Five Takeaways From the Vikings Choosing Kevin O'Connell as Their New Head Coach

O'Connell doesn't have the track record of Jim Harbaugh, but he might be a better fit for what the Vikings are trying to build.

Wednesday was a whirlwind day for fans of the Minnesota Vikings.

All day, they waited with bated breath for the expected announcement that Jim Harbaugh would become the team's next head coach. The polarizing, entertaining, highly-successful Michigan coach appeared to be the heavy favorite for the job, simply needing to win over a few people in the organization during an in-person interview at TCO Performance Center.

That announcement never came. Instead, news broke around dinnertime that Harbaugh was returning to Michigan. The two parties were on different pages, expectation-wise, heading into the interview and eventually came to the realization that the fit wasn't right, so the Vikings never offered Harbaugh the job.

That wasn't all, though. 30 minutes later, reports emerged that indicated the Vikings had chosen Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O'Connell to be their head coach. It won't be official until after the Super Bowl, but O'Connell is their guy.

That left everyone to deal with a wide range of emotions. There was disappointment over missing out on Harbaugh, who fans had gotten their hopes up about over the previous few days. There was confusion over how the Harbaugh situation went down, considering it seemed like a borderline lock for a while. And there was a mixture of excitement and skepticism over landing the relatively unknown O'Connell, whose coaching career is just seven years old and whose future as the leader of the Vikings is difficult to predict.

Although it may seem like O'Connell was Minnesota's fall-back plan, it sounds like he was the frontrunner heading into the Harbaugh interview. From Chad Graff and Jon Krawczynski in The Athletic:

"O’Connell 'blew them away' [in his interview], according to a source. He had studied the team’s roster from the previous season. He came prepared with ideas on how to improve the team and was able to offer a nuanced review of quarterback Kirk Cousins, whom he coached for one season in Washington."

After conducting interviews with Patrick Graham on Tuesday and Harbaugh on Wednesday, the Vikings pulled the trigger on O'Connell.

Now that the smoke has cleared, let's dive into what we know about KOC with five takeaways from the Vikings hiring the Rams' OC.

The Vikings got a young, offensive-minded coach

There's a theory that teams tend to go in the complete opposite direction when replacing someone in a major position. That was certainly true when the Vikings hired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to replace Rick Spielman as their general manager. It's also true with O'Connell taking over for Zimmer.

O'Connell turns 37 in May, making him the second-youngest head coach in the NFL, pending a few more hires (his current head coach, Sean McVay, is eight months younger). Zimmer, 65, was the fifth-oldest head coach in the league last year. O'Connell is the Vikings' first offensive-minded HC since they fired Brad Childress in 2010.

The benefits of having an offense-oriented coach leading your team can be plentiful. O'Connell is going to have a strong relationship with whoever the Vikings' quarterback is, whether it's Kirk Cousins or someone else. The days of having a different person leading Minnesota's offense every year are gone. And with the way the NFL is trending, it just seems like the right move to focus on making the Vikings' offense as dynamic and explosive as possible.

Of course, a head coach needs to be able to lead the entire team, get the most out of players, and make the right decisions on game day. We can't predict how O'Connell will do in those areas. But by all accounts, he's a brilliant offensive mind who deserves a ton of credit for the Rams' success, even if McVay is the one calling the plays.

Although he doesn't call plays, O'Connell helps devise the Rams' offensive scheme, develop game plans, design and install plays, and teach individual players. He's the latest young head coach to come out of the McVay tree; the Packers' Matt LaFleur set a record for wins in a coach's first three seasons, Zac Taylor has the Bengals in the Super Bowl, and Brandon Staley's future is bright with the Chargers. Keep in mind that Taylor never called plays before he got the Cincinnati job.

"The thing about Kevin O'Connell is he's been at the controls of the Rams' offense in almost every way, except actually calling the plays, for two years, which makes him a guy who's seen what Sean McVay does and what makes the Rams so successful over the last five years," said the AP's Greg Beacham in an interview with the Broncos' website. "And there's only a handful of guys in the world who can say that."

"He is the most important part of the offensive brain trust that develops the Rams' game plans, designs their plays and then implements all the details necessary to make it work on Sundays. It's the biggest role on the offense that doesn't belong to Sean McVay. Kevin is in charge of making sure everything works, and Sean likes him in the role so much that he blocked Kevin from interviewing last year to be the Chargers' offensive coordinator when Brandon Staley moved across town."

O'Connell fits the vision of collaboration and culture

When the Vikings set out on this coaching search, they made it clear that they valued leadership, communication, and collaboration in their new GM and head coach. After the way the last regime ended, with Spielman and Zimmer reportedly not speaking to each other for months and players openly voicing their frustrations with the culture that had been established, the Vikings wanted change.

"O’Connell quickly became the favorite of the search committee, which was looking to overhaul the working environment at team headquarters, prioritizing leadership, inclusivity and collaboration after the front office, coaching staff and roster fractured under the pressure on Spielman and Zimmer’s watch," Graff and Krawczynski wrote. O’Connell seemed to fit that style and mesh well with Adofo-Mensah’s measured approach."

Hiring Harbaugh would've been borderline antithetical to that stated goal. He's become known for a personality that can wear on people, and you have to wonder if his presence might've eventually created tension over personnel decisions.

