Vikings Plan B after Jim Harbaugh was already in place

Jim Harbaugh turned out not to be the guy for the Minnesota Vikings but they were ready to move on without him in hiring their head coach. 

Coming into Wednesday, all the buzz suggested that the Minnesota Vikings had found their next head coach as they moved on from Mike Zimmer. And it was a big name as the expectation, with the two parties slated to meet, was that they were going to pull Jim Harbaugh away from Michigan and to the NFL.

However, that wasn’t the case. Though Harbaugh and Minnesota reportedly met for nine hours on Wednesday, the organization never offered the Wolverines head coach the job to return to the NFL and, thereafter, Harbaugh told the folks in Ann Arbor he was staying put for as long as they’d have him.

So where did that leave the Vikings? Well, they apparently had their Plan B locked and loaded.

Soon after the reports that Harbaugh was not coming to Minnesota, it was reported by NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, among others, that the Vikings had called two of the three other finalists, Patrick Graham and Raheem Morris, to tell them they were out of the running. That, of course, left the other finalist, Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell, as the favorite to now land the job.

Vikings rumors: Kevin O’Connell expected to be next head coach

While the Sean McVay coaching tree jokes were numerous and humorous as the interviews and hires were taking place, it’s not hard to see the success of them considering it’s McVay and one of those branches, Zac Taylor, squaring off in the Super Bowl on Feb. 13.

O’Connell, of course, has that game to worry about before he makes his way to Minneapolis. However, all signs now point to him being the successor to Zimmer and trying to revive the Vikings back to a playoff contender out of the NFC North.

It’s hard to not be a bit excited about that possibility as well. O’Connell has learned under McVay in Los Angeles and now comes to a team with a boatload of offensive talent around Kirk Cousins with Dalvin Cook, Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen.

We’ll have to wait for this hire to be official, but Minnesota fans can go ahead and start thinking of Kevin O’Connell as their new head coach based on everything we currently know.