Kevin O’Connell Hopes to Keep Vikings ‘Streak’ Alive
The Minnesota Vikings weren’t supposed to win 13 games in 2022. Not by a longshot.
Sportsbooks spent most of the spring and summer of 2022 declaring the Vikings an 8.5-win team. When the regular season neared, oddsmakers nudged the win-loss over-under to 9.5 wins, and that was the revised forecast.
Kevin O’Connell Hopes to Keep Vikings ‘Streak’ Alive
Incidentally, for curious minds, Vegas is formulating the exact forecast for the Vikings this year, too, pegging Minnesota for 8.5 wins. Wash, rinse, repeat. We shall see if O’Connell proves them wrong in back-to-back seasons.
Along the way, O’Connell will hope to keep one nifty little streak alive — no Vikings coach has produced a losing record in his second season since 1962. So, yes — 61 years.
O’Connell already has the distinction of best record by a first-year Vikings coach in franchise history. If he follows the history of his peers, from Bud Grant to Mike Zimmer, he’ll avoid an underwater season in Year Two.
Here’s the skinny:
Vikings HC Win-Loss Record,
in 2nd Year with Team:
Norm Van Brocklin = 2-11-1
Bud Grant = 8-6
Jerry Burns = 8-7
Dennis Green 9-7
Mike Tice = 9-7
Brad Childress = 8-8
Leslie Frazier = 10-6
Mike Zimmer = 11-5
Kevin O’Connell = TBD
Regrettably, for Vikings fans unenthused by Super Bowl-less seasons, the average of the above-listed marks is a 9-8 season when scaled to 17 games. Folks hate that record, even if it puts the Vikings in the postseason, and fans inevitably called it ‘mid’ or just a wee bit better than mediocrity.
But no coach since Van Brocklin, when the Vikings were mere infants, has fired up a bad season in his second year. In fact, in most examples, Minnesota was just scary enough to be dangerous while not showcasing true Super Bowl contendership.
It’s up to O’Connell if these 2023 Vikings will be any different. Most fans and media members expect the club to take an obvious step back from the 13-4 record of 2022, mainly because the Vikings overachieved. Winning 13 games and then losing at home in the playoffs to a blah New York Giants team a week later doesn’t inspire warm fuzzies. And that’s in addition to the Vikings getting cumulatively outscored by opponents to the tune of three points in 2022.
Minnesota’s schedule also isn’t a cakewalk, on deck to play against Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts, and Justin Herbert, among others. The 2022 schedule was inarguably an easier path than the 2023 edition, at least on paper.
Still, if O’Connell can conform to the precedent set by the Grants, Greens, and Zimmers, the Vikings won’t showcase an outwardly poor season. Every Vikings coach in the last six decades has fielded a competent team in Year Two.
Alas, There Is an Offer for Dalvin Cook.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. He hosts a podcast with Bryant McKinnie, which airs every Wednesday with Raun Sawh and Sal Spice. His Vikings obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band).
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.
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