Kevin O'Connell vows to clean up Vikings' self-inflicted wounds on offense

The little things hurt the Vikings in their loss to the Lions on Sunday.

Oct 20, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell looks on during the first quarter against the Detroit Lions at U.S. Bank Stadium. / Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

It was the little things that hurt the Vikings' offense in their 31-29 loss to the Lions on Sunday. They averaged 7.4 yards per play and were neck-and-neck with Detroit on the stat sheet, but head coach Kevin O'Connell wasn't happy with the penalties and other self-inflicted wounds that may have made the difference in such a tightly-contested game between two great teams.

"When you play a good football team like that, you've gotta find a way to limit some of the things that set you back, whether it's penalties or communication, whatever it is," O'Connell said. "Lotta areas we can improve on."

Those small mistakes, things like pre-snap penalties, have been an issue for the Vikings all season. It was something they were hoping to improve coming into this game, but that didn't happen. The Vikings' offense was responsible for seven of the team's eight penalties on the day. There were three holding calls (and another that offset a defensive penalty), two illegal formations, a false start, and an offensive offsides.

The last of those penalties came on the penultimate play of the game, when the Vikings spiked the ball with one second on the clock but were flagged for an illegal formation because they only had six players on the line of scrimmage. Had they not been penalized there, they would've attempted a 68-yard field goal for the win. Instead, they opted for a Hail Mary but Sam Darnold was sacked before he could launch a throw.

"We really emphasized no self-inflicteds," O'Connell said. "That's really where you're seeing a lot of it. I think we averaged over 7, close to 7 and a half (yards) a play, did a lot of good things, but it's just these little self-inflicteds, whether it's a formation or a hold, pre-snap infraction, I gotta get that stuff fixed. Because when you're trying to win at the level we're trying to win against anybody we play, we can't do anything to help good football teams out. We just need to worry about all 11 guys executing the play, both pre and post-snap, with great detail, in all three phases. I'm gonna just keep pushing this team every single day to try to do that."

The margin for error is so small when you play against great teams, which means the little things can be difference-makers. It's not just the penalties, it's also things like burning two timeouts early in the first quarter and then losing the third on an unsuccessful challenge.

"That's my job, to fix those self-inflicteds," O'Connell said. "It might not seem like a big deal at the time or when it is in the game, but ... you gotta be willing to clean up those things and have the execution level be to the standard that you need to play in these games."

The Vikings' offensive mistakes were especially impactful in the first half, between the penalties and squandered timeouts and Darnold's interception that led to the third of four Lions touchdowns. To be clear, the defense also deserves plenty of blame for allowing those four consecutive long TD drives, but the offense also could've done more. O'Connell said "we stopped shooting ourselves in the foot" when the Vikings came out of halftime and scored on the first drive of the third quarter.

"Really good teams, you're not just gonna steamroll through the game and have perfect plays on every play, but you better make sure it's them that's causing some of those things to happen, instead of some of the self-inflicted things," he said. "What I want to see is those little things that really good teams do to give yourself the best chance to win football games like this."

Cleaning up the execution on a snap-to-snap basis will undoubtedly be a major point of emphasis once again this week, as the Vikings look to shake off this loss on a short week with a game against the Rams on Thursday.

"Championship-caliber teams are gonna look inward at the first sign of adversity," O'Connell said. "We were able to do that in-game, come back and get the lead, but I challenge everybody to look inward and see if we can do just a little bit more. Can we be a little bit cleaner across the board, because I have a ton of confidence in our team, our players, and how we work, to continue to grow and get better. It's gonna be a long season."