Comeback Win over Bears, J.J. McCarthy’s Resilience, Team Defense | X’s and O’s with Kevin O’Connell

Comeback Win over Bears, J.J. McCarthy’s Resilience, Team Defense | X’s and O’s with Kevin O’Connell

uh Nordo and um you don’t have the opportunity to be here so uh say hello to uh Kevin Oonnell as we start X’s and O’s because um you guys are quite fond of each other. Oh, absolutely. Uh thanks for doing this by the way again. Not even half a day really after uh last night’s victory at Soldier Field. I miss being down there as clunky as it is being back in St. Louis Park. Just just excited to get your thoughts and really appreciate the access that you give us on a weekly basis. Yeah, I miss you in here uh this morning, Nordo, but uh we’ll make up for it next week. Appreciate you guys doing this and uh glad to join you this morning. Uh likewise uh for like Nordo said for you stopping by uh after um getting back I think 3:35 3:40 is when we got back last night and um and you know the the word complimentary is where I would like to begin. Uh because there was comp I mean it’s it’s cliche for some but cliches are generally cliches because they’ve stood the test of time. Yep. And but but from a complimentary football standpoint, how about the complimentary nature of the Vikings Entertainment Network? I mean we have Curly Harris out there waiting for you with your football. Yeah. Jesse and Paige set up a chair for Extramm right there. They get He might not have shown up this morning if we didn’t get him a chair. So that’s good. But I mean it the complimentary nature of everybody in collaborative fashion with this organization is shining right now. But what I mean about the football game is as the offense was trudging through some things. The defense now, okay, hey, I mean with all due respect, teams get to have full off seasons to plan things, go down on templated drives and score. I mean, they get to do that. What happens after? Well, it was pretty good. Yeah. Defensively speaking. So then now the offense starts going. the defense uh is is still holding their offense at bay and the kicker hits from 59 and the putt returner’s going for 22. Yep. I mean, it personified complimentary football last night. Yeah. I think uh you don’t win a game like that unless you have it and um you know, one of the things that that that you look at as a team is uh you know, we’ve now been together as a staff for for a few years and so that means a couple things. that means we’re going up against, you know, a year one staff on the other side and and you know, no matter what the experience level we had previously, uh there was going to be some things that uh we had to work through and on really both sides and and I thought Flo and his staff did a phenomenal job after that first drive just kind of hitting the reset button and and locking in for a considerable uh considerable amount of time um to allow us to stay in the football game. Um, I thought that end of half sequence was huge to, you know, try to because you’re you’re really up against it, right? If you start calling your timeouts too early, maybe you turn, you know, it clearly seemed like with some of the play calls on the other side, they were willing to let that clock go down and not give us the opportunity. So, we had to find that perfect kind of middle ground there. And it was ended up being a fourth and short, but not too short that that he would go for it, especially after all the time that had ticked off the clock. But for JJ to hit that throw uh to Jaylen Naylor and uh for Will to to come on and what we originally thought would be, you know, about a 50, you know, 50 maybe 6, 57 yard. Um you know, replay assist moves that ball back and just for the folks at home, I mean, that happens. You know, you send your field goal team on. Well, that was replay assist. Then replay assist moves that ball back. Uh and then what you know you either have to hockey line change the offense back on and risk you know some chaos at that point or you just trust in big will to to knock it through and he hit it pure. It was awesome and and it’s a career long for him, but it it doesn’t mean because kicking was bad around the league Sunday that it has to be bad on Monday. But I mean kick and and I know you had a lot going on Sunday, but I mean from Cleveland to Atlanta, just kickers were missing huge kicks all Sunday and Santos missed from 50. Your guy hit from 59. So that plays into the game of inches cliche, you know, that is also age-old. But I just thought last night’s game was fascinating and and I don’t want to overplay this because I caught it on your sideline through my binoculars and it involves Josh Matelis. All right. And I mean it it it was sullen. I mean nobody was talking. It was quiet. It’s not not not like people were pissed off and yelling at each other but it wasn’t going the right way. Yep. And then I got my binoculars on Matelis and I don’t know what he was saying but he was jumping around bouncing around to like players