Did Kevin O’Connell Tip His Hand with a Star Player?
Kevin O’Connell may have said the quiet part out loud. Or, perhaps, offered a bit of a hint about how Minnesota is going to proceed.
Generally speaking, teams like to be vague at this time of the year, vowing to improve and yet being murky about how that improvement might occur. Rumors aren’t in short supply, so it can sometimes be difficult to discern a team’s true intentions. The Vikings’ head coach may have tipped his hand a bit, though, when it comes to one of team’s star players from 2024.
Did Kevin O’Connell Tip His Hand with Aaron Jones?
No doubt, Aaron Jones was a great addition for the 2024 season.
The former Packer was added for a single-season at $7 million. He rewarded Minnesota by playing every game, running for 1,138 yards while adding on 408 receiving yards. Combined, Jones scored 7 times. Even better, Jones offered great leadership, toughness, and professionalism.
Sounds like someone who should be brought back, right? After all, both sides have already agreed to push back a critical deadline in his contract, making a new deal appear more likely.
Kevin O’Connell recently talked about his top runner in a conversation with KFAN’s Paul Allen. Notably, there may have been a suggestion that Jones’ return is simply a matter of time.
“First and foremost, he’s one of the greatest human beings I’ve ever met in my NFL journey,” the coach explains. “Secondly, he is a very, very talented, great fit in our offense because of that skill set.”
And then there’s the quote that potentially tips Minnesota’s hands: “He very rarely gets tackled on first contact, he very rarely doesn’t find the yards that are there for him. And we’ve gotta continue to do a better job [of] creating more yards for him.”
Catch that final tidbit? The final line — doing a better job of creating yards for him — is about the future, not ongoing reflecting on the past. The plan appears to involve improving the offensive line’s play so that Jones can be even more productive going forward. Doesn’t sound like a free agent who’s soon to leave, does it?
The concern, of course, is that Mr. Jones is 30, which is often a bad number for a running back. The important caveat is simply that he didn’t carry huge workloads while working in Green Bay and is coming off of a season where he played every game.
Even better, the 2025 NFL Draft is supposed to be one with ample running back talent. Does it make sense to re-sign Jones as a 1A while then drafting a young guy to be a 1B? Doing so would keep Jones’ legs and lungs fresh while also having the benefit of allowing the rookie to learn from a tremendous veteran.
Aaron Jones, an internal free agent, can be re-signed at any time. Minnesota’s tendency, though, is to slow play things a little bit at this stage of the offseason, pushing things closer to the official beginning of the new league year before getting a lot of their business done.
Sitting on $63 million in cap space, the Vikings have enough money to retain their own talent while also being active with bringing new players to town, especially since there are ways to free up more room.
NFL free agency gets started in a week.
Editor’s Note: Information from Pro Football Reference and Over the Cap helped with this piece.
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 social media (Bluesky & Twitter). If you feel so inclined, subscribe to his Substack, The Vikings Gazette, for more great Vikings content.
