When and Why Kevin O’Connell Brings Down “Judgment”
Generally speaking, Kevin O’Connell keeps things pretty upbeat and positive. He does, however, get to a point where he’ll render judgment.
The update arrives courtesy of a recent chat with the Minnesota media. Generally speaking, O’Connell can be found explaining that May and June are about learning, making mistakes, and then improving. The problem arises when the third portion of that progression — improving — doesn’t occur.
“I told the team earlier this week,” O’Connell explained, “there is no judgment on a mistake, there’s judgment on a repeat mistake. There’s a, ‘are we not coaching it good enough or are you not receiving what it’s going to take to help you get over the edge and improve?'”
O’Connell elaborates a bit more: “But to answer your question, there’s a lot of things from a standpoint of, are we seeing growth and development? Or are we seeing repeat offenders and repeat mistakes that are going to only set our football team back from an all-eleven standpoint?”
Kevin O’Connell on “Judgment” and “Repeat Offenders”
Coach O’Connell isn’t on the hot seat. He nevertheless seems like a coach who is turning up the heat a bit on his roster, applying some pressure so the franchise can experience success beyond just the regular season. Getting bounced in the opening round of the playoffs appears to have gotten old in a hurry.
The message appears to be getting through. In his own media session, Harrison Phillips spoke quite a bit about his optimism for where the team can go. The phrase that the DT passed along was there being a sense of “controlled urgency.” One could even kick things back to Brian O’Neill, someone who is similarly looking to push things to a new level.
The team’s veteran leaders, in other words, have absorbed the message.
Now, there’s some wisdom in stepping back a bit. Humans, by nature, are creatures who are prone to making mistakes. The truth even exists among NFL athletes, wonderfully gifted people who put in tremendous work in an effort to perfect their craft. Seeing mistakes — especially in a spot like OTAs — shouldn’t raise any eyebrows. Just humans doing what humans do: move forward through error, screw up, and shortcoming.
The key, per Kevin O’Connell, is to see players who are fully committed to rectifying mistakes. Take the coaching that gets passed along and then not go out and do the exact same thing another time.
One thinks back to the way Minnesota’s 14-3 season ended. The Week 18 game was a disaster. For the first time all season, the Vikings didn’t get to double-digit points, putting up a measly 9 points as the Lions won the NFC North and the conference more broadly. The Vikings were stifled largely due to some ferocious pressure, a sizzling Jahmyr Gibbs, and a quarterback who finished the day having gone 18/41 for 166 scoreless yards.
Leading into the Wild Card Round, Kevin O’Connell may have been preaching the right message to overcome a similar strategy against his team. If he did, the message didn’t get through in the manner that it needed to in order to find success.
Yet again, the Vikings put together a very poor effort, getting to just 9 points; Sam Darnold got sacked a stunning 9 times. When the points and sacks are equal — both sitting at 9 — something has gone majorly wrong. Darnold completed 25/40 passes for 245 yards, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception. The worst kind of Groundhog Day for the football team that calls The Gopher State home.
Kevin O’Connell is looking to ensure that each individual player is capable of learning from mistakes. Crucially, that intellectual understanding needs to translate to on-field improvement. Doing so feeds directly into the “all-eleven” component of things that O’Connell references.
A guard who quickly figures out how to block the defensive tackle can allow the quarterback to have an extra second or two. A corner who understands that he needs to give a speedster extra cushion when playing off coverage can prevent the explosive play, possibly containing an offense to 3 points instead of 7. Go through a roster and individual positions can put together examples of what that might look like for them.
Kevin O’Connell, using almost legal language, is therefore rendering “judgment” on “repeat offenders.” Players who can’t improve on their shortcomings may not be employed in Minnesota for very long.
Editor’s Note: Information from Pro Football Reference helped with this piece.
Jim Marshall Passes Away at Age 87
K. Joudry is the Senior Editor for Vikings Territory and PurplePTSD. He has been covering the Vikings full time since the summer of 2021. He can be found on Twitter and Bluesky (@VikingsGazette). If you feel so inclined, subscribe to his Substack, The Vikings Gazette, for more great Vikings content.
