The current OL Coach; Fresh Start
It’s April 3, 2003. Keith Carter, UCLA’s No. 1 tight end, is on his lime-green Kawasaki ZX9 Ninja, looking long, strong and East Coast tough in the old-school NFL genes he got from his grandfather, Pro Football Hall of Famer Gino Marchetti.
“I’m lucky I didn’t die that day,” Carter says now.
Carter was 20. He survived and is now 44. An artificial right hip reminds him of the accident that dashed dreams of an NFL playing career but sparked a coaching journey. It’s been a two-decade, sometimes-rocky path that’s brought him to the Vikings as Kevin O’Connell’s choice to succeed Chris Kuper as offensive line coach this season.
For Carter, it’s a shot at reinvention.
As a coach, Carter has been publicly criticized by former players in Tennessee, Atlanta and New York for his demanding coaching style. The Jets placed him in a year-long leadership development program that sets out to improve self-awareness and the awareness of others.
Two years later, Carter feels changed, albeit still demanding, and eager to reward O’Connell for “looking past my negative press” by hiring him as assistant offensive line coach in 2025 and then promoting him this offseason after considering several outside candidates.
“It’s the biggest move we’ve made that no one is talking about because of the quarterbacks,” O’Connell said. “But make no mistake. Keith’s position is a huge part of the plans we have for this season.”
Carter began coaching as a graduate assistant at UCLA, eventually reaching the NFL and helping Seattle win the Super Bowl at the end of the 2013 season. He joined the Titans in 2018 as offensive line coach, where his demanding style would eventually draw public criticism from former players.
“Keith has taken some bullets [from players] in his career,” said Tom Cable, Vikings offensive line coach who knew Carter from their time at UCLA. “That happens if you’re really good at what you do. If you can’t handle that, you’re in the wrong business. You’re never going to make everybody happy.”
Why Kevin O’Connell is betting on Keith Carter
O’Connell’s decision to promote Carter and hire longtime NFL offensive line coach/run game guru Frank Smith as assistant head coach are rooted in O’Connell’s frustration with how “a foundational play, the wide-zone run” was being taught by Kuper. O’Connell’s elusive quest to build an explosive running game has produced an NFL-low 23 runs of 20 or more yards the past four seasons.
There is, however, a greater emphasis this year on wide-zone runs. O’Connell trusts the concepts Smith brought from the Dolphins and Carter’s ability to teach them, something Carter learned while working under Kyle Shanahan in Atlanta.
O’Connell called a wide-zone run to open the preseason against the Giants on Aug. 15. Vikings running back Aaron Jones gained 18 yards around the left end.
“It wasn’t the result that impressed me,” O’Connell said. “It was, ‘Holy crap, did you see how our guys up front were really running off the ball!?’ That’s going to be our engine. You can have a ’57 Chevy, but if you don’t fix the engine, it’s nothing.”
That’s where Carter comes in.
“Keith is a technician,” O’Connell said. “He knows what the play looks like. He knows what the play sounds like. And it’s non-negotiable with Keith.
“He tried to infuse that approach last year, but things have to be coached consistently from the top down for it to work.”
Right tackle and team leader Brian O’Neill said things are a lot different under Carter.
“I would say that there is a really, really, really high level of detail as far as how he wants things done,” O’Neill said. “And there’s an added layer of intensity, tempo and standard in practice. We welcomed it.”
O’Neill said maybe he’d feel differently about Carter’s intensity if the Vikings’ offensive line hadn’t been underperforming.
“We need this,” O’Neill said.
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Hurry-up Vikings, we ain't getting any younger!
The criticism Keith Carter couldn’t ignore
Titans offensive tackle Taylor Lewan was recording his “Bussin’ with the Boys” podcast on Jan. 12, 2023, when it was announced that Carter had been fired after five seasons as Tennessee’s offensive line coach. Lewan’s reaction sparked a social media storm that surprised Carter.
“When Keith first got there and the way he was trying to act towards everybody,” Lewan said on the podcast. “Very disrespectful. Very authoritative but in a very dictatorship-type of way.”
