always stayed in contact,” Woodson said. “So it’s fun to play with that guy. We’re on the field a lot together.”<\/p>\n
Woodson, who just narrowly dropped a would-be interception on Sunday, admitted the biggest adjustment has been the intensity and situational awareness required at the NFL level. “Every drill you do, you’re competing and trying to earn a role,” he said. “Just learning and getting better every day.”<\/p>\n
Special teams, he knows, is his ticket to a roster spot. “For a young guy, it’s a way to earn a role on a team and have a spot on the 53-man roster,” Woodson said. “It’s an extension of defense in a way. Just being on there and being able to communicate, that’s what’s going to help the team.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Baker echoed that mindset after practice, “If they say go to special teams, go to kicker, whatever, I’m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2073],"tags":[90,7,1263,1264,233,259,2529,6,42964,234],"class_list":{"0":"post-277705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-vikings","8":"tag-analysis","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-hp-article","11":"tag-hp-featured","12":"tag-minnesota","13":"tag-minnesota-vikings","14":"tag-minnesotavikings","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-training-camp-feature","17":"tag-vikings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115006247301289539","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}