Congrats KOC: 2 playoff appearances in first 3 seasons

[purplefaithful]

The Vikings are playoff bound, and they can thank the archrival Packers for that. Green Bay’s 30-13 victory over the Seahawks in Seattle on Sunday night punched Minnesota’s ticket to the postseason.

The Vikings reached the playoffs for the second time in three seasons under head coach Kevin O’Connell.

With a win over the Bears at U.S. Bank Stadium, the Vikings would join the Lions and Eagles at 12-2, the best record in the NFC. Because they face Detroit in the regular-season finale, the Vikings control their own destiny. Win out, and they are the NFC North champions and could earn the coveted No. 1 seed and first-round bye.

The Vikings have the most difficult schedule of the NFC’s top three teams the rest of the way. After playing the 4-9 Bears, Minnesota travels to Seattle to play the 8-6 Seahawks and hosts 10-4 Green Bay before heading to Detroit.

Meanwhile, the Lions' remaining opponents other than the Vikings are Chicago and San Francisco (6-8). The Eagles, winners of 10 in a row, play the Commanders (9-5), Cowboys (6-8) and Giants (2-12).

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[StickierBuns]

In KOC I trust....

[MAD GAINZ]

I'm not that worried about the Vikings remaining schedule. If we are worthy of the #1 seed, we need to beat Chicago and Seattle will either have a banged up Geno or clueless Sam Howell at QB. Need to win these next two and take care of business against GB and Detroit.

[Vikergirl]

[StickierBuns]

Honestly, the guy was a mouse hair away from dragging that injury plagued team of last year into the playoffs. The bag is coming.

[MAD GAINZ]

Honestly, the guy was a mouse hair away from dragging that injury plagued team of last year into the playoffs. The bag is coming.

This year just validates that 2022 wasn't a fluke.  Yes, that team had some holes but O'Connell should get some credit for finding ways to work around those roster flaws and winning 13 games in his first year. 

I'm convinced as well that if Kirk hadn't blow his Achilles, we'd have been a playoff team in 2023.  Even then, we lost to the Bears on a last second score, lost to the Bengals in OT in a game we should have won, and lost a close one to Detroit with Nick Mullens, Jaren Hall, and Dobbs as our QBs.  9-8 would have got us in that year IIRC...  Green Bay made it in last year with a 9-8 record.

Vikings fans should appreciate the fact that we have a legit HC that is capable of having us in contention every season with his ability to develop QBs, game plan, and build great team chemistry.  Exciting times ahead for this franchise...

[MaroonBells]

[purplefaithful]

O’Connell’s coaching, particularly with quarterback Sam Darnold, is the reason the Vikings are winning. A lack of coaching is the reason the Bears are losing.

The Bears had the first pick in the draft and added talented offensive players to a roster already featuring quality defenders. Now they’re 4-10, their first-round pick looks perpetually indecisive, and they’ll be looking for another head coach in a few weeks.

The Bears had a chance to compete on Monday night, but they failed to score in the first half, and settled for a third-quarter field goal after a touchdown run was nullified because a lineman didn’t report as eligible before lining up at fullback.

The Vikings are where they are — tied for first place in the NFL’s best division — and the Bears are where they are largely because of coaching.

If the Bears had signed Sam Darnold, they’d probably be … 4-10.

If the Vikings had drafted Caleb Williams, he’d probably be the talk of the league.

When “culture” became a popular sports buzzword, it became so ubiquitous that it quickly lost relevance. If everything could be described as “culture,” then what did the word mean?

Like art and pass interference, you know it when you see it.

We’re seeing it this season from Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell and his staff.

O’Connell’s job is to excel at play-calling, strategy, game management, player development and cultivating a winning atmosphere.

Here’s a winning example of each from Monday night:

Play-calling: Facing third-and-16 late in the first half, O’Connell had his wideouts run deep and tight end T.J. Hockenson hesitate before releasing into his route. The result: an easy pass and a 16-yard gain that set up an eventual field goal that made it 13-0.

Strategy: On the first touchdown of the game, O’Connell had Jalen Nailor go in motion, giving him three receivers to the left. Tight end Josh Oliver ran a short route to the right. Jefferson broke off the line, was the only one of the three wideouts to head to the right, and wound up wide open at the back of the end zone for an easy touchdown. It was the second game in a row that Jefferson found himself virtually uncovered for a score — a remarkable development considering defenses usually build their game plans around stopping him.

Game management: OK, so KO isn’t perfect. He opted to go for a fourth-and-3 instead of kicking a 40-yard field goal in the second quarter. The aggressiveness is endearing, but taking an almost sure three points when you lead an inferior team is probably the way to go. Not that it mattered Monday.

Player development: O’Connell has done his best work with quarterback Darnold. He also has revived Jordan Addison’s young career. Addison did not reach 75 receiving yards in any of the Vikings’ first eight games and was looking like a questionable first-round draft pick. In his past four games, he is averaging seven catches for 103 yards and a touchdown.

Atmosphere: O’Connell made Kirk Cousins comfortable and got a 13-victory season out of him, and now he’s made Darnold comfortable and could win 14 or 15 with him. While the Eagles perform a drama a week, it’s hard to remember the last time a Viking offered a public complaint about anything.

The difference in the talent levels is not as different as these teams’ records would suggest, yet the Bears are an embarrassment and the Vikings are chasing the No. 1 seed.

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[badgervike]

Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell is the new betting favorite to win the NFL's coach of the year award this season. He surpassed the Lions' Dan Campbell over the past couple days and currently has +110 odds to win it at both DraftKings and FanDuel.

