'We'll be ready in that moment': Kevin O'Connell responds to Bill Belichick's opinion

"We're playing good football to start games."

Sep 8, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell reacts during the second half against the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

There hasn't been much to knock during the Vikings' 4-0 start. The one potential criticism that has seemed to stick came from former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, when he said he wanted to see how the Vikings responded to playing from behind.

Minnesota has trailed for just 3 minutes, 26 seconds of the 240 minutes they've played this season. Ahead of their showdown with the Packers, Belichick commented that the Vikings are "eventually gonna have to prove that they can play from behind."

In his weekly appearance on FM-100.3 KFAN on Tuesday, O'Connell responded to the critique saying he "understood" Belichick's point but he pushed back a little, noting the makeup of his Vikings.

"We still have quite a bit of the makeup of [the 2022 and 2023 teams] on our team this year. Every team is different. The 2024 Minnesota Vikings, we're a different team than we were in 2022 or 2023, that's just how this league works," O'Connell said.

In 2022, the Vikings engineered an NFL record eight fourth quarter comebacks while going 11-0 in one-score games during the regular season. Meanwhile in 2023, the Vikings battled injuries to key players such as Justin Jefferson and Kirk Cousins and they finished with a 7-10 record.

Another reason O'Connell isn't concerned with the criticism is because of how well his team is playing to start games. Minnesota has scored 38 first-quarter points. They scored just 40 points in the first quarter during the entirety of the 2023 season.

"I would say this much, I think every game, when it starts out 0-0, you may not be playing from behind but you're one play away from playing from behind. You're one play away from not taking the opening kickoff. When you do get the football like we did, if you don't go down and score that first drive, the momentum is now quickly on the other team's side," continued O'Connell. "The reason we haven't played from behind very much is we're playing good football to start games."

The Viking jumped out to a 28-0 first-half lead on Sunday before allowing the Packers to rattle off 22 unanswered points. Minnesota eventually rallied and saw out a narrow 31-29 win. While the Vikings haven't trailed much this season, O'Connell looks at the second half against the Packers as something similar to having to play from behind.

"I do believe when the momentum changed [against the Packers], I do believe that was an example of the feeling even though the scoreboard didn't necessarily dictate that we were losing the game," said O'Connell. "I do believe that feeling of what we had to find within ourselves as an offense and then with [Byron Murphy] with a punch-out here and an interception there, we had to find a response to adversity. That's all what losing in a moment in an NFL game, whether it's the momentum or the score, it's finding a response in those moments and figuring it out together. Do you have what it takes to get this done in the moment? And that's always going to be a collective effort. It's going to come at some point this year, where we've got to go chase down a win in the fourth quarter. We've got experience doing that. Our staff absolutely does. We'll be ready in that moment."