It has been a season to forget for the Minnesota Vikings.
Inconsistencies across the board, especially at the quarterback position, have left a team that thought they’d be fighting for the No. 1 seed on the outskirts, leading to frustrations inside the building and out.
It all came to a head last week against the Seattle Seahawks. The Vikings lost 26-0, but things could’ve gone very differently.
With three minutes to go in the first half and trailing 3-0, the Vikings had a fourth-and-one on Seattle’s four-yard line. Head coach Kevin O’Connell elected to run a play-action bootleg with an undrafted rookie quarterback making his first career start. The play went as poorly as it possibly could. Max Brosmer threw an underhanded shovel pass directly to Ernest Jones IV, who took it back 84 yards for a pick-six.
Hindsight is 20/20, but it’s hard to understand why Brosmer couldn’t have handed it off to Jordan Mason to pick up that yard or rattled off a hard count to draw Seattle offsides. Minnesota also could’ve kicked a short field goal to tie the game, something that could’ve paid dividends against a dominant Seahawks defense.
The poor offensive showings this season are on the coaches as much as the players, and it starts with O’Connell as the playcaller. He admitted this earlier this week, saying his typically long-developing pass plays have not helped J.J. McCarthy and Brosmer acclimate to the NFL.
“The biggest thing is what you’re seeing coverage-wise needs to take a backseat to what is the best thing for our offense in that moment,” O’Connell said. “Things that I may see – chances to maybe get an in-cut screaming, or high crosses running, or vertical chances – that have kind of always gave us the lift in games.”
O’Connell’s never had to work with an inexperienced QB to the level he has this season. Every year since he took over in 2022 has featured a veteran signal-caller at the helm of the offense. Rookie Jaren Hall started two games in O’Connell’s second year, but a concussion knocked him out of his first career start, and O’Connell turned to Joshua Dobbs and Nick Mullens.
O’Connell got serviceable play out of them and followed it up with his best reclamation project to date with Sam Darnold. This year, there’s no veteran for O’Connell to rehabilitate.
Coaching a first-year starter versus an established player presents different challenges. An inexperienced QB won’t be as decisive or mechanically sound as a vet, something that is apparent with McCarthy. We haven’t seen the offense O’Connell is used to running this year, which uses explosive passing plays and fluid route concepts, and O’Connell has failed to adapt up to this point.
Other coaches are getting the most out of their average QBs. The Carolina Panthers, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Chicago Bears are all in the thick of the playoff hunt despite their signal callers sitting in the bottom half of the league in EPA per play. Other phases of the game are buoying those teams, such as opportunistic defenses and strong running games, so there are other factors at play. Ultimately, the bottom line is that other teams are making it work.
However, the Vikings haven’t even gotten average QB play. McCarthy is last in the NFL in EPA per play by a wide margin while also having the lowest completion percentage and the second-lowest success rate. Brosmer’s numbers are even worse after the debacle in Seattle on Sunday. O’Connell’s not a miracle worker, but there are ways he can set McCarthy up to succeed more than he has been.
The obvious solution is to run the ball more. Still, with injuries to the offensive line stacking up, that might not be a fruitful endeavor either. To O’Connell’s credit, he has run the ball more this season than in any of his previous seasons, calling designed runs on 45.1% of plays when the score is tied or Minnesota is leading. That’s a 6% increase from his first three years, and as a result, the Vikings are 11th in the NFL in yards per attempt – their highest mark under O’Connell.
The running game needs to stay active on Sunday, and O’Connell might have to move away from his comfort zone in the passing game and resort to more intermediate and short routes to get McCarthy in a groove. With the Vikings firmly out of the playoff hunt, they will use the final five weeks to help McCarthy feel more comfortable and make things easier for him.
“I don’t want him overthinking or worrying,” O’Connell said. “If the fundamentals need to be changed, if they need to be adjusted, if we need more time on task, that’s one thing, but let’s just make the throws, let’s just throw and catch, let’s just play with great rhythm and understanding of the plan.”
The rest of this season will be a test to see if O’Connell can adapt his playstyle to help a developing QB, or if he can only get production from signal-callers with NFL experience. The answer will provide some clarity (and maybe some hope) for where the Vikings can go after this painstaking season comes to an end.
