Vikings’ success on offense boils down to one thing with HC Kevin O’Connell, and it’s a fascinating element
The quarterback position has been a huge issue for Kevin O’Connell, and it could boil down to one element.
The success of the Minnesota Vikings’ offense under head coach Kevin O’Connell is fascinating to look at.
They thrived in 2022 with Kirk Cousins at quarterback, going 13-4 and 11-0 in one-score games in the regular season. That success continued in the first eight games of the 2023 season before Cousins tore his Achilles Tendon. After that, it was a mixed bag of success and failures with Josh Dobbs, Nick Mullens, and Jaren Hall at the helm.
The 2024 season saw the renaissance of Sam Darnold, who took the NFL by storm with a 14-3 record. The offense was both explosive and efficient. The Vikings tried to keep Darnold this offseason, but he chose to move on, and, with the presence of J.J. McCarthy in the building, nobody can blame him.
The 2025 season has been a series of mitigated disasters with McCarthy, Carson Wentz, and Max Brosmer. It’s been the worst season of Vikings football on offense in years. Why has there been such a brutal stretch in both 2023 and 2025? There’s one common link: age.
Kevin O’Connell’s success on offense happens with older quarterbacks
The most success that the Vikings have had on offense with O’Connell has been with players over 27 years old. That’s not to say that younger quarterbacks haven’t flashed with O’Connell calling plays, as McCarthy has had good stretches of play. Included in that were the first quarter against the Detroit Lions and the fourth quarter against the Chicago Bears, which earned him NFC Offensive Player of the Week.
Outside of that, it’s been rough. Why is that a thing? We can boil it down to one likely element: quarterbacks have the basics down a few years into their career.
O’Connell is a brilliant play designer who can generate explosive plays better than just about anyone in the NFL. Receivers get wide open in the intermediate area of the field with ease, especially on in-breaking concepts. The problem here is simple: quarterbacks need to be willing to stay in the pocket and attack down the field in murky situations. To do that, you need to have confidence and the fortitude to keep the mechanics in order. That is something we haven’t seen happen with younger quarterbacks.
To O’Connell’s credit, he has done some real adjusting this season over the course of this season with McCarthy, Wentz, and Brosmer. Calling shorter concepts, one-read concepts, more screens, and even breaking his own severe tendencies with running the football. Very little of it has worked out for the Vikings this season, and it’s not just one factor, the quarterback play has been the biggest reason.
O’Connell needs the basics to be there in order to see success in this vertical passing offense. The biggest problem with young quarterbacks is they are rarely there. Hall, McCarthy, and Brosmer had never started a game in the NFL before, and you can see those mechanical deficiencies get magnified in those high-pressure situations.
We are in a situation with O’Connell where they need a baseline of mechanical competency to see his offense thrive. You don’t get that with a rookie, or in McCarthy’s case, a second-year quarterback. Does that mean having a young quarterback just isn’t in the cards for O’Connell and the Vikings? Considering how poorly young quarterbacks have gone thus far, it’s certainly possible.
This offseason is going to tell us a lot about how the Vikings view the quarterback position. They need a baseline level of play moving forward just to move the football, and rookies have proven to be too volatile for that. Some of that is from the players themselves, but also the coaching that goes into it.
The Vikings are back in quarterback purgatory after theoretically getting out of it, and it’s far and away the worst place to be.
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