Matthew Coller: The philosophy that pushed Kevin O'Connell into Coach of the Year contention

The Vikings' head coach put extra attention into building a selfless team and that has guided them to the top of the NFC race.

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

EAGAN — During training camp, rookie quarterback JJ McCarthy passed along an idiom that he had received in college from Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh: In the NFL, the days are long but the years are short. Gosh it feels that way this season for the Minnesota Vikings, doesn’t it?

At the same time that it seems like each game day takes forever to arrive, it also seems like yesterday that McCarthy was debuting at rookie minicamp with expectations of working his way into the starting lineup in 2024. In the blink of an eye, the Vikings are sitting at 12-2 with a chance to win the conference behind Sam Darnold. Yet, the next three weeks are going to take forever to play out.

For head coach Kevin O’Connell, the last nine months might feel like a lifetime. He went on a journey to pick a quarterback in the draft and then spent the offseason developing him and acclimating a new starter into the system. His team started 5-0, only to hit the skids with back-to-back midseason losses in four days. And now his club has seven wins in a row, with potholes along the way like a three-interception game by Sam Darnold in Jacksonville and near meltdowns against the Bears and Cardinals. Not to mention the emotional return of Kirk Cousins to US Bank Stadium.

It’s tiring just reading all that but for the ever-energized O’Connell, building up a team that has outperformed its over-under expectations by five wins already started way back in the spring.

As a former player, he is well aware that “blocking out the noise” is not possible, so he didn’t shy away from the noise. KOC knew that the projections for his team were bad and addressed the expectations with the players, telling them that he believed they were far better than what line setters and analysts were saying.

Instead of saying “nobody believes in us,” he was saying, “I believe in us.”

“I had a lot of confidence in our coaching staff, I had a lot of confidence in our leadership,” O’Connell said. “If we just handled our business and continued to understand through the journey through the season, that if we are attacking it every day and just getting a little bit better, that builds confidence.”

Did he really know they would be a contending team way back then? Players believed him then and they have seen it come to fruition.

“He can see stuff before it happens,” running back Aaron Jones said.

Of course, the message is only as good as the people receiving it. In this case, the Vikings already had a sound leadership group in place with captains like Brian O’Neill, Harrison Phillips, Harrison Smith, CJ Ham and Justin Jefferson but they added veterans with reputations of extremely high character. Jones was legendary for his leadership in Green Bay and Jonathan Greenard and Blake Cashman were driving forces of a surprise playoff team in 2023.

Still, O’Connell understood that the message would only click if the players themselves clicked.

“We can talk about it all we want as coaches, but ultimately our players deserve the credit for building that mindset,” O’Connell said.

With so many new pieces and a new quarterback coming into the mix, the head coach wanted to find a way to get everyone to know each other better. He concocted a barbeque cooking contest at the end of OTAs in which every position group had to cook a meal and then O’Connell and defensive coordinator Brian Flores acted as judges.

When Sam Darnold was asked about being accepted by the team and the closeness of the group this week, he brought up backup QB Nick Mullens’s wings putting on a good showing in the BBQ contest.

“During the offseason we had so many great events that [O’Connell] really spearheaded for us to be able to get to know one another and like the barbecue outing and some of the different events that we did as a team during the offseason,” Darnold said. “Those are always really fun and [O’Connell] just has a you know just a really good outlook on…what we have to do off the field to have success.”

The tight ends would like you to know that they won on the back of Johnny Mundt’s ribeye.

As a team goes through the long days of the season, especially one with the pressure of a playoff race, the relationships that players build become more and more vital.

“It shows up on the field,” Pro Bowl tight end TJ Hockenson said. “When you know a guy and you were able to hang out with him and you were able to talk to him and joke with him and your friends, it's a lot easier to go up to somebody and have a conversation about what they want on a route.”

Hockenson called the team a “melting pot” and added that they don’t have cliques. It’s not always that way in the NFL.

“It’s a unique situation,” Hockenson said.

Greenard agreed, saying he had never been part of a locker room like this before.

