Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - BREAKING: KEVIN O'CONNELL SIGNS CONTRACT EXTENSION!!!!

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Matthew Coller breaks down the Vikings signing O'Connell to an extension and the report that Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is not far behind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to an emergency podcast. Matthew Collar out. So I don't have the terms reported yet. We'll, I'm sure, get those to roll in at some point. I am imagining this will be multi, multi years for Kevin O'Connell as he has now signed his second contract, putting him in command of the ship for years to come. And also Adam Schefter reported that the Vikings are working through an extension with Kweisi Adafo Mensah. So we can more or less include that in the conversation as well, that the Vikings have locked up their leadership. And this is a very much as expected type of situation. There was never, in my opinion, a chance at all at any moment

that the Minnesota Vikings would do anything other than sign Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Adafomensa to extensions and continue to have these guys at the helm going forward. When we look at the first three years of Kweisi Rafa Mensah and Kevin O'Connell, we have to keep in mind how far the Minnesota Vikings had to go to get out of the purgatory land of bad contracts, older team and rebuild and get back to contention. And the fact that they were able to do it from day one when they took over where I thought this is one of the harder jobs in the NFL to take especially for two guys who had no experience whatsoever in the head coach or general manager positions

and yet Kweisi Adafo-Mensa and Kevin O'Connell went from a 13-win season in their first year where O'Connell immediately made an impression as somebody who could enhance the quality of his quarterback play, who could galvanize a locker room, bring a team together, and outperform expectations. The fact that he did that right off the bat was impressive and enough to think, okay, well, they've got themselves someone who knows how to coach in the league. But then once you set the bar very high by winning 13, then there's always an expectation that you're going to follow it up.

And last year they win seven games. And last year, I mean, 2023, they win, they went only seven games. Kirk gets hurt. And then they're sent into this land of competitive rebuild where they tore down a lot of the roster. They moved on from a lot of the veteran players and then missed the playoffs. And when the Wilfs decided at that time that they wanted to see how it played out this year, I always thought that it was fair about what the Wilfs did, because when you come off of a seven win season, even if it wasn't necessarily O'Connell's fault, because he's playing with Josh Dobbs and he's playing with Nick Mullins, but you want to see how they handle the new direction and where

they set themselves up for going forward with drafting a quarterback, a huge decision and managing the roster in free agency and spending a lot of the Wilfs money. And then you don't have a veteran quarterback anymore. How do you work with Sam darnold how do you develop jj mccarthy how do you lead a transition of a franchise so the wilfs wanted to see that and what they saw was nearly as good of a job as you can do of course we all know how it ended and that's the next step and we'll talk about that as we analyze Kevin O'Connell and the breaking news that he has an extension and Kweisi Adafomense's extension is on the way. We'll talk about the expectations for the next iteration of Kevin O'Connell here. But the first iteration was

overachieving in two out of the three years. And the only year that they didn't was when their quarterback got hurt halfway through the season. And even then, even in the small sample, they started off really rough in 2023. And we thought, well, this might end up being a tank type of season. And I guess they're just going to move on from everybody. And then they get to four and four and they got big wins and they were back in that playoff race. And I have no doubt that they would have made the playoffs in 2023 had Kirk Cousins remain healthy

just because of the way the team is coached and for O'Connell to work with quarterbacks, the way that he has gives you confidence confidence in J.J. McCarthy going forward and his development, and also the way that he's worked with Brian Flores and building that defense and giving Flores the power, empowering the locker room, getting the franchise to operate in such a conducive way and working with the front office and the coaching staff to go out into free agency and get the perfect ingredients to enhance their defense, to be in the top five this year. And even to, I know the drafting is at the center of the conversation. We'll talk about that a bit, but drafting Jordan Addison is a game changer for the Vikings offense as well.

And they seemingly work together closely on that decision to draft a major impact player to their offense. I think that the way the front office and the coaching staff have worked together, the way that Kevin O'Connell has been a front door to this franchise as someone who has been, I think, at the very top of the league in terms of his leadership, in terms of his team building, and also identifying players who are going to be a really good fit for what they have inside the building. This is a maybe underrated type of talent, but going out and getting players of the character of Aaron Jones, the character of Jonathan Grenard, Blake Cashman, Andrew Van Ginkle,

all big difference makers. And it all starts with the top in head coach, Kevin O'Connell. So signing him to his contract extension, and also the fact that this is totally undramatic, by the way, uh, it's signing him to his contract extension with no drama. It's not stretched out. We're not going to be asking about it at the combine or anything else like that. And grilling him about when are you going to sign that contract? And it's not going to be a distraction or anything else. I think to solidify O'Connell and it seems Odaf Omenta is on the way

as the leadership of this franchise allows them now the freedom to continue to build this thing in the vision that they want to build it. And I have always thought myself that if you have people who are solidified in their jobs and they're not constantly playing with fear that they're having contracts held over their head, or that if they have one season that goes sideways, they're going to get fired. That if that's the case, they can treat things in a much more broad and long-term view and make better decisions. So as of right now, I know a lot of you are asking, what are the details? I just jumped on here to go live. I don't have the years. I don't have the money. And we might not get that. Sometimes that doesn't come out what the years and the money are with coaches. I think we can very safely say that it

is a long-term enough deal for Kevin O'Connell that they can think long-term. They can think broad picture with how they want to handle this roster going forward. And that starts with the quarterback decision, but it's really important to have O'Connell locked up and Kwesi Adafo-Mensah locked up into their positions to make this decision together. So their job status is not any part of the discussion. It's, hey, you guys are going to be here. You have long-term contracts. So make the right decision at quarterback and elsewhere going forward. And as far as my best guess would probably be four to five years, but it's, it's, you have the freedom now with this type of extension. I don't think that Kevin O'Connell signs it if it's anything less than three, but I'm sure that that'll come out eventually.

