Jump to a topicMinnesota VikingsWashington CommandersCincinnati BengalsLos Angeles ChargersTampa Bay BuccaneersBuffalo BillsPhiladelphia EaglesRemembering Greg GumbelWhich teams will rest starters?Quick-hitters
Minnesota Vikings
His Minnesota Vikings had watched a lead that looked safe melt away, as a burgeoning rout became a barnburner. What was 27–10 midway through the fourth quarter became 27–25, with Minnesota facing big tactical decisions.
First-and-10, 2:18 left, Green Bay Packers carrying all three timeouts. The conventional coaching manual would demand O’Connell run the ball, force Matt LaFleur to burn his timeouts and see how the chips fall from there.
The Vikings’ third-year coach lit that manual on fire.
Sam Darnold threw off play-action on first down to fullback C.J. Ham for 13 yards, and the clock ticked down to the two-minute warning. O’Connell then called a run to Cam Akers, which was dropped for a one-yard loss. Timeout, Packers. And from there, in second-and-11? A tight-window throw to Justin Jefferson for nine yards, and a throw to the flat in play-action to Akers for six yards, with timeouts from the Packers after both. Ballgame.
Minnesota, as a result, is 14–2. O’Connell’s program is humming. And there may be no bigger illustration of why than that sequence, where the coaches trusted the players they’ve developed and taught, to execute a plan that everyone believed in.
“K.O. is just confident in us—and if he believes that we’re going to get it done, then we believe that we’re going to get it done,” veteran running back Aaron Jones, in his first season as a Viking, told me over the phone early Sunday evening. “If there’s a fourth down and he leaves us on the field, in his mind and our mind, we’re going to pick this up. He’s going to give us the best play call to get us into whatever look we need.”
And it’s at the point now where when O’Connell, GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and that football operation make a decision, the rest of us should trust them too.
This was supposed to be a reset year. Gone were Kirk Cousins and Danielle Hunter. In came Darnold, J.J. McCarthy, Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel and Dallas Turner to replace them. Stephon Gilmore was added to the defense over the summer. Jones was picked up after the Packers discarded him, following the Josh Jacobs signing. As part of all the turnover, Minnesota carried nearly $70 million in dead money on their 2024 books.
Yet, here they are, because no one there saw it that way, headed into Week 18 with a chance at a franchise-record-tying 15th win and the No. 1 seed in the NFC bracket. They’ll get their chance at revenge on the Detroit Lions, and a shot to stay home through the NFC playoffs, an idea that would’ve seemed preposterous a couple of months ago to everyone except, well, them.
“Nobody really believed in us,” Jones says. “They were saying you’re going to win six games and finish last in the division. Everything we did was done in the dark, but it was never dark in that facility. It was always fun to come to work. We always believed in each other. Coach told us we would be right where we are right now.”
Jones then added, “I believe he can see the future if you ask me."
The moves the Vikings made in the offseason would indicate that Jones is right on that.
And none more so than the one to acquire Darnold. O’Connell and I discussed that one in last week’s takeaways, and the coach more or less begged for the football-watching public to stop looking at Darnold like some sort of scrap-heap pickup, and remember why he was once the third pick in the draft. It showed, again, on Sunday. Save for the pick he threw to Packers corner Carrington Valentine (who did a nice job baiting him), Darnold was damn near flawless—hitting on 33-of-43 throws for 377 yards, three scores and a 116.1 rating.
Darnold responded to his pick with an eight-play, 70-yard drive to stake the Vikings to the 27–10 lead, then was nails at the end of the game, delivering darts on the first two of the aforementioned throws O’Connell trusted him to make, before getting helped out a bit by Akers on the third.
“Sam is resilient,” Jones says. “He’s an underdog. He’s tough as they come. You may see him get hit, come out for a play and then come right back in. You may see him hobbling back in there, and he’s in there the rest of the time. He’s a true leader. He keeps us calm, cool and collected in that huddle.”
That, really, seems to apply to all the Vikings right now.
I don’t know if they’ll go into Detroit and knock off the mighty Lions next Sunday. But it’s not like that would be a major upset—and given where Minnesota was expected to be at the beginning of the year, that’s pretty impressive.
Jones, for his part, was waiting around to prepare, having already undergone treatment on his bruised quad before we spoke. He told me he was held out as a precaution late in this one.
Remarkably, they have bigger fish to fry.
“I’ve turned the page already, getting the body right,” he says. “It’s seven days, but it’s going to feel like the snap of a finger.”
The Vikings will be ready, though. And confident, for sure.
