Big Win over Bengals, Christian Darrisaw, Steelers Game in Dublin | X’s and O’s with Kevin O’Connell

Big Win over Bengals, Christian Darrisaw, Steelers Game in Dublin | X’s and O’s with Kevin O’Connell

Post time for X’s and O’s with Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin Oonnell and I’m Paul Allen. Welcome back to the TCO studios. Vikings dismantle the Cincinnati Bengals to move to two and one at Pit uh at Pittsburgh but in Ireland at Cleveland but in London. Those are the next two and the head coach joins us right now. Um Irish food, how how familiar are you? Have you’ve gone down the road on it yet? You know what? I should probably be more familiar, but I’m about to get more familiar this week. You and I both. Yeah. You got Irish stew, you have a boiled bacon and cabbage, but um I uncovered this gem this morning. Um black and white pudding. Okay. Now, pudding in Ireland is not a dessert. It’s it’s a variety of sausages. White pudding is sausage fat with oats, breadcrumbs, and spices. To make it black pudding, you add blood to the mix. So, what do you what do you think of that? That sounds good enough to eat, doesn’t it? when in Rome, right? Yeah. We’ve got to uh Fortunately, there are hotel cafeterias, right? Yeah. And we uh we’re we’re going to be staying at a a nice spot and we’ll see if they have that on the menu. Yep. They have a dish called Goodie. It’s called Goodie. It’s boiled bread and milk with sugar and spices. And um supposedly it’s designed for children or the elderly. Uh which means I got something to eat when I get over there. Me and your dad Bill are going to be chilling outside. I know you too well, man. I know where you’re going with it. Well, you’re crafting plays and uh here we go with X’s and O’s with Kevin Oonnell. I thought um I thought it was really cool uh that you gave Christian Darasaw a a game ball after the Cincinnati victory. And it was quite the emotional um speech slash preach that you unfurled in there after that victory. It was beautiful. And you know, with the first two plays with Darasaw, you I mean you saw him swallow up Trey Hendrickson on the first play. on the second play frustrated him so badly. Hendrickson went to pushing after the play. So I’m like two plays into it, look at 71 roll. He’s just so important, isn’t he? Oh man, I I told him I told him after our second touchdown run, really running, you know, behind our O line, but you know, CD with such a critical block on the play. Uh, I told him if there was ever ever any doubt of, you know, what he means to our team, what he what he means to um, you know, that offensive line, that group as a whole, how we want to play as a team. Um, he’s a franchise left tackle. He’s one of the best at his position in the game. and um watching him. The reason why it was emotional and the reason why I wanted to make sure that he had his moment in front of his teammates is because they have and I have witnessed all of the moments where uh it was Christian. It was since the moment that injury happened. It was daily a daily grind of trying to get back to that moment. And I know Vikings fans were so excited to see him out there and have been patiently waiting uh his return and and to have it go down like that and have him have that much of an impact um and really play, you know, I’m not so sure, you know, he would have played much more anyway after the snaps he had, but to have the score be, you know, I told him before the game, I said, “Let’s get this thing where we feel good about it up on that scoreboard and it’ll be a good day’s work for and he was I mean from the minute we got on the practice field on Wednesday you just knew it was time. Um and that makes me feel good as the coach with the collaborative process with our trainers and medical staff. But most importantly with Christian and I and the relationship we have uh you know he knows he can trust me. He knows that we’re going to do right by him and the timing was right and and although we would have loved to have him uh for every snap we’ve played this season. You know, I think we handled it right and I think his performance put an exclamation point on it. Well, yet yesterday in your your Monday press conference, you you said paraphrasing, but I’m pretty close here that with Darasaw playing helps quote his confidence end quote in the knee. Okay. So, I thought I found that to be fascinating and and super open because it it just kind of makes you think that this is a two-way street, right? Is that, you know, you can you can have a staff to heal somebody. Yeah. Maybe even clear somebody, but if the somebody is you that’s a two-way relational street there, that establishes nothing but good when you get to the right answer. Right. Yeah. And I think, you know, I for anybody listening, you know, right now, I hope there’s some folks listening right now, PA. But, uh, if you’ve ever been through anything, you know, physical injury in your life, um, there’s a huge chunk of it that’s physical, the rehab, all those things, but let’s not forget about the mental side of things. And our game is one, it’s a violent game. Uh, you have to be able to turn it loose. You have to be able to completely play free to do your job. and especially as talented as Christian is to feel great about going out there and and executing his job and helping us win, which he absolutely did. Uh sometimes that last hurdle, you know, is the the the confidence level that you have and you’ve got to allow a player to work through that. Um