and groups and then all of a sudden people started standing up and so Matelis I think played an underrated role on the sideline of getting everybody fired up when it wasn’t going well. Yeah, it was just about energy. Uh you know they got that they got that stop and and he came off the field and and just wanted to you know he was basically saying everything’s right there for us. um we got to have that energy and the only play that matters is the next one. And it was all positive. It was all uh what you expect out of somebody with his types of type of leadership traits. And quite honestly, you know, PA are our our players and and those are the games and I told the team afterwards, those are the games that, you know, if you ever want to know why we attempt to do things the way we do uh throughout the off seasons, the way we build our team, the way we talk about the things that, you know, can be cliche at times. You know, yesterday was a perfect example of um how, you know, we all around here don’t think they’re necessarily cliches when it comes to culture, when it comes to what our players have built in that locker room. Um cuz it is one of those things that a game like that with how, you know, how it went, especially in the opener. Um it’s easy, you know, it’s it’s easy for everybody to say, you know what, maybe it’s just not our night. Uh we’ve got to improve. We got a short week coming. all these circumstances that uh our team just doesn’t think about and we just keep playing keep playing as long as we possibly can and and having faith over fear whether it’s in your profession or whether it’s in real life it sometimes it’s easier said than done but it seemed from afar that there was no panic I mean it’s three and out score three and out and and just trying to get this thing going the to and and that’s one thing I talked about a lot on the radio and with with some people even at the team hotel was the totality of the game is what I felt was going to matter most because you know again they they’re going to come out throwing haymakers and round houses and and they want to get their fans going and it was as loud at Soldierfield last night as I’ve heard it in quite some time. So they had everything going the way they wanted it. Yep. But you you got you got to play the whole thing and you know with all due respect I thought their defense got a little tired at the end of the game last night. That factors into it too. But but a key here for you guys and and you preached this is is faith over fear. We’re not going to panic. And you guys didn’t panic last night when it wasn’t going right. Correct. Yeah. I think you know one of the things that you you have to understand, you know, especially in my role where there’s a lot going on from a standpoint of managing the game, managing the team. Um but there’s a guy out there playing quarterback that was in his first, you know, first NFL start on the road. I actually made the mistake on the headsets um right before the national anthem of saying, you know what, I don’t think there’s a ton of energy in here right now. We we might be all right, guys. And then that national anthem, the fly over uh I think his name is Jim Cornelius, Cornelius or Cornelia. I mean, he that was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. And clearly um you know I was not familiar with him but clearly everybody else in the at Soldierfield was cuz he he brought it and that you then you know the energy was from there was electric and and it just didn’t it didn’t slow down at all. But um you know there’s just going to be times where you know maybe in the past I would have um you know borderline you know started to lose it or tried to use some tactics of motivation that are you know maybe less than ideal from a positivity standpoint and just a yeah you know persevere with that kind of uh you know faith over fear kind of mindset. Um, but with a young quarterback, everything has to stay to him. It’s got to stay equal. It’s got to stay uh in a place where myself, Josh over there sitting with him who did a phenomenal job, Josh Macau all game. Um, and then our team, you know, I’ve tried to prepare our team in a way, you know, on an individual basis, talking to a lot of our leadership, talking to the team occasionally about it. like when you are doing this as an organization, it is our responsibility to make sure that we maintain um what we want to be about and it’s for his betterment, but it’s for our team’s benefit and just keep playing, just keep trying to find a way and we’ve got a lot of faith in here. We’re eventually going to do that. Um cuz it’s, you know, it’s not the first time something like that’s happened. Uh but for those circumstances, for JJ and all things considered, uh I was really proud of our team and and especially JJ. It’s and and there I mean we we could chat nuance with with with JJ McCarthy and kind of like what we talked about in that pregame about when you know you work on something with a youngster and they