‘We’ve learned a lot about that’ — Kevin O’Connell addresses winning meaningless games vs. improving NFL Draft position

Kevin O’Connell is firmly in the camp of trying to win every game, even if it means hurting NFL Draft position.

Tyler Forness — NFL & College Football News Writer
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Dec 14, 2025; Arlington, Texas, USA; Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell during the second half against the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium.
Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images

The Minnesota Vikings went from being 4-8 and projected to have a top-10 pick in the NFL Draft to 8-8 after a four-game winning streak and selecting 17th overall.

Fans will tell you that those wins aren’t worth it, and picking inside the top-10 is more important. When you look at the talent available at both spots, there is a significant talent gap. Getting a better player is a priority for the fanbase, but players and coaches want to win football games.

Kevin O’Connell is focused on winning over NFL Draft position

How do you balance out winning football games that don’t mean anything with keeping players healthy and, in turn, prioritizing NFL Draft position? For head coach Kevin O’Connell, it’s not a problem at all, as he wants to win.

“I think anytime as an organization, when you get 17 opportunities [to win football games], I believe you do everything in your power to win every single one of those opportunities,” said O’Connell. “I think we’re going to look back on moments throughout the season where, hey, it could have been different if [this happened], but our jobs for this week are to go out there in a divisional game, we get a chance to finish with a winning record in one of the most competitive divisions in football.”

O’Connell is right. Winning games is a big deal, and hard to do in the NFL. While it might be “better” to have a higher draft pick, players and coaches are always working on their next job. It’s also important for the future, because winning games in December is harder than winning in September.

“I said this last week. I said it after the game. December wins are something that I know,” continued O’Connell. “A couple of years ago, I talked a lot about finding a way to play better in December and for back-to-back years. We really have, and I think that’s something we can keep stacking moving forward. We set out on this journey when we were pretty dark times a few weeks back, and I laid out the challenge to our team. I laid out the challenge to our coaching staff, to navigate this the right way. And my belief is we would, and to their credit, they’ve answered the challenge, and we found a way to stack some wins together for a team that had not won back-to-back games, to have won four in a row, and do it in different ways. Whatever it takes to win each individual game, I think we’ve learned a lot about that and the makeup of our organization.”

Culture matters, and the Vikings are putting it ahead of everything.

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