in many instances, especially with how he had handled his rehab, he was ahead of schedule the entire time and really all the way up until uh taking his snaps on Sunday, he’s still ahead of schedule. um from a from a big picture view with uh the significance of what that injury was and and I think he’s just uh total credit to him and and that game ball was a long time coming and a huge moment for him hopefully because he deserves it all about Christian and um and to close here on this part of the Minnesota moving company um Donovan Jackson uh yesterday the the final thing you went over with the injuries um not playing until maybe Philly and and I could just tell by listening to it from afar I watched it back later that you were super impressed with Donovan Jackson playing through that whatever level of wrist pain it was um playing through it knew knowing a surgery was I mean that mentally you talk about mentally that’s tough. Yeah. And I think, you know, the idea of a rookie going in there and in a game coming off of the Atlanta game, which didn’t go our way, and and it it felt like there was going to be, you know, very little that could hold Donovan out of that game. Um, but we wanted to make sure that he had all the information. His representatives, his family, they had all the information. And once it was determined that uh he could not make it worse, Donovan Jackson was going to play. And we wanted to make sure he knew the sc the surgery was scheduled. We we wanted to make sure he knew exactly what the plan would be so he could just totally free his mind from from any worry. If you get told, “Hey, you can’t make it worse.” You might deal with some discomfort, but um if you want to be out there, uh you’re going to be able to impact this game, especially uh early on in the week, not knowing if uh 71 would would be out there, you know. So, you’re really talking about uh you know, two parts of our fiveman grouping already being down. Ryan Kelly and Justin School could have potentially been down on a on a day that ended up being one where uh the moving company, they won the line of scrimmage. Uh they they were the they were the driving force behind Jordan Mason having a great day, Carson being comfortable back there and our and our offense being able to find uh the rhythm that uh we we so desperately wanted to find and how we played and and how we were able to do some things to complement the great day that our defense had and our kicking game had. Um I thought that was an example of what we can strive to be on a week in weekout basis. It’s hard to do in the NFL, but we captured the momentum uh in in multiple ways and from a fast start on offense to getting the uh the turnover for the touchdown early on there and then just rode that thing all the way to a big lead at halftime and ended up playing, you know, every guy in a in a uniform besides Desmond Ritter, which is um you know, one thing where you’re getting valuable snaps. I mean, Max Bromer getting some snaps in there was phenomenal to see, as well as some of our other young players. Uh Kevin Okonnell X’s and O’s KFA and 9 to noon from TCO studios each and every Tuesday. Crowd loving it. Um and and you know the we I seemingly say this with you weekly this year about a cliche, but cliches are cliches because they’re real and they stand the test of time. So when coaches or players say it’s imperative we start fast, for some people it’ll be like, “Oh, I’ve heard that a million times.” Cool. I don’t know if Atlanta was throwing punches early that we weren’t throwing, but they started fast physically. Yep. This game, you guys came out throwing the haymakers and the uppercuts and and the roundhouses and stuff. And from the first defensive play when Granard ran all the way across the line and smacked Chase Brown, uh, and the offense taking the punches to Cincinnati from the outset off that Atlanta game in in your your night before speech preach, did did you challenge their their toughness, physicality? I I think it was it was more so throughout the week. Okay. of what our standards are and and and showing them examples of how we can improve, you know, how we can help them uh by doing some different things schematically. But I didn’t phrase that the right way. Did you request more, should I say? I think we just Yes. But it was uh it was circling back on the messaging from Monday to Wednesday to, you know, culminating Saturday night. And really uh I did not want our guys to lack for confidence because I felt like the week of preparation we had um and the fact that we were going to be getting u players like Christian Darasaw, Harrison Smith, Andrew Van Ginko back on the grass, I I felt like there was going to be um an energy that we needed to feed by how we started. Uh we didn’t play well enough the previous Sunday. Everybody in this building knows that. Um that is that’s that that two things can be true though. Uh just because you don’t play uh to your standard one uh Sunday although there may be wild amounts of noise about what does this mean and all of these things. Um I used the term with the the the team on on Saturday. I told them kind of a little story about um something I read one time about there was a there was a bridge that was broken and the leadership it you know I don’t want to get too far into it but the leadership was everybody was throwing out you know here’s the hey we might not be able to do this or we might you know we might lose this battle we might you know how are we going to