finally get it. There’s like a surrogate dad moment where it’s kind of like Yes. Yeah. Well done. And I mean there’s just so many I’ I’ve never dealt with anything like this in all my years. It started with Dante Co Pepper for me. Then we’re into Gus Farat and Kelly Hulcom and Cousins of all these veterans. This is different. The way people talk about the 22-year-old Aaron Jones being like, “Let me take you into the huddle. It’s ugly. I mean, we’re muddled. We can’t get anything going.” He’s looking around saying, “This is unbelievable we get to do this and be here right now.” Little facets like that. And even the the nuance on the keeper, you know, uh Brisker comes on a blitz and and totally bit on the cheese and you head around the right side and get into the end zone. The they sprinted. I mean, the jubilation to get down there and be with him. Little things like that, you can just tell that they’ll lay on swords for your quarterback. And isn’t that important? Yeah. I mean, and it’s it’s, you know, all the credit in the world should go to JJ and and his teammates. I mean that that relationship that’s built been built and you know many times around the league that those you know the requirements sometimes are you got to do those things first. We got to see it. Um and that’s you know probably the better part of the entire you know football world. We need to see it before we believe it. We need to see it before where we understand plans and and what the big picture is and all that. you know, that that to me is is just not the way uh I’ve ever operated and and hopefully no team I ever coach will because we’ve got to believe in that moment. It’s all about the things that have transpired up until that point. It’s all about the time that uh JJ put in in this building. He’s obviously had the offseason program, the training camp, you know, a portion and and things weren’t going well. So for our team to still trust in that moment and then kind of that explosion of energy and emotion when he was, you know, making some of those plays in the second half that, you know, that can be uh infectious for a while, I hope because now we do have confirmation even though uh we’ve all been believing that it would come and it would happen. Um we’ve got the confirmation now. So now what are we going to do with it? Are we going to build on it? Are we going to uh become the best version of a football team that we can become? Because that’s the facts are the facts in the first half. um we didn’t play very well and it it was a lot of different things that maybe didn’t necessarily involve JJ McCarthy why certain aspects of our offense stalled which way too much of that was the case and then we got a little bit more better you know all 11 guys doing their job and some simple things started to look uh like we what we want to look like as an offense and and and off that I’m glad you said that because during your press conference you said many fascinate you said many cool things but there was one that fascinated fasinated me is is when you were talking about the Bears after they had to scratch their two corners. So Kyler Gordon, you know, he’s late to the injury report over the weekend, which no team ever wants. So they scratch Gordon and they scratch Jaylen Johnson and the start. So those two corners are down and the unscouted way they then decided to play defensively. Uh so so what were they doing and and what and how did uh McCarthy and you guys push through? Yeah, I think uh first and foremost, you know, you’re playing against Dennis Allen. We’ve played him twice. You know, we we feel like going into the game, there’s enough data of what, you know, with the the time in in New Orleans he had some of the limited looks that you had from the preseason. um you feel like there’s going to be maybe some things you can really sculpt the game plan to try to play against and there was some things early on whether it was a third down uh disguise and and kind of playing something new that they hadn’t played before out of that look. uh they were throwing some different unique versions of of you know some of their split safety coverages out of some disguise where clearly it’s a hey young quarterback let’s see if we can distort the picture a little bit while also trying to get uh home with the pass rush and then they had you know the you know an exotic blitz package out of some of their heavier DB groupings with seven you know very flowike six seven eight guys at times up there at the line of scrimmage they brought a cover zero multiple times in the game they were going do some things to try to uh, you know, maybe protect some of those players. There wasn’t a lot of standard, you know, just this is how Dennis Allen’s always coached, but there were some of those things as well. And it’s it’s really what you run into every week in this league. But when you’re in the opener and you’re trying to, you know, manifest and and envision how you want to piece together the plan with a young quarterback