And if you guys see it in the comments, let me know. I tend to think that when anything is five years down the road in the NFL, okay, I mean, none of us can predict what's going to happen five years down the road in the NFL. But when you have a coach who consistently pushes his team to outperform their expectations and gets the most out of what you have in the roster, in the NFL, It's a cheat code. And when you look around the league, look at who's in the playoffs, Dan Quinn, who has been there before and was a really good coach. John Harbaugh gets eliminated, but he's a really good coach. Sean McDermott has been an excellent coach for Buffalo and completely turned around their culture there around a quarterback. Yes, but also they've been a great defense and they've been run really well from their franchise with

consistent leadership. Washington is new, but nobody else. I mean, in Philadelphia, their leadership, Howie Roseman, Nick Sirianni, every coach is going to have criticisms or weaknesses or whatever it might be. And Kevin O'Connell certainly has some things to prove here in this next contract because he has no playoff wins, but you can work through those. If you have someone that meets the baseline or above and checks the boxes of, does he raise the level of play of your team versus expectation? Look, guys, I am just about at the age where I'm starting to notice that hairline fading

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change? Because I think that they have done as good of a job as you could have asked. And yeah, would you like a couple more draft picks to hit? Of course you would. Would you like in the playoff game that they didn't fall apart against the Rams and would have run the ball a little better? Yes. These are things that are reasonable criticisms that will be evaluated in the next version of them, which is now the competitive rebuild is over. And now it is just competitive. The first part of Kweisi Adafo-Mensa and Kevin O'Connell was you guys have to tear it all down and build it back up to where it's going to be consistent, quality, competitive football

year in and year out. And a lot of that is based around what you get at quarterback and how you can make the most of JJ McCarthy into the future. Of course, that's, what's going to decide this going forward. But when you meet that baseline of these two have clearly worked together well on the roster to be able to build it up to where it is now. And they're going to have to work really well together going forward because there's a lot of things that do have to get a little bit better to win in the playoffs. There's a lot of decisions that have to get made by Kweisi Adafomensa and Kevin O'Connell. And there will be in this second contract pressure.

There needs to be winning in the playoffs. There's no way around that. It's a great story that they won 14 games, but as we went along, when we expected them to win nine, well, the expectations shift when you get to the top of the league and then you go and play Los Angeles and come up so much short, or when you play a home playoff game against the giants and you don't get it done, like those are things that will rest over. And the same with the 2022 draft that will rest over these two until they prove that they shouldn't right until they win in the playoffs and until they hit on draft picks and find a future foundation of this team? Because right now

they've found a really good foundation of the team going forward. Sometimes I think with a few free agents and so forth, I've almost seen it out there. Like how are they going to succeed when they failed on a draft in 2022? And you go, well, hold on now, let's look at the foundation of what they have to work with. And this is really important too. When you sign a head coach to an extension, let's try to look into the future and say, well, what is Kevin O'Connell working with? And what is he looking at that he's going to have to try to maximize? And personally, I think the situation is very good for him, which may be the reason he didn't demand

a trade folks i mean i know you're waiting for the snark and all i have to say is this about that and then i'll get into expectations and where this is going there were tons of pretend rumors that justin jefferson would be traded right it didn't happen. And there were people out there who use Justin Jefferson's contract situation to draw a lot of attention to themselves because that's the world we live in on the internet. If you're not trolling for engagement, then what are you doing?

And so if Jefferson's got an extension up that hasn't been signed, well, then you're going to see people who benefit a lot from using that to draw attention to their own websites or their own accounts on social media or whatever. But that doesn't mean that it's the truth. It just means that somebody is doing that. And I think that that is one of the hardest things for football fans is that every situation that is being talked about a lot is going to have people who throw

things out there, just throwing stuff at the wall to try to get attention. And then they'll do it again after they're completely wrong. And no one will remember. And we'll say, well, is there a problem with the Vikings and KOC? There wasn't. There never was going to be. There was no evidence of that. Just like there was no evidence they were going to trade Jefferson. So my only suggestion would be if someone fools you once, don't let them fool you again. If somebody's putting stuff out there that never comes to fruition, maybe just unfollow them. Don't pay