can we use a boat can we do we need to transport via plane and then uh the leadership just said why don’t we just fix the bridge um and the message was we got everything in that we need in this room. We’re going to be driven by the leadership of our team. We’re going to be driven by playing uh all three units collectively as one, complimenting one another, and we’re going to do the things that we’ve preached here for a really long time about how to win games, being all about the ball, you know, having a play style and our schemes come to life. That’s where I thought the there was an attacking nature to how we played on offense and defense. Yes. Um from out of the gate. from out of the gate that matched with what we were requesting from the players and uh you know they I I told them afterwards they might have been looking at me funny in the moment but it might it probably makes sense now. Yeah. And that’s so awesome moving forward, I would imagine, because you can, and I’m you’ve probably done this, but you can take certain clips from things that didn’t go the right way and hey, see what happens when this happens. See what happens when this happens. You know what I mean? And kind of layer it. And we’re looking at it right now because they’re still, you know, you’re as as multiple people told me after the game, you don’t seem happy or satisfied. Perfect game for a coach. And the thing for me was the penalties. to me, if you take away the penalties in that football game, what could it have looked like at that point? We got the all 11 execution post snap predominantly most of the day, but there were some things where there’s no excuse of new players and new spots and all that yada yada yada. Let’s go out and eliminate those things and see what it looks like. Now, when you pair that with all 11 guys doing their job every play, it’s got a chance to be special. Yeah. Bersich, I’m coaching linebackers here for four or five years. Like towards the end of the broadcast, you guys are up a million. And I said to him, “Well, this is shaping up to be a perfect day for a coach. You’re going to win the game. You’re going to win it clearly so you don’t have to sweat, but you have something to complain about in the meetings when you get back to kind of keep things even keeled.” You know what I mean? Yeah. Complain is a uh I I very much take joy and pride in making our players aware of the path to improvement even after a game like that. I understand. Um, but yeah, PA, it was uh it’s been a it’s been a mentality and the best the best thing about our guys is when you say things like that. Uh, they are sitting up in their chairs, nodding their heads. They know, they see the vision. And you pair it with the video uh that you show of all the things that went exactly how we planned and how we expected them to go uh without nerves, without anxiety. It was just about execution and and trusting in uh what these players have built here. Uh, speaking of coaches, and uh, I purposely didn’t ask anybody who exactly this was. This is just phenomenal because I know you watch the all 22. You watch each play I would I mean multiple times, end zone or sideline. Correct. Correct. All right. So, Isaiah Rogers on the 87 on the 87 to the house. All right. Um, it’s right in front of the Vikings bench. Who’s the coach not watching the play? Running a 100 miles per hour down the sideline pushing coaches back. I mean MVP move and organization at its highest. Who was that? I don’t know because I was too busy running much less miles per hour, but I was running as well. Let’s take a look. Are we going to break down the video here? Uh let’s uh let’s do this. Um uh next week uh this uh we’re going to be doing X’s and O’s at um 5 in the evening London time. We’re going to do it from an old library at a place called the Manor uh outside of busy London. Uh do teams joyfully accept overseas games or perhaps acquies to the league’s requests. I think there’s uh multiple ways you can look at it. You can look at it from a standpoint of why us or you can look at it from a standpoint of man, aren’t we lucky to get this opportunity and that’s the way I look at it. And you got the opportunity every year. We are not uh we are not going uh to Cleveland in December. We are not going to Pittsburgh in November. We are not uh uh we are not ultimately um looking at this as anything more than a great opportunity to go find a way to win a football game in some circumstances. we know well specifically with the first game. Yeah, we’re going to Ireland for the first time, but we’ve left on uh we’ve left on Thursdays before uh gone out to Tottenham Stadium and gotten a win and come back and and and moved throughout our season from there. The difference is we’re going to stay and we’re going to have a normal week of preparation once we’ve adjusted completely to the time and our players should be able to truly knowing we’ve got the buy uh upon our arrival uh back to the United States. We uh we absolutely will look at this as a great opportunity. And how about a chance to in a day and age where once you get into the season it is so difficult to you know find unique ways to team build. How about a chance to go away? It’s it’s summer camp in a lot of ways for for 10 days and and hopefully you and the you and the crew there with Kayfan, you guys can do the same, man. I expect to hear a report about the the chemistry of the crew being skyhigh coming off this trip. Well, that’d be great. But I’m going to hang out with this