where you can’t just go uh just drawing it up in the dirt like you would with a 8 n 10 year veteran that’s been through it. Um and and and that’s where at times we we’ve got to lean on our execution, the details. If we’re, you know, if it’s a third and three and and the route’s supposed to be at five yards, it’s got to be at five yards. It’s, you know, if they if if we’re supposed to do this in protection, you know, we got to, you know, we can be physical, but we got to make sure we take care of those downs. And a couple times it got a little loose, you know, just by people trying to be, you know, have that play style and be physical, but all those little loose kind of aspects of things early on uh kept us from converting. You know, there were some other opportunities in the pass game where we we didn’t quite finish the pitch and catch. And then ultimately at right about those times um where we needed to finish drives when we did either get that long PI call, we had a couple long PI calls where you’re looking at it from a standpoint of, you know, you don’t get that yardage as an offense, but that moved the ball 40 plus yards on that Aaron Jones PI. And what ends up happening is uh you can start to feel the oxygen if you allow it kind of leave the sideline, leave the headsets as a coaching staff and and the last thing that can possibly happen is our quarterback, our young quarterback and his first start on the road to feel that. So, uh just tried to eliminate that possibility from happening, persevere and find a way. And and I know Vikings fans were, you know, it was not pretty. Um, nobody’s more aware of that than myself as far as uh what that looked like for way too long of a stretch, but uh I can tell you there’s a lot of things that that we all, me included, uh we’ll go right back to work on improve and uh we’re going to be an improving offense as the year goes on and um there’s a lot to build off of, especially, you know, from the last, call it 17 plus minutes of football we played last night. Let’s hope we build on that and that’s the plan. Well, speaking of the fans, we do a talkback weekly uh for Kevin Okonnell via X’s and O’s and uh back at KFAM. We have that talkback. Here it is. Hey, what’s up? It’s Blake from White Bear Lake here. Hey, coach. Got a quick question for you. I know Jenny McCarthy clutched over that fourth quarter. You love everything about that. I’m actually going to lean towards the defense here. We saw some new snaps coming out from Eric Wilson with Cash being out along with Dallas Turner being involved in more of the snaps as well as some other guys. Just want to hear about your thoughts on this new defense scheme and these new guys just really pulling up to where they need to be as well as our special teams also again school. Thanks, coach. Yeah, Blake, I thought uh you know, you can’t really make a game like that happen without some of those performances and you know, just specifically talking about Eric Wilson. I mean, for him to step in and and be a veteran presence and and we’ve talked a lot about that green dot, the guy calling the defenses and and the guy hearing Brian Flores’s voice and making sure there’s a lot of moving parts to our defense and and for him to step in and do what he did in place of uh Cash uh was was critical, was absolutely critical. Um you mentioned Dallas Turner. Uh Dallas Turner, you know, is really part of a three-man grouping with with JG and and Gink to allow us to have three really versatile physical uh different kind of players to do different things that allows us to play a lot of different looks out of the same grouping. There was quite a few snaps last night. Um, if Vikings fans saw it, which Blake definitely did, where we actually had Dallas, Gink, and and Gernard on the field all together at the same time for good chunks of time. Did Dallas play something called the five tech or like when I asked him after the game, you played a lot. You’re all over the place. Like, yeah, they played me a lot of the five, I think, is what he said. What is that? So, so he played it’s it’s it’s basically like, you know, if you look at traditional four down defenses. Um, our defensive front can morph into a lot of different looks, but he essentially instead of being a true outside backer, he was a defensive end a couple times. He kicked down with, you know, when uh him and Gink were, you know, if there’s a tight end there, him and Gink were Gink was outside of him and Dallas was playing one of the interior roles. I I don’t think you can dis discount what Hargrave did for us. Um, Jonathan Allen, I mean, Caleb, the mobility is real. I mean, we know that. We’ve seen it multiple times now. And, uh, there are probably another four or five potential chances um, where he was able to get away, maybe more. Um, where he was able to get away and and I thought for the most part um, we tried to limit the damage down the field, but he was able to kind of find some loose yardage, but there was a lot of times we