In August, the Minnesota Vikings looked like a team on the verge of falling apart. Khyree Jackson’s tragic death stunned the team and the football world at large, and Jordan Addison’s DUI arrest put a cloud over TCO Performance Center as they arrived in Eagan for training camp.
Mekhi Blackmon’s torn ACL and J.J. McCarthy’s season-ending meniscus injury were brutal brush strokes in an even bleaker picture. The negative thoughts grew louder, and the goal of killing the noise seemed to be a lost cause.
But while fans were worrying, Kevin O’Connell was working. He grabbed his players’ attention and made them unite toward the goal of becoming a championship contender. After Monday’s win over the Chicago Bears, the Vikings are now 12-2. After a loud offseason, O’Connell has made the Vikings a quiet team.
Think back to before the Vikings hired O’Connell. The final years of the Mike Zimmer era were noisier than a Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium.
When Kirk Cousins wasn’t fretting about Cover 2 defenses or throwing into double coverage, he was feuding with Zimmer. Zimmer clashed with his offensive coordinators. Bashaud Breeland went after fans and reporters before taking on the entire team during a practice. The COVID vaccine was about as prominent as any gameplan. The Vikings missed the playoffs in back-to-back years before they fired Zimmer after the 2021 season.
Jim Harbaugh emerged as a favorite to succeed Zimmer and even arrived at TCO Performance Center with a pen in hand in the spring of 2022. However, the Vikings chose O’Connell mainly because of what he learned from his time under Sean McVay with the Los Angeles Rams.
While the Vikings were battling themselves in 2021, the Rams were fighting for a Lombardi Trophy. Los Angeles started the season by winning seven of their first eight games but stumbled with a three-game losing streak.
Many dismissed the Rams as Super Bowl contenders when they dropped to a 7-4 record, but Los Angeles weathered the storm with three consecutive wins. A loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the regular-season finale was disappointing. However, the Rams blocked it out, throttling the Arizona Cardinals 34-11 in the Wild Card round.
The next three weeks were a white-knuckle adventure. The Rams won 30-27 over Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the divisional round, 20-17 over the 49ers in the NFC Championship game, and 23-20 over the Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl.
None of the playoff wins had “style points,” but they were enough to hang a banner in SoFi Stadium. It was the exact place where the Wilf family wanted the Vikings to go, but it would take O’Connell a while to get there.
The 2022 Vikings got off to a fast start, but they were still a loud group. Cousins’ eight fourth-quarter comebacks tied an NFL record. Still, there were games where Minnesota’s opponent flattened them. Ed Donatell’s defense became too loud to overcome, and a crackdown on fourth-and-eight helped Daniel Jones and the New York Giants pull an upset in the opening round of the playoffs.
In the following training camp, the noise was back. The Cousins, Justin Jefferson, and T.J. Hockenson‘s contract status was as important as who would play guard. When Hockenson became the only player to sign an extension, questions about Cousins continued, and people tracked Jefferson’s every move until he eventually signed a mega-deal.
Cousins left for the Atlanta Falcons in March, and Sam Darnold replaced him. Many groaned when Darnold signed after failed stints with the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers but assumed McCarthy would take over after the Vikings took him with the 10th-overall pick in the draft.
The departure of fan-favorite Danielle Hunter created another layer of concern. The Vikings signed Jonathan Greenard, Blake Cashman, and Andrew Van Ginkel in free agency, and they traded up for Dallas Turner, but they were all unknowns coming into Brian Flores’ defense.
After Jackson’s death, Addison’s arrest, and the injuries to Blackmon and McCarthy, Vegas projected Minnesota to be a six-win team amid a cursed rebuild year. Beyond that, they believed they would be scouting Travis Hunter and Ashton Jeanty by October. But after Monday night, the Vikings control their destiny for home-field advantage in the playoffs.
That hasn’t meant it’s been an easy ride. Addison suffered injuries in both ankles before taking off. Hockenson didn’t play until mid-October. Turner’s contributions have only picked up in recent weeks. The Vikings even had injuries to their field goal unit. A quad injury sidelined Will Reichard, and Andrew DePaola broke his hand.
All these things might have shipwrecked the Vikings in the final years of the Zimmer era, but O’Connell has found a way to mute them. It doesn’t make the Vikings a perfect team — see, for example, the 10 penalties they committed on Monday night — but it’s a sound, stable one compared to the rest of the NFC.
The Detroit Lions have been atop the conference all season, yet injuries have started to pile up. Losing Aidan Hutchinson and Carlton Davis was bad enough. Dan Campbell has found a way to make it worse by playing Russian Roulette with his team’s chances.
The Philadelphia Eagles have become contenders but are as unstable as the D-student in a high school chemistry class. A.J. Brown wants the ball more, and Jalen Hurts wants to be acknowledged when he gets it to him. Nick Sirianni is fighting with his coaches. Vikings fans know how this dynamic can play out.
Perhaps the only other team in the NFC with a quiet mind is the Green Bay Packers. Still, even they have some flaws. Matt LeFleur had a bizarre interaction with a Lions fan last week. Jordan Love is the quarterback version of the Hydra meme, making a breathtaking throw on one play and a mind-numbing decision the next.
When you look around, it’s a similar environment to the one that O’Connell encountered with the Rams in 2021. While there’s noise everywhere, O’Connell has been able to turn it down, keeping his team focused on the task at hand and creating a legitimate Super Bowl contender.
It may not end with a championship, but nobody thought the Rams would get there in the 2021-22 season. It speaks to what O’Connell has accomplished this year and puts any distractions the Vikings have on mute.