coach that we’re about ready to identify because I need this guy on my team. I think I know who it is. All right. So, I I now know I’ve seen the coach. By the way, we’re breaking down a uh a play with a with a coach of the year, which is the bomb. So, Browning gets smacked here, throws the ball to the right. Harrison Smith gets a finger on it. Get a finger on. Okay. It’s this guy right here. Okay. Yep. That guy. That’s Joe Dur right there. Our strength coach. Oh, okay. That That’s who. Look at Look at this. Shove. Shove. Shove. He’s not even watching the play. He’s pushing coaches. It’s the bomb. And with me running right behind him trying to stay on his heels right there, it looks like he’s lead blocking for me. Notice he didn’t push down the sideline. Well, I I will say push the head coach. All jokes aside, I will tell you this much. The delay of game penalty we had in the Atlanta Falcons game. Uh when they held the snap and everybody was wondering what was going on because we had subbed. They had clearly had time to sub. Yeah, we had a player step on the field uh just trying to watch the action and that’s why the officials held uh the the snap which is the way they’re supposed to do their job totally on us. Uh so Joe did get a little his job or did he do it by his own will? He was there. There may have been a conversation or two uh leading into the game of regardless of the play, regardless of where the ball is. Yeah. I need you and your staff making sure these players and coaches for that matter are uh are back. Yeah. You’re so you’re you’re you you guys get so wrapped up in like the and and understandably so. It’s part of your job. What what’s make what makes you guys great, the technical nature of okay, well this happens. Well, look at Levi Drake Rodriguez block this guy. Actually, Levi, maybe your knee should be here or whatever, you know. So, you got to get into the technical aspect of the teaching. Yep. Even on an 87 yard pick six, Bernard blocked, I think Ted Car, he blocked an offensive line at 15 yards. You can’t do any better. He looked like he was leading a wide zone down the side. Meanwhile, if you can smell if you can smell the roses for a second and like watch sidelines during big plays like that, they’re unbelievably funny. Max Bromer was skipping behind you. Wasn’t jumping. He was skipping that and that’s great. And so I just love doing that, man. And it’s uh it’s that of joy, though, which was Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals. All right. So, um Ivan Pace Jr., holy cow, he he brought the lumber against Cincinnati, didn’t he? Yeah, he was uh he was all over the field. And and what people may not realize is he also did it on kickoff coverage. I mean, he was borderline unblockable. Uh all those times we can start, you know, we can force Cincinnati to start 25 24 yardd line. I mean, with these new rules that those yards matter, the starting field position, uh, we won significantly uh on the day and and that’s all part of the formula that it takes to have a complete performance and not feel like you’re having to overcome any self-inflicted adversity uh for our team. And when we have historically avoided a lot of those things and won some of these metrics, whether it be turnovers, uh we did not win penalties, but we did win starting field position, we did win uh the rushing battle, we did win um the rushing attempts and completion battle. There’s some things that as a coach you look at and you can normally see a formula to play good football that that do coincide with some some statistics. And you actually got more offensive plays than than the other team. Still not above 60. I mean, it was 60, wasn’t it? Yeah. Well, with the penalty, I don’t count the penalties. So, we broke the we broke the we broke the huddle. Uh we broke the huddle maybe 60 times, but I I want 60 plus cuz we were over we were over six or whatever we were a play 62 a play, whatever it was. Um that’s about where we we we should be when we’re playing well. And uh it might not always equal, you know, this many passing yards or this many rushing yards, but uh the average per play is a huge stat because that’s telling the actual story of what’s happening on a snap in and snap out basis. Um I’m glad you brought up special teams in our final fourish to five minutes. Um I’d like to move there. Terrific. Terrific. Riker with the 62 to set a team record. Depala under. I mean because he’s the long snapper. Until they mess up, nobody says anything. But he’s he’s all pro every year. really good at what he does. Awesome guy, too. Your punter’s on a heater. All right. So, whether it’s Portland State guy or Aussie guy pushing him in the off season, it’s work. I mean, he’s on a heater right now. That last one at Chicago was terrific. Then, I think four and 51 and a half, Atlanta. Yep. And, uh, the last game was good, too. So, that’s cool. Plus, you you um um Charlie Jones, I mean, we’re in NFC country. Well, this this Charlie Jones, one of the returners for Cincinnati, he’s fast and he’s good. And then Pine’s big. It’s like big and thick. So, they got a nice little complimentary thing there at the top. I will say though, I’m glad you mentioned that we’ve got a lot of rookies. A a lot of young guys in many ways, players who were not drafted. Uh guys that made our team. Uh I think we might have had maybe five or six rookies alone on the punt team. So, and we’re getting unbelievable gunner play out of Ty Felton and Tavier Thomas. Uh how many times have we