were getting him off the spot, keeping him from throwing in rhythm, finding a rhythm. Um, but yeah, there’s a lot of guys that that I thought really had some solid performances throughout the night to really kind of do their jobs as one of 11 to help us stay in that game defensively. And I thought Flo and his staff did a great job as well. And and Kevin X’s and O’s with Kevin Okonnell. Vikings beat the Bears. Kevin is 4-0 at Soldier Field. Atlanta for the home opener. Uh, Sunday Night Football, KFAN, Vikings Audio Network. Uh, the pressures. I mean, you talk about this all the time is like the sacks. Yeah, it’s great, you know, to have 20 sacks or whatever. Those are great for sure. But the pressures matter, too. And Hargrave and Allen, I think they they might have combined for 12. Yeah. Between those two from those two spots, I mean, that’s exactly what you signed up for, I would imagine, when you brought him in. All right, we got to hurry and there’s still a lot. Um, how did Donovan Jackson handle his debut? Yeah, I thought uh there was uh a lot of really positive things that Donovan did. you know, he he he drew the match up most of the night with with Grady Jarrett who’s a really good player and veteran player, crafty, you know, has a b uh you know, some twitch and explosion in there as a really kind of uh you know, a guy that’s done it really at a high level for a long time and and Donovan really did a lot of good things. There were some moments where, you know, Donovan’s a rookie and and hey, we can a play and he goes the wrong way on something. And those are all learnable moments just with how much and how fast um things can happen out there. But it has not one time PA felt too big for him, right? Um this guy is, you know, he’s a guy that I’ve always just looked at as in the moment he’s going to his next snap, he’s going to correct whatever he needs to correct. He’s going to uh apply the coaching that he’s gotten throughout the week. He’s going to evolve throughout the game and adjust based upon what we’re seeing. And u that bodess really well with his physical skill set and play style, you know, to go along with all those other things. That bodess really well for our first round pick. And and you know, another thing that I just love about what you guys do is things that you’ll do in first quarter, second quarters of games to set up third and or fourth quarter plays. But that also can be the case in first games for Dublin games or uh SoFi games. You know what I’m saying? What I’m talking about here is I I mean Mason and Jones in the game at the same time. I mean that that has to be something off which you can build myriad ways, especially Aaron Jones in space. And I mean I got a lot of respect for Tmaine Edmonds. I mean he runs like the wind. He’s tall and his arms go from Maui to Maine. But you found a way to get him where it’s like, wow, I got to run a long way with this guy and this guy’s fast. Yeah. And and I don’t know if Mason was in the game on that play or not, but when those guys are together, you can build off that, right? Yeah. And I think it’s the versatility of Aaron. It’s the fact that uh Jordan Mason’s, you know, such an incredible compliment from a play type and style standpoint. I mean, some of those physicality runs we, you know, we started getting the ball downhill a little bit, started to wear on them, as you said. We just, you know, across the board, I mean, we just didn’t have enough plays. you know, when you’re looking at it before that final sequence of three, what you have about 45. I think we’re at 46. Uh we still had over five, you know, five yards of play. Um which is something we want to push, you know, north of that six number, uh is is kind of where we’d like to to live at. But, um we just didn’t have enough plays. We got to find a way um to just be a little bit more efficient and find a way to convert some of those third or shorters if we’re going to be um running the football and staying kind of manageable. Um it was not going to be a game we just, you know, flat out decided to, you know, chuck it 50 times around the yard. Uh those days will come. Yeah. Um but our team is built differently. It’s built to try to find a way to win football games and they’re not always going to be um how you draw them up. They’re not going to be, you know, ones that I would personally hang up on the wall, right? Um, in the, uh, you know, football art studio. Uh, but that’s we’re going to find a way to keep growing as a team and and my goal is we just keep on getting better and better. But we are not going to wait till the morning after to do that. We’re going to do it in game. We’re going to find a way. Uh, two minutes. And I can’t leave the X’s and O’s conversation without mentioning Miles Price. Yeah. I mean, seriously, it’s it’s that that first kick where I forgot the guy who blasted him, Daniel Hardy, the defensive lineman. I mean, he stuck him. That that was, let’s put the preseason to the side and the Patriots joins to the