After welcoming players back to TCO Performance Center last month, the Vikings have been slowly easing into things. Now they are officially back on the practice field with organized team activities underway and mandatory minicamp to follow next month.

Though it’s important not to put too much stock into these workout sessions in the spring — especially considering live contact is still not permitted — they do give a good baseline of what to expect in the summer.

Here are five storylines to keep an eye as the Vikings start organized activities:

How does J.J. McCarthy look?

The most intriguing part of the next few weeks will be getting to see McCarthy step into the spotlight. 

After being selected by the Vikings with the No. 10 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, McCarthy spent the spring and the summer behind Sam Darnold on the depth chart, then suffered a torn meniscus in an exhibition game that landed him on injured reserve for all of last season.

Now back to full strength, McCarthy is the presumed starting quarterback for the Vikings, even if they won’t make it official for the foreseeable future.

This will be the first time since being drafted that McCarthy will get a majority of the reps with the starters.

Whether he’s throwing to Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson, handing the ball off to Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason, or simply taking snaps from Ryan Kelly, the experience will be valuable for McCarthy as he takes ownership of the offense.

There’s probably going to be a feeling-out process for McCarthy after not playing in a game as a rookie. Let’s just agree not to overanalyze every mistake he makes.

What does the backfield rotation look like?

It will be interesting to see how the Vikings handle the reps with Jones and Mason in the backfield. That will be more informative than trying to draw any conclusions about either running back based on how they look with the ball in their hands.

It’s pretty clear that the Vikings don’t want Jones to handle the same workload as last season, when he set a career high with 306 touches. That’s why they went out and acquired Mason via a trade with the San Francisco 49ers.

Will there be a defined role for each player? Will it be more of an even distribution when it comes to carries? Will it simply be based on who has the hot hand?

The answers to those questions remain to be seen.

Will there be a battle for No. 3 receiver?

It was a breakout campaign for Jalen Nailor last season as he recorded 28 receptions for 414 yards and six touchdowns. The assumption is that Nailor will move forward as the receiver behind Jefferson and Addison.

That said, the Vikings drafted Tai Felton in April, and the rookie will likely be given a chance to make a name for himself. The process of doing that started a few weeks ago when Felton turned some heads in rookie minicamp.

The competition should bring out the best in Nailor and Felton. Truthfully, with how much the Vikings throw the ball, there will opportunities for both players to make an impact regardless of where they end up on the depth chart.

Where will Donovan Jackson slot in?

The starting offensive line won’t be fully intact for awhile. Not only is Christian Darrisaw still recovering from a torn anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments, there’s also a world in which the newly signed Will Fries is brought along slowly after working his way back from a broken tibia.

Meanwhile, the Vikings recently drafted Jackson, and while they feel confident about his future at left guard, it’s unclear if they plan to throw the rookie right into the fire with the starters. If the Vikings decide to bring Jackson along slowly, Blake Brandel will likely get the nod in the meantime.

Who is going to step up in the secondary?

As happy as the Vikings were that Harrison Smith decided to delay retirement, the loss of Cam Bynum can’t be overstated. He played virtually every snap at safety last season, so the Vikings will have their work cut out for them as they work to replace him.

The next man up is Theo Jackson. He has garnered praise from Smith and Josh Metellus in the past, so there’s reason to believe he’s ready for the moment.

As for the rest of the secondary, Byron Murphy Jr. is the only known commodity at cornerback.

The rest of the depth chart is rather unproven with Isaiah Rodgers, Mekhi Blackmon and Dwight McGlothern, among a handful of others, all jockeying for spots. If nobody emerges as a viable option opposite Murphy, the Vikings could look to add a veteran free agent at some point.

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A former volunteer with the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office Youth Plus Program and one-time aspiring police officer was sentenced to two years of supervised probation on Tuesday for sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl last year.

Pao Ge Vue, 27, of St. Paul, pleaded guilty in April to an amended charge of gross misdemeanor fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct after reaching a plea deal that also included dismissing a felony count of attempted fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Pao Ge Vue (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Ramsey County District Judge David Brown followed the plea deal and stayed a nearly one-year jail sentence.

The victim and father agreed with the plea deal, according to the county attorney’s office. She wrote a statement for Brown to read prior to Vue’s sentencing, but did not want it read aloud in court.

According to the criminal complaint, the girl’s older sister reported the abuse to St. Paul police on Jan. 30, 2024. She said the girl had attended the youth program two to three times a week over the summer and that Vue, who was her coach, often provided the transportation for her.

The girl’s family began noticing she was spending a lot of time going to the “program” during off-hours. Her family also discovered that Vue was taking her to a workout facility in the evenings, “which caused concern,” the complaint says.