Campbell is second and remains very much in the mix. The Broncos' Sean Payton and the Commanders' Dan Quinn round out the top four contenders.

With the Lions losing to the Bills on Sunday and the Vikings beating the Bears on Monday night, the two teams are tied atop the NFC North at 12-2. Detroit currently holds the tiebreaker thanks to its 31-29 victory over Minnesota in Week 7, but the winner of the division — and perhaps the coach of the year award — could be determined by the result of their rematch at Ford Field in Week 18.

What O'Connell has done this year has been nothing short of incredible. The Vikings came into this season with extremely low external expectations; their preseason win total was set at just 6.5. They had a difficult summer, including the loss of rookie QB J.J. McCarthy for the season with a knee injury. And yet, all they've done is win. The Vikings cruised past 6.5 wins in early November and have won at least 12 of their first 14 games for the first time since 1998 and just the second time since 1975.

The most impressive aspect of O'Connell's coaching job this year has been the turnaround of Sam Darnold's career. The former top pick and draft bust has had a remarkable breakout year at age 27, on his fourth NFL team. Monday night wasn't Darnold's sharpest game of the season, but he still ranks fourth in passer rating, fifth in passing touchdowns, and sixth in passing yards with three weeks to play.

It's clear to anyone who follows the Vikings that O'Connell's coaching excellence extends beyond his work with quarterbacks. He's great at devising game plans and calling plays on offense, and he's a also heck of a leader. His relationships with players are genuine, which makes him a head coach that they want to play for and play well for. What you see in the post-win locker room speeches is how he is whenever he speaks to his team.

Virtually all of the buttons O'Connell has pushed this season have worked. And with a strong three-game close to the season, he can become the first Vikings coach to win coach of the year since Bud Grant in 1969.

[purplefaithful]

The bandwagon is pretty full and 7 game win streaks result in articles like this....The remaining 3 games and post-season still need to play out of course, but the accolades for the season-to-date are warranted.
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Monday was another validating night for Vikings’ ‘competitive rebuild’

General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah used that term to describe the Vikings’ approach after he was hired in 2022.

Even a skeptic has to admit that so far it has worked, particularly relative to the paths other teams have taken.Trying to inhabit two spaces on a sports timeline is not a trick for the meek. Given the salary cap permutations of the NFL, attempting to win in the present while also rebuilding for the future can appear to be an errand fraught with mediocrity and unsavory compromises at both ends.

Nevertheless, that is what the Vikings set out to do in 2022 at the start of the tenures for head coach Kevin O’Connell and GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. It was Adofo-Mensah who articulated the vision most clearly, packaging it in a two-word sound bite that has clung to him for three seasons.

“When people look at teams, they sometimes do it in a very binary way,” Adofo-Mensah said in 2022. “They ask, ‘Are you either all-in or tearing down and rebuilding?’ And I don’t really look at the world that way. The way we look at it is we’re trying to navigate both worlds. We’re trying to live in today and tomorrow, or the competitive rebuild, however you want to phrase it or market it, and so I think that’s kind of how we’ve approached this offseason.”

Critics dug in. I called it a “non-competitive non-rebuild,” thinking the approach would doom the Vikings to more .500-ish seasons that had defined the end of the Mike Zimmer/Rick Spielman era.

With a win over the Bears, the Vikings improved to 12-2 this season and 32-16 since the new regime arrived. They have done so while still managing to draft their quarterback of the future and clear copious amounts of cap space in 2025.

The Bears, of course, opted for a more traditional tear down and rebuild, hoping that by now they might start to be competitive. Instead, they are 4-10 this season and 14-34 since the start of 2022, when, like the Vikings, they started over with a new GM/head coach combo. They have already fired their head coach (Matt Eberflus) and two offensive coordinators since then. GM Ryan Poles looked like he wanted nothing more than to stop being shown by cameras late during the Vikings’ methodical 30-12 takedown on “Monday Night Football.”

On the adjacent and somehow less exciting MNF offering, the Falcons inched past the Raiders 15-9 while allowing Kirk Cousins only the most modest of game management duties and limiting him to just 17 pass attempts.

Atlanta, too, is trying its hand at a competitive rebuild after signing Cousins while also drafting Michael Penix Jr. The difference there is that Atlanta is stuck in the exact mediocrity I feared would doom the Vikings, sitting at 7-7. And unlike the Vikings, who have the sixth-most projected cap space in 2025, the Falcons still have Cousins’ swollen deal on the books and have the fourth-least amount of space.

What the Vikings attempted only works with good players and good coaches. Adofo-Mensah’s drafts have been famously average (or worse), which could haunt them in the future, but the Vikings have been among the best in the league with undrafted free agents and veteran signings. The skills of those players have been leveraged by O’Connell and defensive coordinator Brian Flores, the backbone of a top-5 NFL coaching staff.

“Right now, in the competitive rebuild, we want to get to a place where there’s no rebuild, it’s just competitive in a window, and I think we’re close to that,” Adofo-Mensah said in January. “It’s going to take a big offseason ... and I’m excited for the challenge.”

The Vikings’ regime (probably) will be judged ultimately on how J.J. McCarthy fares, given that his three years of bargain QB salary (and a reasonably priced fifth-year option) starting in 2025 is a cheat code that can help build a championship roster.

Then again, this team is showing this year that it can excel even without paying huge money for a veteran QB. Meanwhile, the Falcons have to be wondering when it’s time to pull the plug on Cousins while the Bears are one more bad coaching hire away from another doomed cycle.

Of the four franchises on display Monday, there’s no doubt which one is on the best path.

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Bromance....