Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell is ‘best friends’ with Rams counterpart Sean McVay – but only one of them will remain in the postseason at the end of Monday night once their Wild Card matchup in Arizona is complete.
O’Connell spent two years working under McVay in Los Angeles, helped lead the team to a Super Bowl win as offensive coordinator and ultimately developed a close bond with the fellow coach who is only eight months younger than him.
But he told reporters on Friday that ‘there’s really no room for emotion now’ as his former team stands in the way of Minnesota’s title pursuit.
‘I will say that it’s always great to see those folks,’ he told UK reporters during a virtual roundtable. ‘It brings back incredible, incredible memories when I when I see a lot of those players, whether it’s Matthew [Stafford] or Cooper [Kupp], Rob Havenstein, you know, the list goes on and on, and then obviously Sean and a lot of the staff that I was able to work with over those two years.
‘Make no mistake about it,’ O’Connell continued, ‘Sean McVay is one of my best friends. But he would tell you, when that ball gets kicked off, we’re trying to do everything we can to win… I love them to death, but that’s what we’re going to go try to.’
McVay may only be 38, but a coaching tree has already branched out beyond him.
Kevin O’Connell led the Minnesota Vikings to a 14-3 record and the No. 5 seed in the playoffs
O’Connell will face his friend and ex-boss Sean McVay after the Vikings lost to the Rams earlier this season
O’Connell, who lost to his old boss 30-20 this regular season, has been the Vikings head coach since 2022. Zac Taylor, who was a wide receivers and then quarterbacks coach in LA, has been the Bengals coach since 2019, while McVay’s former offensive coordinator and Washington colleague Matt LaFleur has manned the Packers since that year too.
Brandon Staley, formerly McVay’s former defensive coordinator with the Rams, also coached the Chargers for three years, while numerous others have gone on to take coordinator positions as well.
McVay, then, has become a sort of blueprint for other NFL teams to follow, with his highly-complex offense confusing opponents with pre-snap motions and RPOs, and his youthful exuberance winning over players.
O’Connell – who’s led Minnesota to a 34-17 record over three seasons – has certainly applied some of those concepts, but he’s looking to blaze his own trail.
‘I do believe that we’ve, in a lot of ways, done some similar things here,’ he said. ‘But at the same time, this is our version of our organization.
‘This is the Minnesota Vikings. And I do do believe, as the head coach, you have to be yourself. You’ve got to be authentically yourself every single day. It’s probably the number one requirement of coaching an NFL football team is to be be authentic and be real every single day.
‘So you don’t have to try to be somebody that you’re not. So as many great things as I I was able to add to my toolbox via being around one of the best coaches in Sean McVay that we have in our league, it’s still important every day that I’m myself and I lead this organization that way.’
O’Connell has certainly made his mark on quarterback Sam Darnold, who is having by far the best season of his career after bouncing around several franchises.
Sam Darnold has had the best season of his career in Minnesota, throwing 35 TD passes
McVay and O’Connell became close in LA, where the later was offensive coordinator
Originally, brought in to back up rookie J.J. McCarthy, Darnold was thrust into action when the former Michigan player suffered a season-ending knee injury in August.
Darnold has not merely kept things ticking for Minnesota, but massively exceeded expectations as he threw 35 touchdowns and nearly led his 14-3 team to the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
‘We pride ourselves on having a real emphasis to help that guy do his job, especially when they’re as talented as [Darnold] is,’ O’Connell said, adding that he’s admired the former No. 3 overall pick since his college days with USC. ‘It was only a matter of time before he played really well in our offense.
‘I did not see him necessarily playing as well, I think, as he has. I think that would have been some stealth expectations, but that’s what makes me so proud of him, and what makes our game and our league so, so unique is you can have a vision and pour everything you have into creating and executing that vision, and then a lot of times, if you do it the right way, and you do it with the right people, great things are going to happen. And I think that’s the story of Sam Darnold this year.’
The story of the Vikings, meanwhile, may feel familiar to some on the surface.
The team finished with a near-identical 13-4 record two seasons ago before falling to the Giants at home in a playoff stunner.
While that team, however, pushed their luck in close games and actually had a minus-3 point differential in the regular season, the Vikings this year have been far more dominant, with their +100 differential the seventh-best in the league.
Justin Jefferson believes this Vikings team is better than the one from two seasons ago with a nearly identical record
And star wideout Justin Jefferson believes the vibes are better this time around too.
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‘The connection that we have as teammates, as brothers on the team, is something that wasn’t the same two years ago.’
‘Two years ago we had all those close game wins, just winning pretty much on the last drive. This year, we’re, for the first time putting points on people, beating people by more than 21 points. ‘
‘That’s something that I haven’t done since I’ve been here… so it’s definitely feels like a more of a complete team this year.’
Jefferson, O’Connell and the rest of the Vikings will put that to the test on Monday night, with Minnesota narrowly favored to get past LA.
