'It was the rare kind of play repeat' Why Vikings HC Kevin O'Connell called the same play in a pivotal situation
The Minnesota Vikings have an elite level play caller in head coach Kevin O'Connell. I know that isn't always the most popular take, but the tape bears that out. He does a fantastic job of attacking down the field with creative concepts that stress out the defense. One of the great things that he does […]
The Minnesota Vikings have an elite level play caller in head coach Kevin O'Connell.
I know that isn't always the most popular take, but the tape bears that out. He does a fantastic job of attacking down the field with creative concepts that stress out the defense.
One of the great things that he does is using the illusion of complexity. O'Connell uses very similar concepts across the board but has different ways of getting there. Dagger is a concept that O'Connell has a seemingly infinite amount of ways to get to.
It's not just the creative element that separates O'Connell from other play callers, its the willingness to be aggressive and, in this case, call a repeat play later in the game to take advantage of the defense.
Kevin O'Connell gives thoughtful insight on key fourth down play call
One of the things that O'Connell does well is find ways to attack space, especially against zone coverage. He likes to run corner and in-breaking routes to attack that space, especially since they see the most two-high coverage in the league according to Fantasy Points Data.
On Sunday, he called a corner route combo often referred to as "double sevens" which is a levels style concept with a deep corner and one more shallow. They missed it in the first quarter before hitting it in a key spot in the fourth quarter. Both clips are embedded below.
The completion to Addison was a fantastic throw and it came at a great time. The Athletic's Alec Lewis tweeted about the throw a couple of times and ended up asking him about it. O'Connell gave a very thoughtful answer.
"The one to Jordan up and over was the rare kind of play repeat. I had actually called it early on in the game. It's not breaking news, but I have not been a habitual play repeater during my time as a play caller. I felt like we had possibly forced some adjustments on how they were maybe defending the flat area, so I wanted to see if we could get that up and over on what would now be an on-the-ball, dropping linebacker instead of a cloud corner. Sam, the way he turned that thing loose and perfect up and down trajectory to it, I thought it was a huge throw. Maybe the most critical throw all game was that deep curl to Justin where he kind of thread the needle like you talked about, because that immediately went from a backed-up situation where some people may be looking at, ‘How do I force a manageable third down by playing safe?’ He felt the void his back foot hit and he turned it loose. That goes back to a previous question where it's built around principles of attacking voids and vacancies and knowing my arm talent to be able to turn the ball loose with great timing and some anticipation by all means. If there's some learning ops that come from that, so be it. It's the decision where, in your mind, it did not feel clean. It did not feel the way that it should at the top of your drop, and that split-second decision, which for the most part, I thought he did a phenomenal job handling those moments all day. There might have been one where we had a ball down the middle to speedy [Jalen Nailor] in the high red, where just wasn't a great presentation, wasn't a great call by me, and felt that moment where that ball just came up. That'll be something we talk about today, just because don't allow me giving you a bad play there, us anticipating more pressure on that look and only having three eligibles out. Don't allow me to force you to step outside the confines of playing really good quarterback play, because I certainly don't want to be the reason why that happens."
How O'Connell frames the decision to go back to the play is key here. Early in the game, the Vikings had some major issues with how the Cardinals were playing defense. The three safety looks and post-snap rotations were giving the Vikings issues and being able to adjust was a major factor in being able to win the game.
Football games are won in the margins and the Vikings have done a great job of doing so this season, and this is a prime example.
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