I never thought I’d write this about a 6-2 football team, but it’s time to talk about Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell being on the hot seat. If you’ve followed my coverage over the years, you know I’ve been one of O’Connell’s biggest defenders, especially when it comes to his offenses and how players have consistently gotten open.

That has changed over the past few weeks. You should always be willing to change your opinion with new information, which is what led me to this. Being so steadfast that you can’t evolve is poor process, and my view of O’Connell’s hot seat situation has evolved greatly, especially over the last few weeks.

Kevin O’Connell deserves to be on the hot seat

O’Connell has done a lot of good things in Minnesota. He’s only the second head coach ever to have each of his first five seasons include a five-game winning streak. The only other coach to do it was George Seifert, who took over Bill Walsh’s 49ers dynasty in the late 1980s and led them to two Super Bowl championships.

Being in that kind of company is impressive, and it shouldn’t be taken for granted. O’Connell is 49-27, including a 6-2 start this season. Winning is a huge part of the job, as is the elite culture he’s built, and those have to work in his favor.

That being said, being a head coach involves more than winning games. It doesn’t matter how good you are when your decisions and the offense you call become catastrophic for the football team.

The Vikings are near the bottom of the league in points scored and yards gained. They have fewer than 1,300 passing yards through eight games, which is less than 200 yards per game. That’s alarming in this era of football, especially with Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison to throw to.

This offense was built in O’Connell’s image

O’Connell inherited quite a few players, including Brian O’Neill, Christian Darrisaw, Justin Jefferson, and Kirk Cousins. Even so, it was still his call whether to retain them, and all of them received new contracts after he arrived. Minnesota also added T.J. Hockenson, Jordan Addison, Aaron Jones, Jordan Mason, and Donovan Jackson, who is currently on injured reserve.

Despite all of that, the Vikings haven’t had a top-10 offense in EPA per play under O’Connell. They’re 0-2 in the playoffs, losing in the wild card round after 13-4 and 14-3 seasons. Minnesota has beaten its win total in three of his four full seasons as the head coach, but two playoff berths and no postseason wins isn’t good enough.

A lot of the blame landed on former general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. I don’t buy it, especially when it comes to their quarterback decisions. O’Connell was once called a quarterback killer because he passed on Kenny Pickett, Will Levis, and Hendon Hooker. He was steadfast on wanting Anthony Richardson and Drake Maye before settling on J.J. McCarthy, and that didn’t work out. The Vikings then shipped McCarthy away for a fifth-round pick.

The path to that point was messy. Minnesota let Cousins walk, signed Sam Darnold, and watched him become a very good quarterback. The Vikings added Daniel Jones to the practice squad as a potential bridge for McCarthy, then couldn’t get either of them to sign a new contract. They traded for Sam Howell, dropping 30 spots in the fifth round, flipped him, and signed Carson Wentz.

When McCarthy struggled, O’Connell was slow to adjust. Some of that is defensible, since you don’t want to overreact to a small sample size. However, the Vikings didn’t do enough to cater to McCarthy until late in the year, when he finally thrived.

The pattern repeated with Kyler Murray. O’Connell made changes for Murray and then reverted to what he wanted to run. There’s a level of stubbornness, and frankly arrogance, in how he has operated. Now that Cousins is back, O’Connell can run his offense again, but the cost was a third-round pick to fix a catastrophic collection of errors.

National media is now having the conversation

ESPN’s Bill Barnwell recently discussed O’Connell’s situation, and it’s no accident that national voices are weighing in:

“If the Cousins move fails, what happens next could be even more dramatic. O’Connell had deservedly earned a reputation as one of the league’s best offensive architects after building successful offenses with Cousins, Dobbs and Darnold under center, but recent results haven’t been quite as promising. McCarthy’s (admittedly very small sample of) success in New York after being traded to the Giants earlier this year doesn’t help O’Connell’s case. If the Vikings do squander this dominant defense and miss out on the playoffs in a brutally difficult NFC North, would ownership prioritize keeping Flores around, even if it meant promoting the defensive coordinator to head coach? “

The beat focuses more on the day-to-day until the end of the season approaches. National analysts have more flexibility to talk about the big picture, so when one raises this question, it matters. It wouldn’t shock me if the Wilfs are thinking along the same lines.

There are no more excuses for O’Connell. Maybe McCarthy wasn’t mature enough, and maybe his success is rooted in getting a fresh start. It’s still a bad look when he’s playing well elsewhere, and your quarterback position is actively bad.

O’Connell’s offense is creative and gets receivers open down the field. That doesn’t matter if the quarterback can’t make the throw. Add it all up, and it’s a lot of questions about a 6-2 coach who now sits squarely on the hot seat.