attention when you see certain people reporting certain things because I'm there every single day, folks, me going out there to TCO performance center and at the owners meetings, the combine, every road game, all those things. And I saw no reason whatsoever that Kevin O'Connell would not be signing a long-term extension with the Minnesota Vikings. And yet somebody who's never there is never around, put some total nonsense speculation on the internet. And then there's an assumption that, that that person is right. I mean, there's just, it's, it's, it's as easy as the unfollow button. That's all I got to say about the bogus rumors and reports and everything else

that there's just follow your local beat reporter for the facts and information as opposed to, uh, speculation trolling. That's all, that's all I want to say about that. But as far as back to O'Connell, I think it's worth talking about what the expectations are for his next part of his regime. Because when you look at the first part, if you had just asked me, hey, what would be a success? How many wins? What would it look like for Kevin O'Connell in his first three years? Like what would be a huge win? And I would have said, well, if they can find a way to get to, I don't know, maybe 28 wins over the first three seasons, that would be really good. Uh, even, even that, like even the first three seasons that that would be what, uh, nine wins a year, somewhere in that range. Okay. Perfect. Uh, that's great. And if they got to a point where they were looking to draft their next quarterback or had drafted their next quarterback and had moved on from Kirk cousins, then that would be a huge success. If they had salary cap space,

that would be a big success. I did not expect the Vikings to be able to tear it all down and then win the Superbowl in three years. I would have been shocked to find out that they had 27 out of two of those seasons and then 34 wins in the three years. That would have been something I would not have guessed considering where they were as a franchise in total purgatory coming out of 2021. And then the fact that Kweisi Adafo Mensah, who I think his real, his real hack, his real cheat code as a general manager is putting value on players and understanding exactly when the right time to pay somebody or not pay somebody is. And they hit on a ton of those free agents this year. And that's probably going to be hard to repeat to just have all of them have career years all the time.

But to look at an Adam Thielen and say, we love you, Adam Thielen, you're a great player and he can still play Adam Thielen. He's still good in Carolina, but is it worth what the dollars are? And here is where they really hit a home run in the front office was Daniil Hunter's amazing. Look at him play for the Texans. He's's amazing. Look at him play for the Texans. He's still amazing, but at that dollar figure and at the fit defensively, it was better to go get Jonathan Grenard who was younger and on the rise. And that ends up being a home run decision for them. So where they have not hit on draft picks and they've had a limited number of those draft picks

and eventually that's going to have to happen. Now's good. Like for this year's draft for them to get started and look, the other drafts are not settled yet. 2022 is, but not 23, not 24. So if Dallas Turner grows immensely and McCarthy is good, that washes away a lot of problems at guard or safety or whatever else where they can replace those positions. And what they do this year is absolutely going to be important, whether it's defensive tackle or corner, like they need young players on rookie contracts, but they're not dying for them because they got the salary cap, right? And that's even when we talk about, Hey, if they franchised Darnold and played him one more year and then everyone gets enraged, but it's like, you know why that's

not the craziest thing because the salary cap situation is so good. Also, we can't lose sight of the fact that they not only signed Justin Jefferson to an extension, but a reasonable extension. And they did it at mini camp. They didn't do it into training camp and ownership is a huge part of this. And I think when we analyze the Vikings and we look at other teams that are downtrodden and pathetic, usually you can trace it to the owners. And the Vikings have top-notch owners who did not hesitate to get Kevin O'Connell's deal done and done immediately and quickly to lock this in, to get rid of any of that nonsense that was being thrown out there.

It's not a distraction. It's not a story. And if I had to guess, and it's only a speculation for me, but I think that once Ben Johnson signed his deal to become the new coach of the bears, they had a baseline for KOC to be able to say, okay, well, that's what coaches are going for in the market. Here's what you get. And I don't know the dollar figure or the years. We haven't seen that yet. So, uh, but when it comes to Ben Johnson signing his deal, that was a baseline for the Vikings to probably get this done. But in the next, in the next couple of years for Kevin O'Connell, they will define his era here because he's gotten off to a great start and he's in the coach of the year running deservedly. There's not three other coaches in the league that you would want to build your locker room and your culture and talk to your team and communicate. And you know, he, he does so many

little things in terms of his communication. I wrote about with O'Connell, uh, sat down with him and wrote a story about the post-game speeches, but it'll really stick with me what Brian O'Neill said about KOC's post-game speeches. What he said was, you guys get to see a little snippet of that on the outside when we put it out there on social media, but that's Kevin O'Connell and his belief in us the whole time. And that's the most important part. So empowering leaders, building a culture, having a locker room that always seems to buy in through thick and thin.

