In a season where whatever could go wrong has gone wrong, Sunday night was a nice change of pace for the Minnesota Vikings.
The Vikings had been eliminated from playoff contention earlier in the afternoon, but they played like a team with something to prove in a 34-26 win over the Dallas Cowboys. J.J. McCarthy had the best start of his career with 250 yards and a pair of touchdowns after throwing an interception on his first pass of the game. The defense also played well enough to keep the Cowboys at a distance as they played for their playoff lives.
If you squint closely enough, you may have seen the seeds for a rebound in 2026 planted before your eyes. But the reality is that it could happen, and Kevin O’Connell must ensure it does.
Of anyone at TCO Performance Center, O’Connell has been the person whose reputation has taken the biggest hit this year. One year ago, Vikings fans were hailing the culture he was building on the way to a 14-win season and proudly cheered when he received the NFL’s Coach of the Year Award a few months later.
But what has happened over the past 12 months has been a strange turn of events. The Vikings lost their final two games last year after beginning the season with a 14-2 record, leading to an offseason of rumors and full-blown dissections of training camp and OTA practices.
The Vikings made their first mistakes in training camp when O’Connell assumed that McCarthy was ready to take the lead as Minnesota’s starting quarterback. But it was a flawed decision in that he tried to run the same offense that turned Kirk Cousins and Sam Darnold into success stories.
A Week 2 injury in the Atlanta Falcons game never helped matters, but McCarthy never looked comfortable in O’Connell’s downfield scheme. Armed with one of the league’s highest depth of targets, McCarthy looked lost and admitted to NBC’s Melissa Stark before Sunday’s game that the first months of the season were like “being thrown into a washing machine.”
Instead of meeting his quarterback halfway, O’Connell went into a mode reserved for former defensive coordinator Ed Donatell. He obsessed over McCarthy’s footwork, spending the entire bye week like it was a football version of Dancing with the Stars. Whenever the Vikings had a third-and-one, O’Connell went to a “Bombs Away” approach that would have made Mike Tice proud back in the 2000s.
Thankfully, it didn’t get to the point where O’Connell stopped meeting with McCarthy in the same way that Mike Zimmer refused to meet with Cousins until late in their run. But something just felt off as he worked with his young quarterback. In a season that included drying concrete, a memed alter ego, and an ill-fated Eurotrip, it took Max Brosmer looking overwhelmed in Seattle for O’Connell to realize he had to change his approach.
Through two games, it feels like the Vikings have found the answers they’ve been looking for. Minnesota used its running game and got just enough from McCarthy in last week’s 31-0 win over the Washington Commanders. Sunday’s win in Dallas was the first time the young quarterback has stacked wins together. While it’s not a full “pound the rock” approach, the pure progression offense has appeared to be what works for McCarthy. It has still done enough to satisfy O’Connell’s thirst for big plays, with the Vikings averaging 6.3 yards per play.
The pessimist would highlight that the Vikings have played two of the league’s worst defenses in these games. But an optimist would see another opportunity against the New York Giants on Sunday, along with two divisional home games against the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers to close the season.
Should the Vikings go 2-1 in those games and McCarthy looks as comfortable as he did on Sunday, the talk about a rebound year in 2026 can begin. Sunday’s game was another part of this process as Micah Parsons suffered a torn ACL that could delay the start of next year. The Detroit Lions looked like a team whose championship window was closing. Meanwhile, the Chicago Bears are a candidate for regression after playing exclusively in close games this season.
With a last-place schedule ahead, McCarthy could use the late-season confidence as a springboard to next year, and an offseason spent filling holes could help the Vikings get back on track. But once again, that only matters if O’Connell is on board.
Even as the Vikings do the right things now, that discussion could change when the season is over. A discussion of McCarthy’s footwork is coming. If he makes enough progress over the offseason, O’Connell may feel a sense of comfort going back to the Cousins/Darnold offense and not playing to his quarterback’s strengths.
In a year where he’s mostly made the wrong decisions, O’Connell needs to critique his own work just as much as McCarthy’s. After a fall from grace, it may be the one thing that helps the Vikings get out of this mess and take advantage of a clear path for a rebound next season.