With Super Bowl champ O’Connell in place, new-look Vikings forge ahead
Vikings Insider, The GM’s View
It’s been a super exciting week for Kevin O’Connell, beginning with helping to orchestrate a final drive TD to win the Super Bowl in his final act as Rams offensive coordinator. He followed the big win with a three day celebration that concluded with a Wednesday parade in L.A. and then jetted north to be introduced as the tenth head coach in Vikings history.
O’Connell was very impressive in his introductory press conference Thursday at Vikings headquarters. He’s obviously bright, articulate and enthusiastic about his new job and hit the buzzwords of collaboration, communication and the importance of being a great teacher in order to be a successful coach. He rightfully praised the Vikings fan base in creating a tough venue for opposing teams at U.S. Bank Stadium and the team’s outstanding facility as helping to create a “winning edge.”
I liked O’Connell stressing the importance of “consistency in approach and process.” That’s what I saw in the greatest Vikings head coach—Hall of Famer Bud Grant. I also like that the initial nine assistant coaches on the 36-year old O’Connell’s staff who were officially announced Thursday include the experienced Mike Pettine, a former NFL head coach in Cleveland (when O’Connell got his first NFL coaching job) and Pettine was Packers defensive coordinator from 2018-2020 so he should be able to add some good intel on Minnesota’s chief rivals in the NFC North.
It was interesting to hear O’Connell’s positive comments on Kirk Cousins, who he worked closely with as QB Coach in Washington in 2017. “Kirk has played at a very high level and we need to build our offense to maximize what he does best,” O’Connell said. “Kirk is an elite thrower, incredibly accurate—similar to Matthew Stafford in those ways—and I anticipate Kirk being part of what we do.”
Vikings fans have mixed feelings on Cousins but they will like hearing this quote from O’Connell on incorporating a lot of Rams Coach Sean McVay’s scheme into his offense: “The system we will run will have a lot of characteristics of the Rams offense including using tempo as a weapon and that illusion of complexity—which is doing a lot of things that are simple for us but maybe a little more difficult for the defense to defend.”
Vikings players also will like hearing O’Connell talk of creating “a culture built on players and coaches being connected” and communicating well which was a complaint by players such as Eric Kendricks at the end of the Mike Zimmer regime.
The fun times are over for now and the hard part starts for O’Connell as he finalizes his coaching staff, evaluates the Vikings roster, formulates his new team’s offensive and defensive schemes (and O’Connell said he will be the play caller), begins draft prep with scouting meetings followed by the NFL Combine in two weeks and then free agency hits on March 16 with big decisions to be made on the contract status of key players such as Cousins and Danielle Hunter, the two biggest hits to Minnesota’s salary cap for 2022. Then as springtime thankfully comes to Minnesota, the OTA/mini-camp period runs from mid- April through mid-June and the draft hits on April 28-30.
O’Connell referred to the hectic pace of the last month and what’s ahead in calling it “challenging but rewarding.”
It’s clearly a new era of leadership on the football side of the Vikings organization and the first impression made by the new coach was excellent. He won the opening press conference. Now can he be instrumental in working with new GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to build a consistent playoff team and ultimately coach the Vikings to the franchise’s first Super Bowl championship? Time will tell.
Super Bowl reactions:
It was great to see an exciting Super Bowl complete the best stretch of postseason games in NFL history with six of the final seven games decided by three points and the other by an OT touchdown in the Chiefs divisional round win over the Bills.
It was certainly fun to see Super Bowl LVI come down to the final drives for each team. First Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp led a 15 play, 79 yard drive (aided by a couple Bengals penalties) to take the lead on Stafford’s 1-yard pass to Kupp.
With Odell Beckham sidelined with a knee injury and the Rams’ running game basically non-existent, it was obvious that the NFL’s leading receiver would be targeted on the winning score. It was a play in which the Bengals inexplicably single covered Kupp when he had been the key playmaker throughout the drive (with four catches plus a fourth-and-1 run conversion on a jet sweep). As Justin Jefferson noted in praising the hiring of O’Connell, the Rams find ways to get the ball to their playmakers and especially Kupp who J.J says is “wide open all the time…so I’m excited for it.”
Then defensive star Aaron Donald took over and stuffed the Bengals’ chances for a late win or to send the game to OT with a field goal. Donald first made a great run stop to set up 4th-and-1 and then he pressured Joe Burrow into a desperation pass that fell incomplete.
With his eight receptions for 92 yards, 2 TDs and the big run for the final drive fourth down conversion, Kupp was named the game’s MVP but I think Donald should’ve been co-MVP for his great play in the second half and especially on the last two Bengals plays.
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And don’t believe any of the ridiculous speculation that Donald and Rams Coach Sean McVay may retire after their championship season. I see this clearly as a money grab by both men.
Donald is 30-years old and has many more peak seasons ahead. He’s making $22.5 million per year, is signed through 2024 but his 2022 cash will be $14.2 million (he already received a big signing bonus) and he wants to be the league’s highest paid defensive player, above current leader T.J. Watt ($28 million per year). McVay is only 36 years old, reportedly earns $8 million per year with two years left on his contract and he surely thinks he deserves to be paid Bill Belichick-type money (a reported $12.5 million per year for the highest paid NFL coach).
As for the runner-up Bengals, they need to get Burrow some help on the O-line in free agency and the draft to keep him healthy so he can continue his terrific play over the second half of the season and in the playoffs. Cincinnati must improve their line that gave up nine sacks in the divisional round win over Tennessee and seven sacks to the Rams or it is going to be exceedingly difficult for Burrow and the Bengals to return to future Super Bowls.
For the Rams, their all-in strategy of trading top draft picks for Stafford, corner Jalen Ramsey and star edge rusher Von Miller and investing big money in Donald and free agent acquisitions Beckham and linebacker Leonard Floyd paid off big-time.
But don’t expect the vast majority of NFL teams to follow their risky strategy with the historically preferred path being to build through the draft and augment with free agents and astute trades. That’s the approach I expect to be utilized by the new Vikings football leadership led by Adofo-Mensah, O’Connell and senior football advisor Ryan Grigson, the former Colts GM who I think is an excellent addition to the Vikings front office (especially with the insight he can provide to the Vikings’ first-time GM).
Jeff Diamond is a former Vikings GM, former Tennessee Titans President and was selected NFL Executive of the Year after the Vikings’ 15-1 season in 1998. He now works for the NFL agent group IFA based in Minneapolis and does other sports consulting and media work along with college/corporate speaking. Follow him and direct message him on Twitter– @jeffdiamondnfl