They've had some down times with him. That is a hard thing to do in the NFL. We've seen so many people fail at it. How about Matt Patricia? How about Matt Eberflus? I'm not saying this is on guys named Matt, but Matt Nagy, there there's maybe, maybe, uh, maybe they should have gone by Matthew and then it would have gone better for them. But the point is we've seen so many people fail at this, that O'Connell has deeply proven something. And the same thing goes for the

quarterback position because it's even crazy to say this, but he probably got the best version of Josh Dobbs who's ever played. He probably got the best version of Nick Mullins that's ever been out there. And he got the best version of Kirk Cousins and the best leader version of Kirk Cousins for sure. And the most wins from Kirk Cousins for sure. And Cousins went from a guy that at the end of a game looked like he was panicked out there and would melt down to a guy who was the most clutch quarterback in the league. It was like, what? Well, how did this happen? Well, late game play calling for one. And also when the coach empowers you Monday through Friday, I think you get out there and feel a lot better than when the coach criticizes you Monday

through Friday. And when the coach panics on the sideline, which I think Mike Zimmer did a lot. And with Sam Darnold this year, again, it ended poorly. And part of that was coaching. There's no question about it, but to have top 10 performance from somebody who had never come within top 20 performance before, that is such an incredible accomplishment. And I don't think the last thing you saw against the Rams should really weigh into this a whole lot when it comes to evaluating O'Connell. But I mean, there are areas where they need to grow in the playoffs. They need to understand that it's a different game when it gets to the post season. And it's something that I've been talking about a lot.

And honestly, you guys won't be shocked to hear this. I just finished recording a podcast with Jeremiah Searles where we talked about this, where we talked about Kevin O'Connell has to figure out some things. The running game is a major part of it. There's no way around it. And as far as the offensive line goes, you can't just always say, well, if the guards just held up because every year you're just not going to have Steve Hutchinson and Randall McDaniel just doesn't work like that anymore. There's going to be weaknesses on the offensive line that you have to adjust to. And the biggest thing that will define the next part of Kevin O'Connell is developing JJ McCarthy. And whether it's this year or next year, we'll see,

we'll see what happens with that decision. Uh, I'm more leaning toward expecting McCarthy to be the quarterback than not, but we don't know for sure, but he's the long-term quarterback and how he develops McCarthy and prepares him to play in the postseason and surrounds him with a complete offense, not just, hey, if we hit the big shots, we're good. And if we don't, we're not. And some of that might be that McCarthy might see the field a little better or might be a little more consistent with his technique or whatever it might be than Sam Darnold was. But they're still going to have the same issues. You have

to be able to run the ball. You have to be able to control the clock. You, you, you just have to manage those things properly, or you're going to end up with what happened against the Rams. You have to manage the fact that your line is going to lose that, that you, that offensive linemen will allow easy pressure. Sometimes that teams will throw blitzes at you that you don't see coming. And I think if you're looking for confidence in O'Connell when it comes to this, the biggest thing I would point to is Sean McVay. That in Sean McVay's early years in Los Angeles, he was the wunderkind who turned them around and they got the

most out of golf and they had this great outside zone offense and everything else. And then in a few different playoff instances, they got got. And I think that he learned from those and he grew from those to, to be a much more well-rounded type of head coach. And I think O'Connell has to follow the same path if they're going to win in the playoffs, because now you win 14 games and I don't think it has to happen next year. I don't think next year, boy, if there's no Superbowl, what a stupid extension. No, I don't think that. But I do think that within the next three years, we can lay out a pretty clear path.

They're going to have their superstar players like Justin Jefferson, Christian Derrissaw, Jonathan Grenard. To me, these are, and Blake Cashman, these are the foundational players of this football team over the coming seasons. How do you fill in the gaps there? And how do you grow as a team around McCarthy, free agency, draft, schematic, all of this thing, all of these things have to be better because you have to win in the playoffs. The regular season has been nothing short of incredible for the first

three years. But if you don't win in the playoffs, then we're all going to kind of shrug and say, well, I guess he's just a regular season coach. And that's not fair. Nothing's fair in football. It's not fair to judge one guy by a draft class, but that's what we do. It's not fair to judge Lamar Jackson in the playoffs, but that's what we do. And the same thing comes down to, uh, with O'Connell in the playoffs, it's their one game and you can get beat and that's life. But if you don't win in the post season as a head coach, you're not going to be considered in that upper echelon where no doubt Kevin O'Connell is getting paid now for sure when it comes to this. So I'm curious about your reactions. You know, I think that throughout this season, there were a lot of attempts at criticizing

O'Connell, the play calling, should he get rid of play calls? I just never really had much time for that. I don't think getting rid of a play caller who gets you to a top 10 offense and 14 wins is any kind of good idea. I think you can call for adjustments and changes and growth, but I just thought that was kind of people. I'm not really sure, just looking for any reason to criticize when it came to that. And as far as the line goes and the running and all that sort of stuff, that's really to be determined. And is it going to be the difference between winning and losing in a, in a playoff game? I don't know. Um, but these are kind of more critiques as opposed to

criticisms. It's more of like, these are the areas that have to get better and improve in the coming years, or there might be a ceiling on what they can do. Uh, if they're not able to control the game better in terms of time of possession and things like that going into the future. So there's like a micro of this, of which coming out of the playoff game and the game against Detroit, I've got a lot of micro. If it's fourth and two, you need to be able to just have a run play that gets you a first down or a quick pass that is going for a first down. Like you have to have those things. Those are micro things in terms of the bigger picture. Uh, and, uh and Wally asked this, has the organization ever been in a better spot for the future than right now? It's hard to, I mean, maybe when Fran Tarkenton came back, I mean, yeah, that's a good point.