“You know the buttons to push, the limits to test and get the best out of everybody and understanding where it’s coming from and why you’re doing it and who you’re doing it for,” Greenard said. “I think that’s why we have the best locker room in the league.”

Layered within the idea of bringing players together on a personal level is a core concept of O’Connell’s: Selflessness.

He facilitates an environment where players understand the value of thinking about the whole rather than the individual parts. There are countless examples of this concept playing out throughout the year, starting at the top.

When Vikings draft pick corner Khyree Jackson died in a car accident, O’Connell took the day off training camp and traveled to his Jackson’s home town to attend his funeral.

“I just felt it was important to have a presence and get a chance to personally spend some time with Khyree’s family,” O’Connell said when he returned.

The Vikings invited Jackson’s family to Minnesota to celebrate their son’s life. Later on during the season, one of the home games was dedicated to the rookies families and Jackson’s family was included. After the game, running back Aaron Jones told a story about how he met up with Jackson’s family and told them about an emotional moment he had before the game alone in the locker room thinking about Khyree.

“Every once and a while I’ll replace [the flowers at Jackson’s locker]…I’ve done it several times this year and somebody else has done it too… the first time I went to put some [flowers in his locker], there was already some in there,” Jones said. “We really care about each other and he is gone but he is not forgotten.”

The Vikings have worn Jackson’s initials all year to honor him.

Last week, the thoughtfulness of the head coach and players arose again during a difficult time. Legendary wide receiver Randy Moss announced a battle with cancer, so O’Connell and the organization got together to figure out a way to best honor Moss and show their support. Before the coin toss, fellow legends Cris Carter and Jake Reed held up a Moss jersey, letting him know they were thinking of him.

“We talked internally this week about what we could do to show our support, our love for Randy,” O’Connell said. “Everybody knows he’s a former teammate of mine, but most importantly you can feel the love for him in this building tonight. It's great to have C.C. and J. Reed here to carry his jersey out there. It was a heck of a moment.”

When Justin Jefferson scored a touchdown, he ran over to the camera and yelled, “we love you Randy!”

Offensive coordinator Wes Phillips had a simple explanation for why O’Connell has taken extra steps to bring the team together that go beyond X’s and O’s.

“He cares about people,” Phillips said.

Jones has seen the team take on the personality of its coach in that regard.

“It's a special group of guys having been around who are selfless,” Jones said. “They're not caring about stats or how many touchdowns, how many tackles they get. They're worried about making their play in the scheme. Okay, if it’s my job is to take on a double team, let me hold the double team at the line so the backer can make the tackle. So you don't have any guys that are really selfish, everybody's selfish.”

Whether it’s Jefferson taking defenders out of the mix so Jordan Addison and TJ Hockenson can make plays or the defensive tackles moving bodies so Ivan Pace Jr. and Blake Cashman can get tackles or Josh Oliver and CJ Ham slamming into linebackers to create space for Jones or Trent Sherfield blocking defensive ends and punt gunning, there is tangible evidence of players taking pride in roles that don’t exactly get noticed in highlight packages.

All these things have to come together in order for the schemes to work the way that they are supposed to work.

“We have a total team kind of mentality, and that's built by the players here….we've leaned in on it in won football game because of it,” O’Connell said of his team’s selfless approach. “I think guys just feel that it's an important part of our way of doing things and they take a lot of pride in it.”

As the Vikings go down the stretch of the final three games with hopes of posting one of the best seasons in franchise history, the togetherness will be tested, as will O’Connell’s ability to win in the playoffs. The third-year head coach is banking on all the layers that have been built from Day 1 will guide them.

“Our guys have been pretty mature team about taking that message over and over and over again by now,” O’Connell said. “It is just our way and it has been successful for us, so we are just going to keep chasing it.”

Chase they will. But no matter the results in the postseason, the head coach’s approach to team bonding has pushed them into position to compete for a Super Bowl — a place that nobody except him expected to be. For that, he is a deserving candidate for Coach of the Year.