Some humor as we wait for Sunday Night Football
With all of the tension that we’re likely going to feel in the lead-up to tonight’s Sunday Night Football matchup between the Minnesota Vikings and the Detroit Lions, it’s nice to have an opportunity to have a good laugh and blow off a little steam. The NFL on FOX pregame show has been gracious enough as to provide that outlet for us.
On this morning’s show, FOX NFL reporter Jay Glazer has reported that “multiple teams” have shown an interest in making a trade with the Vikings for. . .head coach Kevin O’Connell.
No, that’s not a typo, and here’s the screenshot courtesy of our friend Krauser on X to prove it.
“could potentially have interest in possibly considering to look into the chances of attempting to trade for, hypothetically” pic.twitter.com/1LOqAlEoSn
— Krauser (@Krauserrific) January 5, 2025
Now, it’s not as if trading for a head coach is something that’s completely unprecedented in the National Football League. It’s happened eight times before, going all the way back to 1970 when the Miami Dolphins sent a first-round pick to the Baltimore Colts for a guy named Don Shula, who turned out to be a pretty good coach. Here are all of the coaches in NFL history who have ever been involved in trades.
- Don Shula (1970)
- Bill Parcells (1997)
- Mike Holmgren (1999)
- Bill Belichick (2000)
- Jon Gruden (2002)
- Herm Edwards (2006)
- Bruce Arians (2019)
- Sean Payton (2023)
So, obviously it can happen.
But. . .come on. Seriously. There’s not a snowball’s chance in Miami that the Minnesota Vikings are trading Kevin O’Connell, and even suggesting it is laughable.
In fact, just yesterday Vikings’ owner Mark Wilf told Ben Goessling of the Minnesota Star-Tribune that the team would be entering into contract extension talks with both O’Connell and GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah after the season.
“We’re looking forward to a great future with these guys,” he said. “We look forward to having those conversations with each of them after the season. We have tremendous confidence, and we look forward to their continued leadership of the franchise.”
There has been absolutely nothing before now that would even remotely suggest that the Vikings have any interest in moving on from Kevin O’Connell, and why would they? In the three years since he’s been the team’s coach the Vikings have won two-thirds of their games (34-17, including postseason) and O’Connell has a rightly-deserved reputation as a great coach, a great developer of quarterbacks, and he’s universally loved by the team, its players, and the fans.
Honestly, I can’t even calculate what might be a fair return for the Vikings in exchange for O’Connell. It would probably start with multiple first-round picks and who knows what else after that.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. . .people might still consider sites like ours to be just “fan sites” or that we don’t have any inside information or whatever else. On the other hand, we’re not out here actively insulting your intelligence, either.
