Kevin O’Connell started his post-game press conference on Sunday with the following quote, and nothing could be more indicative of the spectacle we witnessed.
“I don’t know [if] I’ve been a part of one like that…when you think about all the things you talk about every single day in your organization. That people matter, that culture matters. Building the type of football team we want to have. What’s inside of each and every guy in that locker room, and the feelings they have towards one another. These are the days that cement why you believe what you believe as a coach. I’ll quite honestly remember this one for a long time.”
There aren’t many times when the football world can’t believe that a phenomenon occurred. The game has been played for over 150 years, so it’s tough to surprise most fans and analysts.
But even so, Josh Dobbs and this Minnesota Vikings team found a way to surprise the entire football world by beating the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday.
Everyone knows the story.
Dobbs had not taken any practice snaps due to the need to prepare rookie Jaren Hall at all costs. So, when Hall became concussed after only the second drive of the game, Dobbs was thrown into the fires of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, just 30 minutes away from his hometown of Alpharetta, Georgia.
Dobbs had his faults as he traversed his new reality of being thrown into a new scheme, with new terminology in just five days. But with the help of Kevin O’Connell and the rest of this coaching staff, Minnesota pulled off a victory with enough magnitude to potentially define a season.
A defining part of our season.#Skol pic.twitter.com/YJsH2eQsir
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) November 7, 2023
Dobbs and his performance has taken on a life of its own very quickly. This is a perfect time to review how we got to this moment.
Let’s take a quick look at the difficult hike it took to get back to playoff aspirations for the 2023 Vikings.
Weeks 1-3: A bevy of turnovers
“I’ve been a part of a team before that’s lost three in a row and found a way to win a world championship. I believe in this team. I believe in the makeup of this team. I believe in our leadership. I believe in our coaches, and we are going to continue to work. That is not one concern of mine with the type of guys that we have in there. We can be disappointed and be upset about the outcome today, which everyone in that locker room, coaches and players included, are. We’re right there with our fans and feel it. But our backs are against the wall now, and we have to find a way to get our first win…and see if we can start stacking them from there and working our way out. Got a lot of football left.” Kevin O’Connell after loss to Los Angeles to go 0-3
It feels like a lifetime ago, but the start of the 2023 season was an absolute nightmare. Anything that could go wrong, did.
It felt like retribution from the football gods for the anomaly that was the 2022 season.
Seven turnovers in the first two weeks and 11 in the first four weeks tell the story of the offense more than any other statistics could. But, I will say that through the first 3 games, they lost over 35 expected points to turnovers. They lost the first three games by a combined 13 points.
The first turnover of the season was a fumble after the snap that was inadvertently punched out of the hands of Kirk Cousins by right guard Ed Ingram as he was setting up for his block.
There was the interception that was ripped way from K.J. Osborn as Minnesota was looking to score before the half. The touchback against the Eagles when Justin Jefferson was reaching for a game-altering touchdown. The interception to end the game at the six-yard line against the Los Angeles Chargers.
Turnovers are usually fluky in nature, but the Vikings still have yet to have a game without turning the football over. But these first three weeks, they were at an all-time high.
Weeks 4-6: Just keep fighting
“This feeling is long overdue for this group. But all you guys keep doing is working…keep going back to work, putting your head down and deciding what can I do to not only help this team grow, but to just make damn sure that I’m trying to uplift the guy next to me. Make his job easier. What can I do to help bring along everything that we want to accomplish. We’ve had to do that without the results that, quite honestly, a lot of us expect. We’ve had to take our medicine and keep going back to work…” O’Connell postgame speech following the win against the Carolina Panthers
Minnesota did not look ready to compete with the Philadelphia Eagles or Detroit Lions (that feels weird) of the world yet. They needed more talent and they did not have a direct route to get them at the time. So to tear it down and forcibly start the next phase of the Vikings was a tempting avenue to explore.
Then, the first win of the season.
Admittedly, it was against the struggling Carolina Panthers and the passing game limped to 130 yards and a pair of interceptions, including a 99-yard pick-six. But, the running game did enough to help move the offense down the field and into scoring situations.
And the defense is clicking. After getting carved up in the air by Los Angeles and on the ground by Philadelphia, there were questions about if the defense had actually improved with the addition of Brian Flores. Stopping the number-one overall pick and an offense devoid of talent doesn’t do much to quell those concerns, but watching Harrison Smith make plays all over the field was worth the price of admission.
Dropping a game against the Kansas City Chiefs didn’t hurt as much because, well, it’s the Chiefs. But, they stayed competitive against a bona fide Super Bowl contender. That and 50 cents could get you a bag of chips but it was something to note. They can compete with the cream of the crop, they can go toe-to-toe with the big boys. But, they were still 1-4 and the talks of selling the team for parts were getting louder. Especially with the loss of Justin Jefferson for at least four weeks with a hamstring injury.