Because maybe the day that they traded for Herschel Walker, they were like, we're going to the Superbowl. But in terms of things like organizational stability and how everybody works together and pulls on the same rope in the same direction, and also having a young quarterback to develop and build around who already showed you what he can be. And JJ McCarthy during training camp and during that preseason game, you got just an eye blink, uh, of, uh, or a snapshot of what, uh, JJ McCarthy can be if they're able to develop him to the point where he is their franchise quarterback over the next couple of years. And, and we see it in Philadelphia. We've seen it in San Francisco.

We've seen the model. The model has always been there. It's the model. I think they wanted to get to, but just couldn't find the quarterback. I think if they had had opportunity, they would have gone to it faster, right? If they could have moved on from cousins and gone to the rookie quarterback contract. They would have done that quicker in this regime. There was just no quarterbacks in the first year. And then it was CJ Stroud and Anthony Richardson that they were interested in,

but they couldn't get up to the top of the draft and they didn't like Will Levis. So then they had to wait and they waited for somebody that has a lot of potential in JJ McCarthy. But also there's something to be pointed out here as, as much as they're going to have cap space and opportunity and a chance to improve the line and kind of see what this offense can really be for O'Connell. And as much as I think McCarthy has a better mind for the game than Sam Darnold, I think that McCarthy is a little bit quicker in terms of his processing, maybe a little bit better at throwing short and over the middle of the field, which is maybe why they didn't do it. And this is judging off training camp practices, but I thought McCarthy was very good at finding

those little slants and crossing routes where Darnold's strength was more of pushing it down the field. So maybe we'll see an adjustment there from O'Connell in terms of their schematics. These are questions that are going to have to be solved. But the NFC North is a factor here when we talk about expectations for O'Connell. He can't just be okay. Like think about D'Amico Ryan's this year in Houston, they made the playoffs by just having a team. I mean, the AFC South was such a laughing stock. If you even just lace up your shoes correctly,

you're in the playoffs. Congratulations to the Houston Texans. That is not going to be the case with Kevin O'Connell and the NFC North. It's going to be a lot of things have to go right. And there is not room for error in the NFC North because if Ben Johnson works out in Chicago and if the Lions are able to overcome the loss of Ben Johnson, which I expect that they will be still very good, the Green Bay Packers have one of the best coaches in the league in Matt LaFleur. I have no doubt that they're going to be a playoff contender every year. I mean, this is tough, and they're going to have to be the best version that they could possibly be,

which means this offseason, it really begins this. This off season. I think it begins a new set of expectations. And it's weird to say after they won 14 games, but it's a new set of expectations that you're not the team that's being talked about as the, as the, Oh, that's nice that you overcame Vegas over unders, which are not that predictive by the way. So like, it's nice that you overcame Vegas over unders, which are not that predictive by the way. So like, it's great that you overcame the Vegas over under, and you're the good story in the league. And you did it with a quarterback that everyone thought stunk. Like that's, that's great. And throughout the year, O'Connell was saying that he didn't like that narrative. He didn't like that people talked about them that way. And then when they had the opportunity to prove everybody wrong,

they didn't do it. It's just the fact of the matter. They did not prove that narrative wrong. But in the future, after you sign the extension, there's no more of that. The whole idea of, hey, they're ahead now of their timeline and they were the team no one believed in, but then they won 14 and they all love each other and everything. It was great. It was a lot of fun to follow this year. But that's out the window from now on. If you're not in the playoffs next year, it's a huge disappointment

because you've reached a different level of this where there's no longer, hey, you overcame expectations like high five. That's great. Good season. Well, that's not what it is anymore. Now it's beat those other really good teams and be consistently in the playoffs

and win playoff games. That's what coaches with big contract extensions do who run franchises. And that's Kevin O'Connell and Casey Adolfo Mensah. And just, I also think, uh, with the fact that they are, uh, working together, uh, closely, and it seems from the report that they are going to stay together as the leader of this team. Like, how do you guys continue this? How do you continue to stay on the same page when things get difficult at times? You're not just going to win 14 games all the time. There's going to be decisions that have to be made. Starting

with the quarterback position is everybody on the same page, because if you don't have the GM and the coach in lockstep, where have I seen that? Oh yeah. Zimmer and Spielman, it became a bleep show and then just the whole thing fell apart. So that relationship is really, really important. Uh, Jason says, what do you think of the young player development under KO and maybe more so Flores? Am I wrong to be nervous about Flores. Am I wrong to be nervous about Flores seeming to prefer vets all the time? Um, does he prefer vets or prefer that players are ready to put out, to put them out there? Because, uh, Ivan Pace jr. Played a ton of college football and was really ready to come into the NFL physically. And then he did and he started him. But Dallas Turner had not played a lot of college football and was one of the youngest players in the NFL,

so he didn't play him as much. And they developed him throughout the year and they were playing him 25 snaps a game at the end of the season. But I think it's really a player-to-player type of basis. And here's another point about Flores and veteran players is if you're going to ask your defense to do a lot of confusing stuff, well, that means that the guys have to get

