While there is a lot I question about the Minnesota Vikings in their current, I have no concerns whatsoever with their head coach Kevin O'Connell. I think he is fantastic. Through the first two weeks of the NFL season he has taken a completely washed Sam Darnold and transformed him into the high-end talent we all thought he was coming out of USC because O'Connell ain't afraid of no ghosts.
After seeing ghosts at MetLife and watching Adam Gase inhale smelling salts like they are Halloween candy, of course, Darnold would want a new drug. He may be the grandson of Dick Hammer, better known as The Marlboro Man, but who are going to call when your NFL career is busting? With a Huey Lewis-inspired guitar riff, look at the Vikings' equivalent of Ray Parker Jr. to come and save the day!
O'Connell will not dwell on Darnold's past, but like Jerry in Be Kind Rewind, he has movies to make.
"I don't really have a lot of interest in talking about the past with Sam Darnold. I think we all need to just star being totally present and when he plays well like he has, we just talk about a guy playing the position at a high level and we move on."
Like a movie featuring Jack Black before 2010, I cannot take my eyes off a O'Connell-led NFL offense.
"I don't really have a lot of interest in talking about the past with Sam Darnold. I think we all need to just start being totally present and when he plays well like he has, we just talk about a guy playing the position at a high level and we move on." - Kevin O'Connell pic.twitter.com/IbHNMDRdnN
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) September 16, 2024
For the sake of Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, let's get O'Connell his own proton blaster!
Kevin O'Connell has delectable Ecto Cooler coursing through his veins
Even though I was more down on the Vikings this season than that really sad boy blink-182 anthem about the rain and whatnot, I always knew O'Connell had this in him. I still don't trust Darnold over the course of a season, but the Vikings have an ace in the hole at head coach. O'Connell is a teacher and is what this team needs to overcome one Kwesi Adofo-Mensah experiment gone away after another.
This is a tough division the Vikings play in. Over time, I still think this is a fourth-place team, but I can also envision a scenario in which the Vikings clip the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers often enough to make it a feisty four-team race for the division crown. I would still take the Lions and Packers over them, but I cannot say that I fully trust the Bears through the first two weeks.
Overall, this is the kind of pairing Vikings fans were hoping for at the start of the season. Darnold seems like a good guy and he probably always had a redemption arc in his NFL story all along. However, this feels like only a one-year fling. For better or worse, the Vikings will hand the keys to the car to J.J. McCarthy coming off a major knee injury. He is promising, but he is still so incredibly raw.
For now, we can trust O'Connell's ability to coach up whatever quarterback is playing for him this year.