O'Connell doesn't have a ton of coaching experience, but he's young, intelligent, and will be able to learn and grow in his partnership with Adofo-Mensah. As a former player who was in the league just a decade ago, he should also be able to connect with players on both sides of the ball at a high level.

The offensive scheme will likely be tweaked, not overhauled

O'Connell comes from the McVay offense, which sprouted from the same roots as the offense the Vikings have run for the past three years under Kevin Stefanski, Gary Kubiak, and Klint Kubiak. The wide-zone running game and emphasis on play-action passing are core tenets of the scheme developed by Mike Shanahan and passed down through Kubiak, Kyle Shanahan, and McVay.

So the Vikings aren't going to completely overhaul their offensive system in 2022. They'll still be using zone blocking in the run game, which athletic offensive linemen like Brian O'Neill and Ezra Cleveland thrive on. They'll still be leaning on Dalvin Cook — assuming he's around — and trying to hit explosive plays on crossing routes and deep balls off of play-action. They'll still be trying to marry everything together so they can run or pass out of the exact same formations, leaving defenses guessing.

The main difference between the McVay approach and the Shanahan/Kubiak approach comes in their usage of personnel groupings. While the 49ers and Vikings have leaned on their fullbacks and multiple-tight end formations, the Rams spread things out with three wide receivers and do different things with that personnel. The Rams led the NFL by using 11 personnel (1 back, 1 TE, 3 WRs) 85 percent of the time in 2021. The Vikings were one of seven teams to use 11 personnel less than 50 percent of the time, but ranked near the top of the league in usage of 21 personnel (2 backs, 1 TE, 2 WRs) and 22 personnel (2 backs, 2 TEs, 1 WR).

With O'Connell coming to Minnesota, it's safe to assume the Vikings will increase their usage of 11 personnel and throw the ball slightly more than they have over the past few seasons. O'Connell will also look to scheme up touches for his best players. That doesn't mean Justin Jefferson will be used in the same way Cooper Kupp was used this year, but it could mean finding more creative ways to get Jefferson open and get the ball in his hands.

It's also important to note that O'Connell isn't just a McVay disciple. He's been around of ton of different coaches and schemes throughout both his playing days and his pre-LA coaching stops in Cleveland and Washington, so look for him to incorporate various wrinkles he's picked up over the years into his offense.

It's possible the Vikings will enter into a rebuild

What got the Vikings in trouble over the past couple seasons was convincing themselves their window for contending was still open when in reality, it wasn't. They tried to reload by extending players like Cousins, Cook, and Harrison Smith, signing players like Michael Pierce, Dalvin Tomlinson, and Patrick Peterson, and trading for players like Yannick Ngakoue and Chris Herndon. It backfired in a big way with two straight losing seasons and a salary cap situation that hasn't gotten any better.

Looking at the way this roster is constructed right now — with major holes on defense and the interior of the offensive line, and a number of expensive veterans taking up a huge chunk of the cap — the most sensible move for the Vikings' long-term outlook might be to enter a bit of a true rebuild. Trading Cousins and looking to the 2022 or 2023 draft for a quarterback, trading several other big-name veterans to free up cap space and acquire picks, and building around a young core. Choosing whether or not to go that route is the major decision facing Adofo-Mensah in his first year as the team's GM.

If Harbaugh had been hired, I'm not sure that option would've been on the table. You don't hire Jim Harbaugh to oversee a rebuild, you hire him to load up and go for it in 2022.

With O'Connell, a rebuild is definitely a possibility. The KAM-KOC duo could opt for a reset as they try to build their own roster and vision from the ground up.

And just because O'Connell was Cousins' QB coach in 2017, I doubt that means he won't be open to the idea of trading him away. He's seen the good things Cousins can do, but he's also seen his limitations, especially considering '17 was Cousins' worst year as a starter by completion percentage, passer rating, and adjusted net yards per attempt. O'Connell may prefer the idea of developing his own quarterback instead of being attached to Cousins for several years.

This is a gamble by the Vikings

Hiring Harbaugh would've been a gamble for a number of reasons, but it's tough to argue with his win-loss results. Hiring O'Connell is a gamble for a different reason: it's impossible to know what to expect.

This is a 36-year-old who has only been coaching since 2015. He has three seasons of experience as an offensive coordinator, and the only time he's ever called plays came in the final 11 games of 2019 for a Washington team that finished 3-13. O'Connell's resume is basically that he's been around McVay for two years, he's a smart, personable guy, and he used to be a quarterback. As I mentioned earlier, we have no idea how successful he'll be when he stands up in front of the entire team and leads them through a full season.

With that said, I think this could end up being a fantastic hire. The McVay tree hasn't missed so far, and O'Connell appears to be an outstanding offensive coach who will work together with Adofo-Mensah, connect with players, and help bring the Vikings into a new era with a more positive culture. If the Harbaugh saga had never happened, I'd imagine fans would be extremely excited about this move.

It's going to be a process. I can't see a path to Super Bowl contention for the Vikings in 2022, and probably not in 2023 either. O'Connell is going to need to fill out a great staff around him, particularly at defensive coordinator. There will be growing pains and a ton to learn.

But if everything goes to plan, there's a world in which Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O'Connell get this thing right and lead the Vikings to the mountaintop. Why not let yourself dream about that possibility?

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