And it was provided by the coach, of all people
UPDATE: O’Connell has clarified his remarks, courtesy of Alec Lewis of The Athletic. Apparently the quote from Dave Birkett (the Lions’ beat writer from the Detroit Free Press) was completely out of context.
Here was Vikings HC Kevin O’Connell in conversation with local media, asked to clarify the comments after winning COTY award: pic.twitter.com/6oQ2QUc9QV
— Alec Lewis (@alec_lewis) February 7, 2025
Here’s what O’Connell said when asked to clarify his comments:
I don’t necessarily think that was 100 percent accurate. It was in the spirit of answering a question about Sam’s season, and what he was able to do this year. And then the follow up in regards to what it’s going to take to win a championship. Look, you guys know how I feel about Sam. He is a guy who we identified last year as someone who could come in and be successful, and really no matter where he was before he arrived, it was about maximizing our time together. And I think we did that. I think it was a very special year for Sam, and what that earned him is that everybody in our league thinks he’s a bonafide, legitimate starting quarterback in our league and can win a lot of football games. He won 14 of them. So, he’s earned the right to be a free agent. But we will continue to have ongoing dialogue and discussions with him and his representation as well as being really excited about J.J. McCarthy, and where he’s at in his rehab. He’s really hit the ground running as the true offseason has begun. We feel very fortunate, and even considering Daniel Jones was in that quarterback room as well with Brett Rypien and Nick Mullens. I talked about it all season long — the depth. Now, we’ve got to see what that room is going to look like as we try to put together the best possible team for 2025. That’s really what the answer should’ve been, and probably was closer to that. That doesn’t take away from my feelings about Sam Darnold, or what I believe he accomplished this year, and how proud I was to be right alongside him.
So, after all of that, it appears that there is no twist or anything like that. We’re right back were we started from.
I’m going to leave the story up along with the clarification, along with my apologies about jumping the gun a little bit without the additional context that O’Connell’s later clarification provided. The original story is below the break here.
At Thursday night’s NFL Honors ceremony, Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell was named the NFL’s Coach of the Year for the 2024 season. That wasn’t surprising.
What O’Connell said in the press conference afterward? Quite the opposite.
In his press conference, O’Connell gave us the following quote:
Kevin O’Connell in his Coach of the Year news conference: Our goal is to win a championship and Sam Darnold is going to be a huge part of it when we do it.
Sure sounds like Vikings want to ride with Darnold next year.
— Dave Birkett (@davebirkett) February 7, 2025
“Our goal is to win a championship and Sam Darnold is going to be a huge part of it when we do it.”
Well. . .gotta say I didn’t see that coming.
Darnold, as we know, is set to hit free agency after resurrecting his career under O’Connell this past season. He threw 35 touchdown passes in 2024, nearly doubling his previous career high for a season, and played a significant role in leading the Vikings to a 14-3 season and having a shot at the top seed in the conference all the way into Week 18. For a signing that was pretty widely mocked when the Vikings made it last March, it was a pretty darn impressive run.
However, the Vikings have young J.J. McCarthy waiting in the wings after he missed his entire rookie season with a meniscus tear, and it seemed that the signs were pointing to the team turning things over to McCarthy in 2025, largely because Darnold had priced himself out of their range.
I’m not sure if this is something to try to throw off other teams or if Kevin O’Connell knows something that we don’t know. . .I mean, he knows lots of stuff that we don’t know, but in this specific instance, this seems like a bit of a strange thing to say. Re-signing Darnold will take up a decent chunk of the salary cap space the team is looking at heading into this offseason, so it comes as a bit of a surprise that it sounds like O’Connell is counting on Darnold being back in 2025.
The relationship between Sam Darnold and the Minnesota Vikings was already the story that was going to dominate the team’s offseason until the start of free agency. Now, thanks to none other than the head coach himself, that story just got a lot more interesting.
