Zulgad's Roundup: The price on Kevin O'Connell's next contract is rising with each win
Vikings ownership said the coach's contract would be addressed after the year, but with the team off to a 3-0 start, and Sam Darnold playing like an MVP candidate, that decision could prove costly.
The Minnesota Vikings are 3-0, Sam Darnold has turned from NFL bust into NFL MVP candidate, and the team is receiving praise nationally coming off a 34-7 destruction of the previously undefeated Houston Texans on Sunday.
There are nothing but good vibes at TCO Performance Center.
Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell gets much of the credit for this, beginning with his decision to pursue Darnold as the team’s starter and then help him go from a guy that some considered a lost cause to a quarterback who has thrown for an NFL-leading eight touchdowns and only two interceptions so far.
O’Connell has repeatedly said that Darnold deserves credit for his turnaround and there is no doubt a guy making $10 million on a one-year contract stands to be handsomely compensated with a multiyear deal next March.
But Darnold isn’t the only one whose price tag figures to be skyrocketing.
Vikings owner Mark Wilf said in training camp that extensions for general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell aren’t “something we’re talking about at this point.” Wilf said ownership wanted to keep its focus on the season and indicated the topic of extensions would come after the season. Both are signed through 2025.
The wait-and-see approach is fine, but it’s unlikely the price that O’Connell’s agent, former NFL player Trace Armstrong, will be seeking come springtime is the same figure he might have accepted this summer.
The Vikings went 13-4 and won the NFC North in O’Connell’s first season, losing to the New York Giants in the wild card round. That was followed by a disappointing 7-10 finish in 2023, a season that included the loss of starting quarterback Kirk Cousins to a season-ending injury after the Vikings had overcome a 1-4 start to improve to 4-4.
O’Connell, a quarterback picked in the third round of the 2008 draft by the New England Patriots, received credit for his work with Cousins, but the veteran was an already established player and certainly wasn’t considered a reclamation project.
So did O’Connell belong in the conversation with the best offensive minds? He had been the Los Angeles Rams’ offensive coordinator for two seasons for Sean McVay and was hired by the Vikings after the Rams won Super Bowl LVI over the Cincinnati Bengals.
If there was any question about O’Connell’s acumen when it came to play calling or developing quarterbacks, the early-season success of Darnold, and the development we saw from injured J.J. McCarthy in training camp, has provided valuable answers. None them negative.
Mike McDaniel, who became the Miami Dolphins coach at the same time O’Connell took over in Minnesota and also signed a four-year deal, received a three-year extension in late August and is now signed through 2028.
McDaniel has one more playoff berth than O’Connell as a head coach, but O’Connell has a regular-season winning percentage of .622 (23-14) to McDaniel’s .568 (21-16). Both are known as very good offensive minds and are associated with the Shanahan coaching tree.
Getting figures on what head coaches are paid isn’t easy, but Armstrong is likely to know exactly what McDaniel received and will look to surpass that. The estimation is O’Connell currently makes between $5 and $7 million per season.
If Darnold continues to play like an MVP candidate, making him one of the best stories in the NFL, the ask on O’Connell’s next contract is likely to increase. Remember, there is no salary cap on an NFL head coaches or their staff.
Finding a coach that can either develop or fix a quarterback makes him invaluable. That should be reason enough for Vikings ownership to alter their approach when it comes to O’Connell’s contract.