side. That was Miles Price’s first kick return in a game that counted since 2020 when it was at Texas Tech. All right, so he caught it. He did all the fundamentals right. Just hold on to it, my man, as we raise the undrafted Indiana Hooser. Well, then Hardy kills him and he holds on to it. Uh, and Taylor at the end out kicks his coverage and Miles, you know, takes advantage of that. He’s fearless, isn’t he? He’s just fearless. He’s got an unbelievable mindset, you know, an infectious personality, and you just, you know, I remember telling uh Quy early on in training camp that there was just something about him when you start getting to know him, you have conversations with him, and he is prepared in his own mind for every moment that could come. Uh it was really it was a it was a fun moment. After that play, he was kind of standing by himself, and it uh I I you know, I kind of walked up to him. And I said, “Well, it’s good to get that one out of the way because there’s absolutely nothing um to fear now about doing your job.” And I and he goes, he looked at me right in the eye. He said, “Coach, I don’t fear nothing.” And so it was a it was a really good moment. And and uh I’ve got a lot of confidence in Miles and and I think you could feel it in the locker room with the team afterwards. He is beloved by his teammates as well. All he does is work. All he does is has a you know a million dollar smile on his face every day. Never had a bad day. and absolutely loves playing football. So, you’re going to win when you get as many of those kind of guys as you can possibly find. And we got a lot of them in this building. That Ty Felton, I mean, he’s drafted. You know, he he wants to play 50 or 60 plays at the receiver spot. Of course, he does. That’s what he’s done. But how about how he’s embraced his special teams role, you know, the embracing part while not getting the spotlight on you when maybe you think it should be on you because you were drafted. Lastly, um, Falcons, uh, Bejon, Bejian Robinson, six catches, 100 yards, and a touchdown. Yeah. Pennix went for 298 and one. And, um, we don’t have time to talk about their defense. Just those two. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, u, you know, I think Bejian’s one of the best players in the league at his position. Um, affects the game clearly more than just as a runner. Uh, he’s always had, uh, a unique skill set to catch the football in space. He’s an absolute problem. Um, so we’ve got to really understand how they want to use him, how they want to apply him to both what they want to do throwing the football, but then um, they’ve always done a nice job clearly as a wide zone team and how they want to attack your edges with that kind of dynamic skill set. And I think, uh, you know, you know, Michael Penn has clearly demonstrated they he can push the football downfield. Uh what jumped out to me was just, you know, his ability to affect the game with his athleticism um and find some uh critical critical plays where maybe they’re, you know, he didn’t have anybody to throw the football to and he’s finding a way to convert third downs and put the ball in the end zone by any means necessary. He was competing, trying to lead his team to a win. So really impressive individual performances by those guys for sure. Well, speaking of really impressive, as we close, you we we’ve been back at this facility for 7 and 1/2 hours, 7 hours and 45 minutes and I would imagine you’ve already critically gone through last night’s game for your guys and you’re down the road on the Falcon. You have to be or the people who assist you and give you stuff and then you start working off of it. Quality control and stuff. I mean, you’re far down the road on the Falcons, right? We’re moving, man. We’re moving. There ain’t no stopping. Just like you. That’s great, man. We’re back in here working today. want to know. And remember this time last week when you rolled your eyes at my field commentary? Well, was the whole talk yesterday, but that was overblown because Well, there was, you know, there were seams, but they didn’t move. It was uh watching the tape though, it was it was it was a little bit more of a factor than what we thought pregame cuz it felt, you know, there were seams, but it felt like they had done a really good job with it. you know, watching it closely, you know, there was a few uh there was a few slips here and there and I thought our guys handled it pretty well for the most part, but on both sides um it showed up a little bit. I love chatting with you and uh look forward to the Falcons game. Have a good week. All right. Yeah. Thanks, PA. Kevin Oonnell, X’s and O’s on KFAN courtesy of 9 to Noon. We’ll be We’ll be right

Minnesota Vikings Head Coach Kevin O’Connell joined Paul Allen to talk about a variety of topics, including discussing the comeback win over the Chicago Bears in Week 1 and previewing the Week 2 matchup against the Atlanta Falcons. 

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