She told police that Vue touched her inner thighs five times, while also trying to touch her groin area before she told him to stop. She said that on two or three occasions Vue grabbed her hand to try and get her to touch his penis, which she refused to do. Vue also tried to kiss her, she told police.

The incidents happened when Vue was driving her somewhere or at a gym not associated with the youth program.

“(The girl) said as the touching occurred, she felt like crying,” the complaint reads. “She was also scared and questioning herself as to why she was going with him.”

She said Vue was in charge of her group and that he often would drive her and other kids to a park or field to work on skills for the sports they were playing. She lived closest to Vue so he would pick her up first and drop her off last.

She said she spent time with Vue outside of his volunteering time with the program and that she felt obligated to do so because he bought her volleyball shorts, a gym membership, food and other things. She said Vue told her to wear the shorts and made sexual comments to her as she was working out at the gym.

Vue told police he had become a volunteer with the Youth Plus Program in spring 2023 “because he wanted to become a police officer and thought it was a good career building move,” the complaint states.

Vue acknowledged to police that he provided transportation for the girl and other juveniles, and admitted to hanging out with some of them outside of his volunteering time. He said he bought them items with his own money. When Vue was asked if he ever touched the girl or she touched him, he said he wanted to “remain silent.”

Vue’s volunteer status with the program was terminated on Feb. 13, 2024. According to its webpage, the sheriff’s office started the program in February 2019 and it “introduces youth participants to athletics, outdoor activities, life skills, and literacy enhancement to improve reading skills. More importantly, this structured program helps prevent youth from becoming involved in criminal activity and helps them make more positive choices.”

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No contact with girls

Vue’s attorney, Rachael Goldberger, said he became a personal care assistant after the allegations surfaced. He recently was told by the state Department of Health he would be disqualified because of the charges, according to Goldberger.

Vue apologized in court and said he understands the “seriousness of my actions” and that he “will never make this same mistake again.”

His sentencing also includes that he complete treatment or a counseling program recommended by probation and register as a predatory offender. He cannot have contact with minor females unless approved by his probation officer.

Amid the relentless chaos in Washington — tariffs, trade war, terminally rising deficits — at least one sensible idea has recently emerged: The federal government wants to free up more land to build homes. It’s a great ambition. The devil, as ever, will be in the details.

Few problems vex Americans more than the struggle to find affordable housing. With development chronically lagging demand, the country faces a shortfall of as much as 7.3 million units.

All too often, broad national support for homebuilding morphs into local opposition when the proposed construction is nearby. Policymakers resort to subsidizing buyers (which drives up prices) or to imposing rent caps and other “affordability” requirements on developers (which deters investment).

It’s therefore welcome to see two administration officials team up to open more of the federal government’s 640 million acres of land to housing development. Both bring relevant experience: Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, whose department manages 413 million acres of land, was a successful businessman and governor of North Dakota; Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner worked for an apartment developer and led a White House effort to encourage investment in opportunity zones.

The easiest parcels for the Interior Department to sell or repurpose without an act of Congress are the 245 million acres administered by the Bureau of Land Management, mostly in Western states. Only a small portion of that land will be close enough to roads, water or population centers to be appropriate for housing. Still, by one estimate, just 850 square miles — about half a million acres — of land could provide space for 3 million homes.

As promising as the effort sounds, caution is still advisable. For one thing, the proposal doesn’t address escalating costs for building materials and insurance. Furthermore, a similar effort by former President Joe Biden’s administration — which repurposed some federal land and conditioned certain grants on pro-housing policy changes by local governments — also seemed promising. But too many of the awards went to worthy-sounding initiatives that imposed burdensome affordability mandates or relied on government subsidies instead of removing hurdles to private-sector investment.

Burgum and Turner should learn from those mistakes. In selecting land for development, they should prioritize areas with the lowest rental-vacancy rates. They’ll also need to work closely with local authorities to ensure that homes are actually built, not just promised. A targeted effort focused on cities such as Las Vegas or Salt Lake City — booming, short of housing and near to undeveloped federal lands — could pay real dividends.

In exchange for land, states and local governments should also be required to make concrete changes to draw investors. The free market — not zoning boards or community groups — should be allowed to determine what kind of housing gets built and at what price. Similar levers should be used to free up development within existing metropolitan areas. For instance, cities that ease zoning restrictions, eliminate rent control and streamline permitting requirements should get priority for federal transit and housing money.

This administration has moved fast with a blizzard of initiatives, not all of them universally popular. Housing is one issue on which most Americans are demanding rapid results. With luck, there’s a chance they’ll get them.

