Amid uncertainty with Aaron Jones, Vikings HC Kevin O'Connell has confidence in former fifth round pick
The Minnesota Vikings have an issue at running back. Aaron Jones is now week-to-week with a hip injury with Ty Chandler taking over as the lead back. It's a position that Chandler has held before at the end of 2023 when he torched the Cincinnati Bengals for 132 yards and a touchdown. So far this […]
The Minnesota Vikings have an issue at running back. Aaron Jones is now week-to-week with a hip injury with Ty Chandler taking over as the lead back. It's a position that Chandler has held before at the end of 2023 when he torched the Cincinnati Bengals for 132 yards and a touchdown.
So far this season, the Vikings have an average rushing attack this season with 577 yards across the first five games. On Sunday, the running game took a dip when Jones left with an injury. Is it worth being concerned about?
Kevin O'Connell has plenty of confidence in Ty Chandler
With the Vikings potentially missing Jones against the Detroit Lions, Chandler could be the lead back and O'Connell has faith in him.
"I thought, you know, it was a shame a couple, a couple of his real ops, one of which went 30 plus yards. We had a procedural penalty that cannot happen, and then had another penalty on another nice gain there in the second half, where I think they got Ed (Ingram) for a penalty that really could have gone either way, kind of with how the play materialized, and everything so tough, tough to lose some quality yards, especially with the type of game it was against one of the top defenses in the NFL.
"Thought there were some other runs where I think if Ty can get into a flow, into a groove, maybe we find a few more yards on them, but that's all part of the process. I got a lot of confidence in Ty really going back to last year, when he really emerged for us, like he did second half of last season. So a lot of confidence in Ty. Would love to just get the simple execution, and it's one of the things we'll take a look at, is just, you know, across the board, just a little cleaner, you know, cleaner operation as an offense in its totality, will lead to us being a little bit more consistent, I do believe, because there are a bunch of really talented players on our offense, and there's plays that are out there, we just got to just start doing consistently a little bit more of the little things that we've got to do a better job, you know, as coaches, making sure happens."
O'Connell is onto something when it comes to getting into a groove. Some running backs are the type where the more they run, the better they perform. It gets the adrenaline pumping and they get adjusted to the flow of the game, allowing them to make better decisions.
If the Vikings can get Chandler rolling and into a groove, the hope is they can get some explosive plays on the ground. It's happened before and can happen again.
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