An interesting take...

[purplefaithful]

Conforming to the past 48 years of Vikings history, O’Connell has produced two outstanding regular seasons, two disappointing regular seasons and no postseason success while shuffling quarterbacks like a casino dealer on Red Bull.

He is 42-25 in the regular season, for a winning percentage of .627, the highest in Vikings history. Bud Grant is second at .621, followed by Dennis Green at .610, Mike Zimmer at .562 and Jerry Burns at .547.

Somewhere on the internet, someone lacking perspective and patience is calling for O’Connell to be fired. That is, of course, nonsense. 

O’Connell is a high-quality coach who runs a good organization and has achieved that high winning percentage without a Hall of Fame-caliber quarterback.

A reminder: The great Bill Belichick won about 75% of the games he coached with Tom Brady as his quarterback, and about 45% of the games he coached without Brady. 

Most coaches who are considered “great” were elevated by great quarterbacks. 

That’s why, all these years later, I still think of Joe Gibbs as the best coach ever because he won Super Bowls with three non-Hall of Famers: Joe Theismann, Doug Williams and Mark Rypien.

O’Connell is likely to be here for a while, and if J.J. McCarthy turns into a quality franchise quarterback, O’Connell will eventually want to invest in a cabin, mukluks and a hotdish maker, and start ice fishing and taking forever to say goodbye.

Strib

[StickierBuns]

This has been said before, several times on the board: its the QB, stupid. Nothing makes the football engine run better or more successfully in the NFL. If you can add a semblance of a running game and a decent defense, you'll be in the mix for a Superbowl trophy almost yearly. KOC desperately needs a good QB, year in and year out and you'll see the franchise flourish.

[purplefaithful]

This has been said before, several times on the board: its the QB, stupid. Nothing makes the football engine run better or more successfully in the NFL. If you can add a semblance of a running game and a decent defense, you'll be in the mix for a Superbowl trophy almost yearly. KOC desperately needs a good QB, year in and year out and you'll see the franchise flourish.

^^^

Truth...QB followed by OL.

Not only will the franchise flourish, but he will put even more distance in winning % vs all other Viking head coaches. 

Not to say KOC is perfect, he aint. But he is learning along the way, sometimes not at the pace we'd all like, but there is progress.

[FLVike]

What really hurts me is finishing 8th, just 1/2 game from the playoffs.

[MaroonBells]

Another thing a few of us said early on was that the Vikings would be a Super Bowl contender with just average QB play. I think that should be obvious to everyone now. We just didn't know how far from average we'd get. 

I remember arguing with a Culpepper hater back before he signed his big contract. He thought we shouldn't extend him. I listed all the QBs the Lions had gone through up until that point. Hipple, Peete, Mitchell, Batch, Harrington, etc, etc. You wanna get on that train? No thanks. And now I'm looking at a list of all the QBs the Vikings have gone through since then. Deja fucking vu. We've had 8 different starters just in the last 3 seasons.

[Vikergirl]

Some important considerations on the OL, will Darrisaw and O'Neill still be up to par? Also Kelly is probably going to retire, that is an area of need. Also more depth couldn't hurt. I really think they need to move on from Kuper. The qb is definitely the engine but we need all parts surrounding the engine in tune. I hope JJM can improve. It will be interesting to see what qbs are added.

[NorseFeathers]

''A good coach needs a patient wife, a loyal dog and a great quarterback, but not necessarily in that order."

[AGRforever]

Probably shoulda extended Darnold. We’d be a SB contender with Uncle Sammy.