seen a fair catch and and and and a Vikings play right at the shoelaces of that player? I thought the the one penalty we can learn from. It was a late call on the fair catch, but that’s something we got to learn from, especially when Ryan’s hitting 50 plus with that kind of hang time and we’re covering that much ground to get right at the shoelaces right there. Uh we’ve got to be smarter than that. That was one of our uh many penalties in the game that we’ve got to correct. And and you know, I mean, it’s it’s the the the teaching moments with young players, a coach, and and the the cohesiveness of a team. Yep. Offense, defense, special teams. Ty Felton, of course he wants to play 60 plays a game or excuse me, 42 plays a game on offense as a receiver. Of course he does. But the acceptance, not acquiescing, acceptance, this is my role for now and I’m going to do the very best I can at it. Speaking of receivers, uh Jordan Addison eligible to return Sunday at um something called Croak. And um anticipation um it’s in anticipation of that coming back. How about Jaylen Naylor? Yep. I mean, maybe he hasn’t said it or anything, but he knows what’s on the horizon of like like reinforcements coming in. Holy cow, with Naylor and this this blocking uh on run plays and then like, you know, he’s playing great, don’t you think? He’s playing great and it hasn’t necessarily shown up with uh huge numbers, but uh every time you turn on the tape, he’s open. He’s he’s winning. He’s winning in man. He’s got a great feel versus zone. We saw him win kind of uh on a on a backside route where Carson was trying to work JJ front side. They take that away. Carson just very calmly uh great technique and fundamentals. Resets backside and Jaylen’s got six yards of separation on a deep curl route. Um he’s doing a lot of things really well right now. I think Adam Thelen is doing a lot of things at a very high level different than maybe what he did previously with the Vikings. I mean, Adam is doing, you know, uh, he’s doing some of physical things and and he’s helping in ways that maybe don’t necessarily show up in the stat sheet, but we feel it. We feel his impact. And with Jordan coming back, you really feel like you’ve got five uh, really six guys up potentially with two rookies and then four guys that we feel like can play any spot, whether it’s Jets, Addison, Naylor, or Adam. We feel totally interchangeable. we can keep those guys fresh hopefully and allow them to really dive into their specific aspects of the game plan as we roll here. Um I have 90 seconds. U if I ask you this question, it’s going to take five minutes so maybe next week. Um you you’re you’re talk your approach yesterday with the press conference talking about either WZ or McCarthy or both and footwork and foundation being key. I I just wanted to learn more about that. So maybe from the library next week. So let’s uh let’s close with this. Brandell for Jackson for a little bit. I recall you saying to me either in a production meeting or like a pregame or something, Blake Brandell had a fantastic training camp as a guard, right? He did. He did. What’ you like? I mean, like how’s he going to help now? For Donovan Jackson to have really won that job, he would he would have needed to have a great camp because Blake certainly did. I mean, Blake, every time um you went out to the practice field, it felt like he was building upon his 2024 season where he, you know, he was out there for us and and for really the first time playing that kind of significant snaps all year long, um at that left guard spot, which he’ll be playing this weekend, uh Blake is incredibly valuable to us. the fact that he can be the guy that steps in when when CD was done for the day at left tackle the other day. He can be a potential interior swing guy at any point in time. He can play center eventually uh if we need him to do that. It’s about trying to find a way to have the best five uh on game day and Blake sliding in at left guard with Donovan playing at the level he’s been playing at, which I think is a arrow up every week ascending young player. Blake’s going to step in there and he’s going to bring physicality. He’s big. He’s smart. Uh Ryan Kelly back in the mix will be huge for us as well. I thought Michael Jurgens played uh some really meaningful good snaps for us to help drive the show the other day. And um but we’re in a good spot right now and and it seems to always circle back to 71 being out there, right? And then what that feels like from a totality of the group standpoint and and it’ll be great to get Ryan back as well. Common threads are always good in radio and TV. We started with 71, you ended with 71. And you know what? You could really catch them off guard this week by going unbalanced. Think about it. They’re going to look at replacement left guard. Well, these guys, I mean, it’s their offensive line. They’re getting guys back. They’re leaving. I mean, who knows? Maybe Joe Huber is your new is your version of Dan Skipper. They’ll never see it coming. Well, they wouldn’t have seen it coming until you just let the cat out of the bag a little. I appreciate you, man. You’re awesome. Yeah. Thank you. Kevin Okonnell. X’s and O’s each and every Tuesday 9 to noon. or back after this.

Minnesota Vikings Head Coach Kevin O’Connell joined Paul Allen to talk about a variety of topics, including previewing the Week 4 International Game in Dublin against the Pittsburgh Steelers

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