it right. And rookie players, it's going to be hard for rookies to just come in and learn this complex defense. I have never had a problem with, and I know everybody loves the draft. They just adore the draft and they adore young players. They want the next wave and everything else. Young teams don't win in the NFL that much. It's a lot of times it's veteran teams. That means I'm not saying don't hit on draft picks for goodness sake, but I'm saying if you develop players for two to three years before they're truly ready,

and they've got a bunch of guys that are intriguing. Dwight McClothern is intriguing. Makai Blackman is going to come back and be a starter on this team. You have in the trenches, a Jalen Redmond, you have a Levi Drake Rodriguez and these players who are kind of coming through the pipeline. And normally you'd go, well, they're not high draft picks, so they're not going to work out, but neither was Josh Metellus and neither was pace. And, uh, they've done a good job doing that. So I think that it, it was wise to get a lot of veteran players and what they're really good at too, which is another

hack for them is on the defensive side, finding veteran players that don't cost a lot, who can bring them a lot. Jonathan Bullard, Jerry Tillery, like these guys were, I think combined maybe three and a half million bucks. And they were one of the NFL's best run defenses all year. And that doesn't mean you can't improve, but you have to do that. But they seem to be good at picking out a Shaq Griffin who was helpful for them this year. Just a Jihad Ward guys who played these smaller roles that did a good job. So I'm not, no, I'm not concerned about that. I think if anything, Dallas Turner having that year, as opposed to going out there and not being ready is likely good for him. Uh, and on the offensive side, that's where I think

that with O'Connell, uh, you know, they took their time with J that's where I think that with O'Connell, uh, you know, they took their time with Jalen Naylor too, but with O'Connell, it really comes down to, can they maximize opportunity in the offensive line? Can they go into free agency and find linemen that are going to fit what they want to do? So does that mean that they get some, some beasts run blockers where they need to run the ball. So does that mean that they get some, some beasts run blockers where they need to run the ball better? Does it mean that they try to get three new guys to completely revamp the offensive line or do they get one really good guy? Do they get Tevin Jenkins or Trey Smith and hope that that guy plays a big enough role? I mean, there's a lot of decisions to be made here right away

in the new era of Kevin O'Connell after getting this extension and now soon to come Kweisi Adafomensa too. But I think overall, the reason it's a huge day for the Vikings is when you go back to that hire in 2022, maybe I can look this up on the fly. Uh, let's see. 2022 NFL coaching hires. Let's, uh, let's do a little screen share option here. So you guys can look at this with me. Okay. Let's take, let's all take a look at this together this is from 2022 and here's the commercial who is in the best position uh lovey smith was number 10 maddie berflus number nine doug peterson number eight brian dable hey, a guy still with his job, Brian Dable, right? The other ones have been fired. Kevin O'Connell was number six on this list of NFL.com.

The situations that these guys were taking over. Mike McDaniel has done a good job, but not a great job in Miami. Nate Hackett was number four on this list. He was immediately fired. Dennis Allen in new Orleans fired. Josh McDaniel in Vegas was number four on this list. He was immediately fired. Dennis Allen in New Orleans fired. Josh McDaniel in Vegas was number two on this list fired. And Todd Bowles in Tampa Bay. Well, of course, uh, you know, he was taking over Tom Brady. So yeah, that was a pretty good situation for him. But the point is that when Kevin O'Connell took over, he, it was not looked at as being the best job to take over. And most of those guys are

fired. And what today represents is that the organization crushed this hiring with Casey Adafo Mensah and Kevin O'Connell. And I think you have no chance whatsoever to win in football. If you don't have one of the top 10 coaches. You just have no shot. And the fact that they do means that every year they go into a season, I think we could say this safely after these last three years, every single training camp, when we do our projections and we do our picks of how many wins are they going to have?

We pick the schedule. Every year you go in with Kevin O'Connell, you're going to say this team will be fighting for a playoff spot. That's what we say about Pittsburgh. That's what we say about Casey, Buffalo, Baltimore, and O'Connell's not quite on the level of some of those teams that have made and won Superbowls. Definitely not. But even look at the Rams, like the Rams going into this year, who thought the Rams were going to be good? Probably nobody. I didn't think they were going to be great. I thought they were going to be kind of a middling team again, and they ended up getting hot, winning a playoff game, coming really close to winning another playoff game. So every year you go into it, you're going to have a chance to compete. And then that's, that's a lot right there.

And the rest is going to depend on how good your quarterback is. The rest is going to depend on injuries to the fumbles, bounce into your hands, everything else like that. And does he take steps forward? I don't want to make it seem all random. Does he take step forward? So I know that, uh, throughout the year, uh, there's always going to be like things that frustrate all of us that as a reporter, I'm going to be talking about

throughout the year. And as fans, you're watching the game and have observations and criticisms. And, you know, a lot of you are really good at watching the game and coming up with different, you know, things that to think about for this team. But in the biggest picture of big pictures, then I think this team is in really good hands. So there are expectations now that are raised for Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Adafo-Mensa, and everyone knows that they need more players to build on. They need to nail free agency. And even though they don't have many draft picks, looks like they're going to have four unless they trade Darnold for more of them.

