Tight end Gavin Bartholomew – a 2021 Blue Mountain High School graduate – heads into the Minnesota Vikings’ preseason opener Saturday at 1 p.m. against the New York Giants still fighting for a roster spot.
Bartholomew’s training camp thus far has featured some on-field moments that have definitely turned some heads but also the first sign that a teammate has the edge in the competition for Minnesota’s third tight end position.
Bartholomew, who lost his entire 2025 rookie season to a lower back injury that kept him on the PUP list, opened camp making plays. That continued into the first full week of August, when SI.com’s Vikings site named him a “Winner” out of an Aug. 4 practice, crediting his ball-tracking and ability to create separation and calling him arguably the most exciting player in his position group.
Bring Me The Sports’ camp recap from that same practice reported he caught three more passes, part of a stretch in which he’s “caught everything thrown his way,” and raised the possibility he could be reclaiming the TE3 role that Ben Yurosek stepped into as a rookie last year.
His coaches noticed, too. Offensive coordinator Wes Phillips, in comments captured in a Vikings.com camp-takeaways piece published Aug. 10, called Bartholomew “a really good athlete” with “impressive hands” who “showed that he could come off the ball in the run game.”
Phillips added, “He’s got some twitch, some explosiveness to him that you see when he’s catching some passes, so generally if a guy’s big enough and willing enough, that usually translates to the run game as well. He’s a football guy. He’s all about it, so I expect him to only improve as camp goes.”
A day later, Vikings.com’s “Get to Know Tight End Gavin Bartholomew” profile carried the first public comments from Bartholomew himself about his lost rookie year. “Being separated from them wasn’t what I imagined my rookie year to be,” he said of his teammates. “But being out there with them this year has been amazing.”
Asked about the role he’s carved out in camp, he said, “A little bit of blocking, some routes, and I can make some plays when I get the ball in my hands.”
Veteran T.J. Hockenson, the Vikings’ starting tight end, offered his own praise in the same piece, calling Bartholomew “awesome” and “a sponge trying to absorb information,” and adding that he “had good OTAs and is playing well during camp.”
Where the TE3 Competition Stands
The positive camp buzz hasn’t yet translated into the inside track on the roster spot. When the Vikings released their first unofficial depth chart of the season on Wednesday, it listed the tight ends as Hockenson at starter, followed by Josh Oliver, then Yurosek, then Bartholomew, with undrafted rookies Bryson Nesbit and Marshall Lang behind him.
That marked the first time in Vikings camp that the TE3 competition has been ranked rather than described as open.
MinnesotaSportsFan’s own depth-chart breakdown, published the same day, showed the identical order and offered a reason for it: “Yurosek carved out a spot last season while Bartholomew sat out for the year with a leg injury,” the site noted, framing Yurosek as having earned his standing through on-field performance the past two seasons while Bartholomew is still working his way back.
No outlet has reported a change to that ordering since, and no new practice reports, snap-count breakdowns or coach quotes about Bartholomew have surfaced in the two days since the depth chart came out.
This all makes Saturday’s preseason opener at MetLife Stadium the first real proving ground of camp. It potentially will be the first time Bartholomew, Yurosek, Nesbit, and Lang will be evaluated in game action rather than padded practices, with a Vikings roster spot and potentially a chance to unseat Yurosek’s TE3 standing on the line.
Bartholomew was selected by the Vikings in the sixth round of the 2025 NFL Draft out of the University of Pittsburgh.
How to Watch Vikings Preseason Games in Schuylkill County
The most reliable option to Schuylkill County fans for watching Vikings preseason games is NFL+. It carries out-of-market preseason games nationally, streaming on phone, tablet, or a smart TV/streaming device.
The basic tier runs $6.99/month (or $39.99/year on the current sale price); NFL+ Premium, which adds condensed replays and multiview, is $14.99/month ($79.99/year on sale).
Photo: Minnesota Vikings
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