A win against the struggling Chicago Bears did as much as the Panthers win especially with Division II’s Tyson Bagent seeing his first-ever action after a Justin Fields injury. The passing offense struggled again and it looked as if this was the fate for the Vikings.
Too much talent to be near the basement of the league, yet not good enough to contend for the playoffs. Just floating in a purgatory-like state with no concrete direction.
With the trade deadline looming, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to get a jumpstart on rebuilding this roster.
Weeks 7-8: Stacking wins, even when feeling defeated
“…I think our team has really learned, especially through the first three weeks of the season, [to] allow that adversity to be constant learning and growth for our team. The team in that locker room is a very confident team, and they know that we’re getting better and better. We’re going to continue to push forward on the hunt to playing better and better and being our best when it’s required. I just love this team and I love what they’re about right now, and it’s a credit to those guys.” O’Connell after speaking about the injury to Kirk Cousins following the Green Bay Packers win
The stars started to align for this Minnesota team, as they headed back home to San Francisco. The 49ers just had their first game where Brock Purdy looked like a seventh-round draft choice, albeit against the number-one defense in the Cleveland Browns.
The talk of moving pieces like Danielle Hunter, Jordan Hicks, K.J. Osborn, even Cousins were growing louder as the Monday night showdown approached.
This was supposed to be the nail in the coffin. The final blow to a team that had no business being on the field with a team as dominant as San Francisco.
Well, nobody told Minnesota.
The Vikings came out with all eyes on this one game and dominated the football game from start to finish. Cousins played arguably one of his best games in his career. Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson combined for over 200 yards. This defense hadn’t allowed 200 yards of offense since some quarterback in Arizona at the beginning of the month of October.
The defense confused the young quarterback, and forced San Francisco’s first multi-turnover game since the same day last season, October 23rd, against the eventual Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs.
Needless to say, the Vikings were riding high going high into Green Bay, where they continued their domination against an inferior Packers team. Jordan Love and the Packers offense had no answers for this Vikings defense, and Cousins was playing at a supreme level yet again…until around ten and a half minutes left to go in the game.
It was third & 19, Cousins was going to look to fool the Green Bay defense and pump a tunnel screen to go to the motioned T.J. Hockenson. But, if the defense wasn’t fooled, just drop it off to Addison and kick the field goal to make it a three-possession game. But, as Cousins dropped back, he felt pressure from Preston Smith and Kenny Clark, so he looked to move up in the pocket as he had done all game long. Only this time, it was different.
His foot gets stuck in the grass of Lambeau Field, and his season ends right there on the 26-yard line.
Cousins had been playing the best football of his career at the age of 35. Now, he’s got to recover from one of the more debilitating injuries in all of sports, still at the age of 35.
It was a crushing blow to Minnesota. A blow that could have all of these good tidings wear off just in time for the holiday season. A blow that left a huge question…what do we do now?
Week 9 & beyond: What do we do now?
“We asked a lot of [Dobbs], and [had] spectacular performances around him, but this is a win that, hopefully, we can build on because a lot of things were tested today. [While] the results will never drive what we do, but the results can certainly confirm everything that you believe when they do come, and do I feel that that happened in that locker room just now.” O’Connell postgame press conference after the Falcons game
That brings us up to speed.
Where the Vikings are now 5-4 and if the playoffs started tomorrow, would be playing the Detroit Lions at Ford Field.
The road to getting to this point has been full of turmoil, and have had plenty of moments where teams before them have thrown in the towel.
Whether that’s when the season started 0-3 and nothing seemed to be bouncing Minnesota’s way. When they lost the league’s most dominant quarterback on the way to a loss against Kansas City that dropped them to a measly 1-4. When, amidst clawing their way back into the thick of things, they lose their leader, their voice, their heartbeat in Cousins.
At any point, this team could have folded it in and called it quits. Nobody would have blamed them.
But they didn’t.
They chose to fight instead. They chose to work that much harder to get to their next goal, and that all starts with the man-in-charge Kevin O’Connell.
O’Connell is getting every last drop out of his players, and that shows with the constant effort on Sundays.
David Quessenberry did not know that he would be thrown in and play every snap at left tackle against the Falcons. He only allowed one pressure and earned an 86.6 pass-block grade from PFF.
Some of the most dangerous teams are ones that have nothing to lose. The football gods have tried to take away as much as they can from this Vikings team…and they refuse to surrender.
Now, with Jefferson returning soon, and the defense continuing to improve from week-to-week, who knows where this Minnesota team can go.
There is a limit to where they can go, this is not a Super Bowl contender, by any means.
But, like last year, they play like a team of destiny every single week.
And if a team feels destined to be something special, it’s going to take a lot of convincing to prove them otherwise.