There needs to be at least an impact player in the draft. There needs to be development of Dallas Turner. There probably needs to be a decision with the backfield of how they're going to handle that. There's a lot to happen here. And there's a lot when it comes to JJ McCarthy, that has to happen. There's a whole year of development. There's how do you prepare someone who hasn't thrown many passes to be ready if it's next year to take on the things that come along with the NFL. And that's where Kevin O'Connell is expected to give this Vikings team a better chance than most is working with the, the, uh,

quarterback. Um, is it interesting that they extended KOC before Casey? No, no, not with the report that they're working on it. Unless they had them in the same room at the same time. No, I don't think, I don't think that there's anything when it comes to that, because they're going to sign both of them. I'm doing this entire podcast based on the report from Schefter that it's on the way. It might happen while I'm doing the podcast. So I think that's, that's on the way. might happen while I'm doing the podcast. So, uh, I think that's, that's on the way. Uh, Steven says, I like O'Connell, but I need a playoff win before I consider him top 10. You know, I, I don't need to try to rank all the coaches or whatever. Um,

but I think that, I think that there's coaching tears. There's coaches who are all timers who will go into the hall of fame. Andy Reed, Mike Tomlin, they have rings. They're untouchable. I think Sean McVay's here. Untouchable the goats, the best of this generation. And there's a next level down of really good coaches that are trying to chase that. That's Matt LaFleur. And I think that's Kevin O'Connell. So I always just get a little uncomfortable with ranking stuff. Cause you go like, well, I don't know, is, is Matt LaFleur 2% better than Kevin O'Connell? Like, I don't know. I mean, there's so many complicated factors of that. And trust me in green Bay, they have criticisms of Matt LaFleur. And I think he's a great coach. And in Pittsburgh, they have criticisms of Mike Tomlin. And I think he's a great coach, but I think that there is a, a section, a tier of coaches that he belongs in that are guys. You just don't fire

guys that are going to guide you through whether it's difficult times and get through them or that are going to take teams that are good enough and get them there. And that's what Kevin O'Connell is and how he takes the next step and where JJ McCarthy lands is really going to dictate whether they win those playoff games or not. They got outcoached and outplayed badly by the Los Angeles Rams. And they got beat by the giants, a giants team that was pretty mediocre. And that is going to live on his record until it doesn't there. There is no disagreement for me when it comes to, yeah, you sign the extension, win in the playoffs, do it. That's what you need to do to get in that list. I agree to get in that list of the absolute best of the best. You got to win in the playoffs. I also know that sometimes, sometimes

the playoffs can be such a, such a cruel beast. You know, I mean, who you match up against, how it ends up turning out, you win 14 games and you have to go on the road. Just, you know, things like that. Sometimes there's one fumble or there's one play that turns a playoff game and we go, he can't win the playoffs. So judging full narratives by that. So I'm kind of on both sides. It's like, it's, it's not fair, but also it's the reality that if you don't win in the next contract, that it's going to be a big disappointment if they don't get into the playoffs. So I agree with Aaron here, though. How KOC changed the culture in the locker room in three short years

is the most impressive thing about KOC. It didn't even take that long. It took one training camp in 2022 before we knew it was totally different with Kevin O'Connell. So let me finish by saying this for this emergency podcast, that somebody said earlier that the franchise is in a really good position. And I just pull your head out of the sort of purple blinders that you have on and take a look around the league and go, let's compare how many franchises are in a position where you think that they can actually

compete and actually win and are stable and have cap space and have a future quarterback. Like check those boxes, a coach, you know, who can overachieve a future quarterback cap space and a good culture and ownership those four things how many teams can we really say that about in the nfl i mean maybe maybe a dozen maybe and that's where the vikings live and so what they do with that will determine how we remember kevin o'connell here but the opportunity is there as now he took over a position that was ranked the sixth best out of 10 for new coaches. Well, it's one of the best positions in the NFL now. And now you have to make the most of that. And it starts with developing JJ McCarthy. So

it's a really good day for the Vikings organization, a really bad day for those people who just make stuff up on the internet, but that's, you know, no, no, no sadness here for me about that. And, uh, I just, from a personal perspective have gotten a really up-close view of Kevin O'Connell on a daily basis now for three years. And I, I just think that every player in the NFL would want to play for somebody like him. And that that's just from seeing it up close, uh, and the way, and, and, and I wanted to add this too, but the way that Kevin O'Connell worked their way through one of the most difficult moments I've ever seen a team have to deal with, with Kyrie Jackson, with so much empathy and care

for his team and for Kyrie's family and all of that. It was really special, really special. The exact person in the NFL who you would want handling that type of situation. And that that's meaningful. Like that is meaningful that when you have something that hits an organization so hard as that, but you know, the person in charge is going to guide everyone through it and be there for his players and be there for that family that dealt with that tragedy and the way that, that he managed that it w it was, it was really important to this year and to the locker room and to those players and to that family and all those things. And I just thought that was really,

