EAGAN, Minn. — When you study Kevin O’Connell’s career arc, so much about his head-coaching success makes sense.
As a backup quarterback in New York, he helped then-Jets starter Mark Sanchez stay calm. As an assistant coach in Cleveland, he garnered the respect of then-Browns veteran Josh McCown. O’Connell shepherded Dwayne Haskins’ college-to-pro transition in Washington. He blended the schematic and stylistic preferences of Matthew Stafford and Sean McVay with the Los Angeles Rams.
These situations called for real-time applications of awareness, adaptability, intentionality and empathy. It’s no wonder, then, that these are the hallmarks of an overachieving — yet still ascending — Minnesota Vikings team.
Liberally crediting the people involved with this season’s 11-2 start is the only way to go about things. Sam Darnold deserves his flowers for his play. Justin Jefferson’s gravitational pull is unmistakable on and off the field. Brian Flores whisked together a concoction of selfless players and a wacky system to create one of the league’s best defenses.
The Vikings wouldn’t be here if not for general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and the front office’s decision to let Kirk Cousins walk for the draft a young QB and sign a bridge guy option. Even that move, though — like all of the others — ties back to O’Connell, to the belief that he would properly evaluate a young quarterback and the hope that the head coach’s infrastructure would maximize the skills of whoever was at the helm.
That’s the macro case for O’Connell’s Coach of the Year candidacy and for the looming top-of-the-market contract extension. The micro case lies in all of the minor moments throughout this season. The Friday morning coffee sessions with veterans like Harrison Smith. The late-night brainstorming sessions in the basement with fellow coaches. The sideline scrambling to concoct ways to attack defenses gung ho about stopping Jefferson.
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Leave it to Vikings right tackle Brian O’Neill to explain O’Connell’s role during the week.
“It’s always, like, ‘Hey, we’re going to do this run this way because, later in the game, that’s what they’re going to see, and the way our formations are, they’re going to think it’s this, but it’s really that,’” O’Neill said a few months ago. “It’s keying players into why we’re installing things the way we are, rather than some coaches who call plays and install plays, and the players don’t know why.”
This is the tack O’Connell takes because he knows what it’s like to live in the alternative. Even before he became an NFL coach, when he was working in the private sector training quarterbacks, he consciously vowed to be what nobody was for him. Not just a boss, but a guide, someone capable of making the game slow down for players. That often requires an incredible amount of energy, and it’s not simple in a league that doubles as a cold, hard business.
Cousins’ departure might be the best example. When O’Connell accepted the Vikings job in February 2022, he believed he and his staff could collectively extract Cousins’ best. It was going to take more than shared brainpower on schematic preferences, but also a team and a town being exposed to Cousins’ truest self. Cousins wearing chains and being more open to the media were not premeditated acts, but development is kind of like dominoes: knock one down, and who knows how far the chain reaction will go?
That it went as far as it did, with this team and town rallying around Cousins before and after his torn Achilles, made it difficult for O’Connell to move on this offseason. Drafting J.J. McCarthy and signing Darnold lifted his spirits, but he had to temporarily put off his focus on the quarterbacks.
On July 6, O’Connell received a phone call informing him the team’s recently drafted cornerback Khyree Jackson had been killed in a late-night car crash. Days later, wide receiver Jordan Addison was arrested on suspicion of DUI. A month later, O’Connell was informing media members that McCarthy would miss the entire 2024 season with a torn meniscus.
He would never admit it publicly, but those days felt like a constant stream of body blows: grieving, supporting Jackson’s family, leading an entire organization through all of it. There is no more telling image than O’Connell standing at Jackson’s funeral and sharing a story about the late player’s spirit.
Kevin O’Connell speaking today at Khyree Jackson’s funeral.
This is absolutely heartbreaking.
We miss you Khyree 💜🕊️
— Vikings Central (@VikesCentral) July 26, 2024
“I’ve told you guys before, but my No. 1 role as far as how I see it for this organization, is to be a constant rock of steadiness,” he told reporters at the time. “Anybody can do that when things are good or easy or you’re not experiencing adversity. I believe leadership is showing those things that you say you’re authentically about (when difficult situations arise).”
Expectations plummeted after McCarthy’s injury, but O’Connell poured time and knowledge into Darnold, formatting concepts and game plans around the types of throws Darnold likes to make. For example, Darnold loves to uncork deep in-cuts. So O’Connell and the Vikings staff formulated as many ways as possible to motion into and replicate those concepts in ways that would look different to an opposing defense.
In a perfect world, that would be enough to generate positive results. But it’s not. Opponents shelve their tendencies against Jefferson. It’s almost the equivalent of a teacher providing a study guide, then handing out a test with questions that have nothing to do with the study guide. O’Connell is the student, tasked to find on-the-fly answers and disseminate strategies in real time to players with different levels of aptitude.
Some players care about their statistics. Being a successful coach involves managing egos and expectations and communication, but even that was buried in O’Connell’s background. Just ask longtime NFL quarterback Colt McCoy.
“Kevin sees the field very well,” McCoy said last year. “He has a tremendous idea of what the other defense is going to do going into a game. And then, as he gets in the game, he has different parts of his plan that will attack and expose whatever the defense’s flavor of the day is.”
This is the coaching you rarely see. But there is also the front-facing postgame speech video that circulates the internet each weekend.
Who are we?
And what are we about?
Well today, we showed it. pic.twitter.com/LY6Xt0DKo3
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) December 8, 2024
There is the postgame conversation on the field with Anthony Richardson that is captured by the microphones, but there is also the pre-draft meeting with Caleb Williams that spurred the No. 1 pick to tell confidants how much he thought O’Connell could help him reach his potential.
At this point, the size of O’Connell’s extension and his odds to win Coach of the Year are just data points supporting the reality summed up by Greg Olsen this weekend on the Fox broadcast: “If you’re starting a franchise and you need a great coach, play caller, quarterback whisperer — he might be the guy.”
(Photo: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)