Cincinnati Bengals to practice with Minnesota Vikings before preseason game

CINCINNATI -- The Cincinnati Bengals and the Minnesota Vikings will hold joint practices for two days before the teams face each other on Aug. 12 in their preseason opener.

It will be a reunion of Minnesota head coach Mike Zimmer with his former team. Zimmer was the Cincinnati defensive coordinator for seven seasons (2008-13) before being hired by the Vikings in 2014.

The teams will practice at the Bengals' facility across the street from Paul Brown Stadium on Aug. 10-11. The practices will be open to the public. The Bengals hosted the New York Giants for preseason practices last year and traveled to Atlanta in 2013 to practice with the Falcons.

"Our past experiences with joint practices have been good," Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis said. "You put yourself on the field with another team and let the competitive juices flow a little bit. And it's great that we could work this out with Zim."

Both teams are coming off division championship seasons. They both also lost home games in the final seconds of the wild-card round -- the Bengals 18-16 to Pittsburgh and the Vikings 10-9 to Seattle.

"Having such a great relationship with Marvin and the Bengals' organization, it makes it a perfect fit for us to practice there," Zimmer said.