Lewan and Ben Jones, another Titans offensive lineman, were critical of what they thought were grueling practices that wore players out and contributed to injuries.
A year later, when Titans head coach Mike Vrabel was fired, Lewan took to social media to support Vrabel. In doing so, he said how much he loved the Titans staff, “besides Keith Carter.”
Carter was with the Jets at the time. That didn’t stop Jets running back Breece Hall from retweeting the post with five laughing emojis. Or Jets offensive lineman Mekhi Becton from liking the post and responding, “Ain’t nothin’ BUT FACTS.”
Former Falcons fullback Patrick DiMarco, who was coached by Carter in Atlanta, agreed, commenting, “Keith Carter was nobody’s favorite coach and I can say that with a lot of confidence.”
“Was some of it true?” Carter says now. “Yes. Did I learn from it, grow from it? Absolutely. Taylor said, ‘dictatorship,’ and I can see now why he said that. When he said, ‘disrespectful,’ that I’m having problems with. I thought I was connecting with the players, but I was missing the boat from what they saw in me and what I thought I was giving them.”
The Jets’ offensive line struggled in 2023, finishing 31st in Pro Football Focus’ offensive line rankings in Carter’s first season. Then-Jets coach Robert Saleh was expected to fire Carter. He didn’t.
“Like all of us, there’s things that he’s going to have to improve on,” Saleh said at the time.
What Saleh didn’t announce was his decision to send Carter to a year-long executive leadership development program run by Korn Ferry.
Carter went willingly and thanks Saleh to this day.
Hurry-up Vikings, we ain't getting any younger!
How Keith Carter says he learned to change
Steeped in old-school football culture, Carter admits he had no clue he needed to change how he communicates.
“Football is the world to Keith,” says Bernardi, who recruited Carter to UCLA. “He won the Charles Pike Memorial Award his redshirt freshman year for being the scout team guy who practices the hardest. I could coach Keith hard and he never looked sideways at me. Times have changed.”
Carter said he has changed. He’s no less intense or demanding but says he takes more time to explain his methods. He wants to make sure the players understand the “why” before they get to the “how.” And he wants to get to know the players better as people off the field.
One example: Carter took left tackle Christian Darrisaw to dinner this offseason. It lasted three hours.
“I have grown so much since that Titans job in ways I can be proud of,” Carter said. “But I’m also not in this to be the best players coach. Our growth comes from being pushed outside of our comfort zones. I want the players to respect and love that about me, not because I’m good at joking around with them.”
When the Jets changed coaching staffs after the 2024 season, Carter accepted a demotion to join the Vikings.
O’Connell won’t say it was an audition for when Kuper’s contract expired, but he did study Carter’s coaching style to see if it would fit as the lead voice in the offensive line room. O’Connell also spoke at length with the unit’s top veterans — O’Neill and Darrisaw — before promoting Carter.
“I definitely followed what was said about him on social media,” Darrisaw said. “But I judge people by how I get to know them. And the Keith Carter that Taylor Lewan was talking about, the picture he painted, that’s not the picture of Keith Carter we have right now. He is nothing like what all was said about him. I think he cares about us but he’s going to pull the best out of each and every one of us.”
That evolution is what O’Connell says he has seen, too.
“Keith has taken an inward look at himself and how he communicates over the last couple years,” O’Connell said. “He’s reinventing himself as the version he wants. He leads our coaches Bible study. He’s connecting with people. And that’s really cool, but, at the same time, he hasn’t lost his identity as a really, really good O-line coach who will push these guys.”
Carter doesn’t ride motorcycles anymore. He’s got a wife, Kristin, two daughters, Kayla and Kamryn, and way too much to lose. He has come too far since April 3, 2003. The accident changed his life, but ultimately left him feeling, he said, “like the luckiest guy in the world.”
Hurry-up Vikings, we ain't getting any younger!
Hopefully Carter (along with BFlo) are both best case studies on how people learn from their mistakes and become better at their craft....
Hurry-up Vikings, we ain't getting any younger!
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