— The Bloomberg Opinion Editorial Board

The best-tasting chicken results when you don’t take it too far from itself, when you let the chicken taste like chicken. For that, you might start with the bird, and look to “the chicken whisperer” — more specifically Mike Charles, founder and CEO of LaBelle Patrimoine.

Charles grew up around chickens in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and has always been passionate about caring for them. (His family has been in the chicken business since they immigrated from Italy at the start of the 20th century.) In grade school, when other students brought their stuffed animals for show-and-tell, Charles brought in live chickens and taught his classmates how to catch them.

He’s now a sixth-generation chicken farmer, and his love for the birds underscores his operation, which lets them roam fields, jump onto hay bales and grow slowly, living 10 weeks instead of the usual six or so.

It also yields a finer end product: His birds are yellow (from all the vitamin D they get outside) and fatty in just the right places, with normal-size breasts and big thighs (from all the roaming and jumping), the kind of heritage meat he’s eaten his whole life. “This is how chickens used to taste,” Charles remembers his Italian grandmother saying, as they ate a simply salted and peppered bird. And therein lies perhaps the most important part for the chickeniest chicken: a straightforward preparation.

Taking bone-in, skin-on portions and roasting them with little to no fat in an uncovered pan is an Italian home cook’s method, which chef Paul Bertolli describes in his seminal book, “Cooking by Hand.” Cooking the portions almost entirely on the skin side like this, using the direct heat at the pan’s bottom, results in shatteringly crisp skin, beautiful rendered fat and evenly cooked meat — like roast chicken without the oven.

“It is truly the essence of the meat that remains attached to the pan,” Bertolli explained over email, delivering “a taste that is more ‘true.’”

A final takeaway? To listen. A gentle sputtering lets you know the chicken is releasing moisture, searing against the heat. When it stops, the meat is fully cooked, and the skin crisp and evenly browned. A quick pan sauce of chicken stock, lime juice and maple syrup, made glossy with a few pats of butter, completes this dish and deglazes the pan, saving you scrubbing time later.

Pan-roasting isn’t difficult, but it can turn a home-cooked meal into something restaurant-worthy. What chefs don’t tell you is that the difference between restaurant cooks and home cooks is the venue. The best restaurants for me are the ones that feel as if you’re eating in someone’s home, and the best home-cooked meals are the ones that feel as if you’re eating in a restaurant. A good playlist, nice tablecloths, a lit candle: It doesn’t take much.

Crispy Chicken With Lime Butter

You don’t need a thermometer to know when these chicken thighs are done. You just need your ears. In this recipe, chicken thighs are slow seared using a technique from chef Paul Bertolli called “bottom-up cooking” where the chicken cooks almost entirely on the skin side over moderate heat, resulting in shatteringly crisp skin. The gentle sputtering sound that signals the release of moisture from the chicken hitting the hot fat in the pan stops when the meat is fully cooked and the skin crisp and evenly browned. A quick pan sauce of chicken stock, lime juice and maple syrup, made glossy with a few pats of butter, completes this dish.

By Eric Kim

Yield: 4 servings

Total time: 40 minutes

INGREDIENTS

4 large bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 2 pounds)

Salt and pepper

1 tablespoon peanut or canola oil

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1/2 cup chicken stock or 1/4 cup water

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, plus wedges for serving

2 teaspoons maple syrup

3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pats

Parsley, cilantro, basil or mint leaves, for serving (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. Pat the chicken dry and season with salt and pepper. If you have time, set aside at room temperature for at least 10 minutes and up to 30 minutes.

2. Heat a large skillet over medium. Add the oil and swirl the pan to coat it. Place the chicken skin side down and cook without moving it until the skin is crispy and golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Reduce the heat if the chicken splatters too much or browns too quickly.

3. Add the garlic to the pan. Flip the chicken and cook until the bottom is lightly browned and the meat is cooked through, about 5 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate, skin side up. Remove all but 3 tablespoons of the fat from the pan and save for another use (see tip).

4. Add the chicken stock, lime juice and maple syrup to the skillet. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer over high, then reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced by half, about 3 minutes. Add the butter and continue simmering, now stirring constantly, until incorporated; the sauce will thicken and become shiny as the butter melts. Taste and add more salt and pepper as desired.

5. Serve the chicken with the pan sauce, lime wedges and the optional fresh herbs (spritzed with a little lime juice and lightly seasoned with salt and pepper).

TIP: Rendered chicken fat, sometimes called schmaltz when clarified, can be used to pan-fry vegetables and meat; to enrich a soup, stew, sauce or tomato-based braise; or to spread on toast.

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