Vikings' super power is on the sidelines
O'Connell's team didn't panic against the Bears and came away with a win
By Matthew Coller
EAGAN — In the immediate aftermath of Nahshon Wright’s pick-six, Soldier Field turned into a party. As the Chicago Bears went up 17-6 in the third quarter, it looked like Chicago had put a stake through the heart of the Minnesota Vikings as they were trying to fight back from early offensive struggles.
On the sidelines, head coach Kevin O’Connell yelled over the noise to his quarterback JJ McCarthy that he had made the right decision on the throw that Wright intercepted and just caught a bad break. McCarthy nodded.
“I felt like our communication on the sideline was something that I was really proud of,” McCarthy said. “Coach O'Connell's ability to adjust and adapt was something that was great, expected, just being the great play caller he is. But I feel like just our internal dialogue with the line, the receivers, tight ends running backs, was something that was really cool.”
Elsewhere on the sideline, the kid QB’s teammates were calm. They talked about the answers they needed for the next drive.
“You never saw any guys get low or too high, was even keeled, even when things weren't going our way,” running back Aaron Jones said. “The Chicago players are over there, kind of celebrating towards our sideline and you see the guys just stay even keeled and we just continue to communicate with each other that, ‘hey, our time is coming. Let's take it one play at a time, deep breath. And once we make this one play, it's going to avalanche.’”
The avalanche arrived in the fourth quarter. The Vikings broke through and came back with three fourth quarter touchdown drives led by McCarthy to beat the Bears 27-24.
“For me, it's about controlling the controllables,” McCarthy said. “There's a lot of things that didn't go our way and just being able to focus on that next play. Stay present, stay calm, and really just worry about operating the next play. It's really simple, but hard to do. But I feel like just being in that thought process of, ‘OK, what can I control right here?’ Helps me out tremendously.”
Over the last three years of O’Connell’s tenure there has been a lot of discussion about one-score games and the Vikings’ penchant for winning them. There is truth to the idea that it’s difficult to win close games repeatedly without regression but O’Connell’s teams have now won 20 of 25 games separated by seven points or fewer when either Kirk Cousins, Sam Darnold or JJ McCarthy plays. That’s a pretty big sample size.
If we start to look for explanations rather than chalking it entirely up to luck, the common thread of the last three years is the lack of emotional reaction to whatever events have transpired, whether that be the comeback game against the Indianapolis Colts in 2022 or closing out tight games after nearly blowing leads twice to the Green Bay Packers.
“Maybe at times people want to see a Gatorade cooler thrown or a bench knocked over something, it was just about poise,” O’Connell said. “It was about understanding, the things that were happening were as much to do with things we could correct by just doing our jobs a little bit better, and then just trying to sustain that level of execution.”
Of course, O’Connell needed his quarterback to heed his words and avoid going into freakout mode but he was helped greatly by the fact that everyone around him has been through the battles of the NFL many times before. This was hardly a new situation for any of the key veterans on offense.
“Guys like Aaron Jones and Brian O'Neill and TJ Hockenson, these guys along with Justin [Jefferson]…have been through a lot of a lot of games together where maybe it wasn't going your way, and we're going to figure it out,” O’Connell said. “I thought our whole group and coaching staff included really kept level heads.”
O’Connell’s history also seems to have a self-fulfilling prophecy element to these situations. The more times they do it, the more times they believe they can do it. With players who have been on the team over multiple years, they have seen his words turn into the truth. Last offseason, KOC preached that they would outperform expectations behind the much-maligned Sam Darnold and they ended up winning 14 games.
“Last year with our quarterback situation there was an unknown there as well,” O’Connell said. “So, I've just tried to lean on the fact that a lot of the guys that have the belief they do have had it before we took the field on Monday night.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean they can continue to play like they did against Chicago and expect the same results. For McCarthy’s debut, getting behind and then coming back in dramatic fashion made for great television and showed everyone that the young QB wouldn’t freak out on the big stage. But at one point the Vikings had a 5.8% chance to win the game according to ESPN Gamecast. Even if this team improves the odds of bad situations by not panicking and effectively communicating, it’s hard to win from behind consistently.
O’Connell’s main issue with the early part of the game is that players were lacking in details. He pointed out that small things like the timing on their motions was not precise.
“I thought there was some sloppiness to how we played,” O’Connell said. “What I mean by that is, we talk about ‘all 11,’ and how many snaps did we actually have all 11 guys just simply doing their job? fundamentals and technique, schematically, things they were coached to do. And it was kind of moving around a little bit, and we just weren't on the field enough. We weren't able to sustain any sort of momentum to allow ourselves to stack some plays.”
While everyone may have been calm and collected when they were down in the game, O’Connell did acknowledge that the crowd and atmosphere may have impacted his club and its QB, particularly on some of the big third downs when it was difficult to hear. This week, the friendly confines of US Bank Stadium will offer an easier atmosphere for the QB and his unit to operate.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Purple Insider to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.