really, really something that needs to be highlighted, uh, the way that he handled that. So he is a coach that any player would want to play for, and that's a great start. And they've got more work to do after this year. So those are my thoughts. I kind of shot them out as fast as I could out of my face, but a big day for the organization. I appreciate also all of you jumping in here. And no, I don't know the terms. In fact, most of the time head coaching terms are not put out there. Maybe they'll get leaked. Maybe. Uh, I'm guessing though that we're talking a lot of years. I mean, multi-year contract, a lot of money. I don't, I actually don't need to know how much money, uh, that he made. Cause it doesn't matter. There's no cap when it comes to

the coach. So the dollars don't really matter. And even the years don't really matter right now because it's going to be long enough to give them time to go through JJ McCarthy's rookie contract. And that's the important thing because what I really want the organization to do and to focus on is that connection. Because when you look at the Washington commanders, like how happy are they to have Dan Quinn and Jaden Daniels going together like this? Look at the Sean McDermott and Josh Allen like this. Nick Sirianni and Jalen Hurts. It's been rocky because it's Philadelphia, but there's two guys that aren't there building

together with that offense. You don't want chaos and stuff like that and changes all the time. So having McCarthy's rookie contract tied to KOC is important, I think, to let that play out and to give them the opportunity to fully develop him to the point where he can be one of those guys that you're signing to a second contract. That's really the goal. Uh, what was, uh, one more question? Oh, uh, the report is that the jets are going to sign, uh, or hire Aaron Glenn. Will Flores be back? We're down to about one more team that could hire Brian Flores and that's Jacksonville. I actually think that

Jacksonville could really use Brian Flores. I think that they could use somebody who's going to bring some edge to their defense and some toughness to that team. But are they actually going to do it? I don't know right now. I would lean toward Brian Flores is back. And that's a big part of this. If they lose Brian Flores, then right away, Kevin O'Connell has something difficult on his hands. And I think, uh, Durante Jones would have a great chance to get that job. He's been the defensive backs coach really, really highly thought of. Um, when I was asking Harrison Smith about working with Flores for a story I did, uh, at the end of the season, he said, Hey, don't forget Durante Jones. Who's been huge for this.

So, uh, we'll see. But, uh, when it comes to the Vikings overall, they continue to be without drama. And that has been one of the biggest things of the O'Connell era that I've almost thought that they are so much without drama. They don't have a diva receiver. They don't have calamity happening internally. Nobody can write some sort of 7,000 word feature on, oh, the dysfunction inside the Vikings building. So people invent it on the outside, but it's just not there.

They've tried. It's just not there. And having a drama-less situation is in the NFL. Holy cow. I mean, that's why they make things like hard knocks, right? Is because there's so much drama in the NFL. That's a cheat code in itself to not have that. So the Vikings are in a great situation going forward. If Flores comes back, they have their total coaching staff. Apparently, you guys are saying that Jacksonville is not bringing back Flores for a second interview. So my expectation is that he's still on the staff and they're in a great spot going forward.

So there you go. Kevin O'Connell is your coach. And there's one thing, at least, that you guys don't have to worry about and stress about in the off season. And I don't know if Adolfo Mensah's deal is getting done today, but the report from Adam Schefter is that it's not far behind. Like they're working on it and they should get that done. Get Diggs back for some drama.

He knows how to cause it. That's for sure. But I also know that somebody else poked the bear when it came to Stefan digs his drama. And that man was Mike Zimmer and the way that they would not listen to a digs on the offense, but that's, that's old history now, but it does in comparison, think about how much drama there was in comparison from 2020, 2019, 2020, 2021, the Vikings make the playoffs in 2019 with a top 10 offense and defense. And they had to issue a statement that they were not firing the coach. Like that's how much drama was happening on that team. And then it's conflict between the quarterback and the coach

and everything. I mean, it was just a circus under Mike Zimmer and it hasn't been that. So, uh, here we are now going forward with, uh, Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Adafo Mensah. So it's, uh, am I sure it's not, that's funny. Am I sure it's not an extension to flip him for draft picks franchise? Yeah. The tag and trade or the sign and trade. Well, if I was a really good NFL insider, which I'm not, I'm Vikings purple insider. But if I was a really good NFL insider guy, if I wanted to be the on TV, what I would say is, does this mean that Kevin O'Connell could get traded because he's now got a tradable multi-year deal that another team would really want?

Oh, I could be so good at it. I just like to tell the truth. That's my problem. Anyway. So, uh, there you go. Kevin O'Connell, your head coach going forward. And now the next steps can take place and that's what we could talk about. So thanks everybody for joining this emergency podcast. I really appreciate it.

We'll see, uh, what goes on in the rest of the playoffs. We'll have lots to talk about. I just recorded two other podcasts today. One of them, uh, is going to run later tonight with Jeremiah Searles and I actually talking about the next step for O'Connell and what we learned from the playoffs. And then another one, Will Raggett's talking about which free agents will be back. And just let me promote one more thing if I can, which would be just the newsletter, purpleinsider.football. Every day, I'm coming out with a new version of the future of the Vikings, where I go through every player, their performance, their salary cap, all those, every player on the roster, and it comes out every day. So go check that out. Purple insider.football. And we will catch you all

later. Thanks so much for joining. You know who your coach is. That's good. See you guys later. Football.