Report: Michael Floyd to join Vikings for OTAs next week

The rest of his DUI sentence could have kept Michael Floyd from football activities until training camp, but he will be with the Vikings next week.

Last year was not an ideal contract year for Michael Floyd, with disappointing production, being cut by the Arizona Cardinals after a DUI arrest and then being inactive for the final games of the Patriots’ Super Bowl run.

A sentence for that DUI, which included house arrest, led to virtually no interest in Floyd on the open market, until a report earlier this month the Minnesota Vikings had interest. The Vikings signed Floyd to a one-year deal last week, and the former first-round pick will return to his home state.

Floyd’s three months of home confinement is set to last until June 17, which is a concern with the Vikings doing some offseason work next week. A transfer of the rest of his sentence to Minnesota would be ideal, which would amount to work release so Floyd can work with his new teammates. According to multiple reports, that is what will happen.

Floyd will come to the Twin Cities on Friday, and then be able to practice next week. The Vikings will start the first of three OTA sessions next Tuesday, before a mandatory minicamp June 13-15. Under his previous arrangement in Arizona, Floyd would have missed the mandatory minicamp too. His sentencing judge may have been aware of the NFL’s offseason calendar, in an effort to hinder Floyd’s employment prospects. It worked, at least for awhile.

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Floyd has clearly been an underachiever since being drafted 13th overall by the Cardinals in 2012. But he has the kind of size (6-foot-2, 220 pounds) the Vikings lack at wide receiver, and with three seasons averaging at least 16 yards per catch in his career he can also be a much-needed vertical threat.