Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell revealed his source of confidence in finishing off the Packers
After building up a 17-point lead in the second half, Minnesota Vikings kicker Will Reichard missed his third field goal attempt (second officially) to keep the game within 17 points for the Green Bay Packers. At this point, the Packers scored a quick touchdown and forced a three-and-out, the Packers got their second touchdown to […]
After building up a 17-point lead in the second half, Minnesota Vikings kicker Will Reichard missed his third field goal attempt (second officially) to keep the game within 17 points for the Green Bay Packers.
At this point, the Packers scored a quick touchdown and forced a three-and-out, the Packers got their second touchdown to bring the game within two points at 27-25. The Vikings struggled running any time off the clock when they got the ball back with a nine-point lead and there was a worry that they wouldn't be able to.
Well, that changed quickly when the Vikings got the ball back with 2:18 to go and they sealed their 14th victory of the 2024 season.
Kevin O'Connell was comfortable with Sam Darnold
Normally when a team gets the ball in this situation, they run the football. It drains time off the clock to prevent the other team from getting the ball back. Well, the Packers had all three timeouts, and the Packers converting a two-point conversion on the touchdown to shrink the lead to nine made it a more difficult proposition.
The Vikings didn't go to the ground, they went to the air, a very aggressive decision.
"I think it's a little bit of both," said O'Connell about aggressiveness being in his DNA and philosophy. "We want to be aggressive. The best parts of our team come to life when we're aggressive. It requires execution. It requires some hard downs for some guys out there, whether it's the guys up front, our running backs, our tight ends, whatever it may be. Then it's ultimately Sam's ownership of the plan each and every week, truly absorbing that. We've got one game to win. Let's totally submerge ourselves in this game plan, apply the confidence from all these weeks that he's played so darn well, but then laser-focused on this plan and this opponent."
One of the biggest factors about how O'Connell made the decision to throw wasn't what you might think.
"I just didn't want to worry so much about the clock and making Matt use his timeouts."
The first play was brilliant. They took a simple run play with C.J. Ham in a power-I formation and used it to create a low-risk opportunity for a chunk play. He moved across the line like it was a split-zone play and Darnold hit him on a bootleg.
The bootleg element would become a key factor in the Vikings sealing the victory on Sunday afternoon, as O'Connell called three of them on that final four play sequence.
"I felt comfortable with Sam in those moments, and I loved how some of those things married up with some of the runs we'd either done late in games throughout the year or even tonight in the game. So I thought we'd get some edges and get Sam and his athleticism out on the perimeter."
The Vikings have done a great job this season in getting Darnold on the perimeter and getting easy yards. Usually, it's a pass in the flat to Josh Oliver or Johnny Mundt. This type of play design is where the illusion of complexity comes into play. O'Connell finds a way to take the same concepts that he uses and gets to them in a new way.
The second play was a run play with Cam Akers that ended up losing a yard. At that point, it felt like a near impossibility for the Vikings to run the ball for a first down. They ran for less than 3.0 yards per carry before Darnold took his three kneel downs and there was a sense that O'Connell would need to find a way to generate some yards.
The third play of the drive was another bootleg but this one was to the right which is Darnold's strong side. He ended up hitting Justin Jefferson for a nine yards gain. Carrington Valentine was all over Jefferson, but he made a great catch.
"It's something that we work on all the time," said Darnold about the throw to Jefferson. "It's something we've been working on since April. First of all, for him to be able to make that catch, I think he made it with one hand. I just try to put it in a really good spot for him, even though it was tight coverage, and I knew he would be able to come away with that football."
The key to this final drive has been trust and confidence and it came up in a big way with the game-sealing catch by running back Cam Akers.
"Yeah, that was incredible," said Darnold. "Incredible catch, incredible execution by all the guys on the field. It was not my best effort on that, but I'm just happy that Cam was able to come away with that and kind of seal the deal for us.
O'Connell had the guts to call another bootleg, but this time the design was brilliant. They sent Addison in jet motion to the left to get the linebackers flowing that direction and that little movement helped create just a bit of space for Akers to sneak out into the flat.
The brilliance of the play design comes from the play fake. Akers veers right while Darnold goes left to fake the handoff. It appears to be a busted play, which gets 55 Kingsley Enagbare to crash the quarterback which is one reason why the ball falls short. That doesn't matter because Akers made the catch and it's the latest example of the great culture that O'Connell has built.
"Love. It's okay to use that word every now and then," said O'Connell when talking about Akers. "Cam has something inside him that allowed him to push through the adversity of what's happened to him over the course of his career. He loves football. I think he loves being a Minnesota Viking. He loves his teammates. His teammates were probably the most excited all season when Cam scored on that screen, then obviously the catch late. He just brings something, brings physicality, brings a level of mental and physical toughness that I think makes us all better. We've got a lot of examples like that on our team, but Cam is just another one of them that I feel very fortunate to have him on this team."
That sequence of plays shows how special this team both is and can be.
"This was going to be a grind. You can hear it in my voice," said O'Connell about getting the 14th win. "That's what these things are, and we're all, every man in that locker room, player and coach, we're laying it on the line every single week with everything we absolutely have. And the best part of it is I do believe all we need is all of what we are and we're going to have a chance to win football games. We're going to have to keep on doing the things, like I said before, might come off as cliche, but when your team has ownership of every possible thing that we're doing and they work for something greater than just themselves, anything is really possible."
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