Kevin O'Connell: Outside noise didn't matter in preseason, doesn't matter now

Good stuff from the Vikings head coach, including a tale about driving on snowy roads and his wife returning Christmas gifts.

Dec 8, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell looks on during the second quarter against the Atlanta Falcons at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Krohn-Imagn Images / Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

Not many believed in the Minnesota Vikings before the season. Oddsmakers put the Vikings' win total at 6.5 and the expectation outside the doors entering TCO Performance Center in Eagan were for a top-five draft pick in 2025. Instead, the Vikings are 12-2, tied for the best record in the NFC and in pursuit of home-field advantage in the playoffs.

Head coach Kevin O'Connell didn't care what outsiders said in the preseason and he doesn't care now that naysayers have begun to look at his football team as a legitimate Super Bowl contender. It's all just noise.

"I'm not naive to the fact that our players hear those things, whether it's on TV, radio, on their phones," O'Connell said Thursday during a lunchtime interview with Chad Hartman on WCCO Radio. "But I will say this. Talking about winning the next three and tiebreakers and all those things, those mean absolutely nothing if we don't win the next opportunity right out in front of us. I use that term, opportunity, loosely, because the Seattle Seahawks are a really good football team."

Unfazed by the chatter, O'Connell is doing everything in his power to avoid deviating from the focused plan that has the Vikings near the top of the NFL.

"We'll only reach our truest, highest potential as a group if we lock in and have laser focus with whatever is right out in front of us," O'Connell said. "This team has really, from Day 1, when really nobody thought we were really worth very much as a team .... and if we listened to those things then and believed them, we wouldn't be where we are now. And even more so, if we listen to the things that are now being said about us and that changes anything about our preparation and our mindset, then I'm not doing a very good job."

The noise this week has most "experts" picking the Vikings to win in Seattle, where the Vikings have lost five in a row and Seattle's famous "12s" (the fans) could be motivated to get loud after wide receiver DK Metcalf called them out for being too quiet and selling tickets to fans from visiting teams.

The Vikings are three-point favorites despite being the road.

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Snowy roads and Christmas gifts

O'Connell focus Thursday morning was staying on the roads en route to work. About six inches of snow hit the Twin Cities metro and it was the first significant winter storm of the cold season for the area.

"I would classify it as a slow drive," the coach said of his ride into the office. "But when I was on the roads, the full impact of the full amount of snow had not quite hit yet. But there wasn't a lot of folks on the road so I had a lot of space to play it safe. I'm not sure if I was actually ever in one of the lanes or not, I might've just drove right down the middle of the road, but I made it."

He's just like everyone else. When you can't see the lanes, it's hard to know your in one. And like other men, his wife usually returns the Christmas gifts he gives her.

"I will say this much. Luckily, my wife, I've learned way too many times to not try to get creative because she's just going to return whatever I get her anyway," O'Connell said with a laugh.

"I think the most painful thing is normally I don't know the item has been returned until well into the spring," he continued. "I would get her something from the gadget stores, like new tech or whatever it was, and that's just not her thing and it would immediately go back."