At first, Kevin O’Connell wasn’t ready to concede his playing career. In 2011, New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan called O’Connell’s phone to inform him of two things. First, Ryan told him that the team was cutting him for the second time in as many years.
However, the Jets believed O’Connell’s football acumen was so valuable that they offered O’Connell a coaching job on the spot. O’Connell turned it down, reluctant to give up his playing career. He’d spend one more season bouncing around the league as a backup before finally hanging up his cleats.
But Ryan was serious about his coaching offer. Inside the Jets’ facility, O’Connell had already built a reputation. Teammates called him “Coach O’Connell” for his ability to break down film and understand both sides of the ball. The Jets had first acquired him in 2009, trading for him just before a Week 2 matchup against the New England Patriots — the team that had drafted and developed him in 2008.
O’Connell’s football IQ went deeper than anyone could have anticipated.
It started when defensive coordinator Mike Pettine called O’Connell into his office for the Week 2 matchup with the Patriots. The Jets had traded for O’Connell less than two weeks before the game after he had spent the past 16 months with New England. Pettine was seeking some insight on the Patriots. Instead, he witnessed a football mind who was wise beyond his years.
O’Connell critiqued the Jets’ defensive game plan, analyzed their scouting reports, and drew up a blitz (nicknamed “K.O.” by Pettine) that resulted in a sack on Tom Brady. The Jets named O’Connell as a captain for both contests against the Patriots that year. However, his impact extended beyond the New England matchups. He began meeting with Pettine every week. Ryan called O’Connell “the Jets’ best defensive coach.”
“Rex and the defensive coaches, they would pick his brain because he was so smart,” former Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum recalled. “I remember talking to Kevin when he was a player, and it was so clear he had the ability to be a head coach.”
O’Connell may have been resistant to coaching at first, but helping his teammates succeed on Sundays from the sideline probably helped open his mind to his post-playing career.
“I just started to see, ‘Hey, you turn on some tape, pair that with the information you know already, and maybe you can help one play,’” O’Connell recalled. “Maybe you can help one player on that one play have success. And maybe that led into falling in love with that aspect of it.
“Now, it’s just on a little bit bigger scale.”
Still, O’Connell didn’t go immediately into coaching after retiring. He spent the next two seasons working on television with his alma mater and CBS Sports.
It also included an interview with Derek Carr at the 2014 NFL Combine. O’Connell was engaging. Carr spoke about the birth of his baby, and then O’Connell engaged in some friendly banter with Carr about the Fresno State-San Diego State rivalry. O’Connell told Carr that he was glad the Aztecs wouldn’t have to face off against him anymore. It was clear that O’Connell had a promising future in broadcasting if he chose to pursue it.
But behind the scenes, O’Connell was on his path towards coaching in the NFL. He served as a private coach for Johnny Manziel and Logan Thomas in preparation for the 2014 NFL draft. When the Cleveland Browns drafted Manziel, O’Connell reconnected with Pettine, who was in his first year as head coach of the Browns. Kyle Shanahan was rapidly rising through the coaching ranks and was their offensive coordinator.
One year later, O’Connell got his first official NFL coaching gig when the Browns hired him as their quarterbacks coach. In addition to Manziel, O’Connell also got to work with longtime backup quarterback Josh McCown, whom he helped recruit to Cleveland after a year in Chicago. McCown was older than O’Connell, but he quickly learned after a 10-minute conversation that the new QB coach not only knew his football but could also benefit McCown’s game.
Despite being one of the youngest position coaches in the league, O’Connell was comfortable in front of the camera, answering questions from the media with the composure you see today. He praised McCown on camera, mentioning that his “presence” resonated throughout the team.
His time in Cleveland didn’t last long because the Browns fired Pettine after the season. O’Connell spent the 2016 season with the San Francisco 49ers under Chip Kelly as a “special projects” assistant. It’s unclear precisely what Kelly asked O’Connell to do, and there isn’t much documentation about his season.
However, O’Connell’s time in San Francisco overlapped with Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s time there. Adofo-Mensah was in his fourth season as San Francisco’s manager of football research and development in 2016. O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah spent some time together, forming a bond that led Adofo-Mensah to hire O’Connell.
The Niners fired Kelly after the season, meaning O’Connell was going to his third team in as many seasons. Jay Gruden hired O’Connell as Washington’s quarterback coach in 2017, connecting O’Connell with future Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins.
Sean McVay had been Washington’s offensive coordinator the previous three seasons before leaving to take the Los Angeles Rams head coaching job. Matt Cavanaugh was O’Connell’s quarterbacks coach in New York and was Washington’s QB coach in 2015 and 2016. He replaced McVay, helping O’Connell land the job.
O’Connell impressed again, finding an NFL home for the first time in his playing and coaching career. He spent the next three seasons in Washington, receiving passing game coordinator responsibilities in 2018 before they promoted him to offensive coordinator in 2019.
The responsibility and burden weren’t lost on O’Connell. Like he had done as a backup quarterback in New York, he wanted to impact the game from the sideline. And he knew his best way of impacting the game was to put his quarterback in a position to succeed.
“Being a coordinator, in my opinion, it’s about putting the people, your personnel, in situations where they can be successful,” he said. “Ninety percent of that, in my opinion, is the quarterback, and if the quarterback has success, the other ten guys around him, if they’re doing their job, will feel that success as well.”
Unfortunately, Washington only went 17-31 during O’Connell’s time there. Cousins left following the 2017 season to sign with Minnesota, Alex Smith suffered a gruesome ankle injury in 2018, and they fired Gruden after an 0-5 start in 2019.
Washington hired Ron Rivera following the season. Although there was some mutual interest in retaining O’Connell, O’Connell wanted complete control of the offense. Instead, he joined McVay’s staff as offensive coordinator and pseudo-quarterbacks coach in Los Angeles.
Because we usually associate coordinators simply as “playcallers,” we often dismiss those who don’t call plays as a figurehead. That’s especially true when that playcaller is one of McVay’s caliber, one of the league’s most innovative minds.
However, O’Connell didn’t just become “the next guy” to hold the position. Matt LaFleur was McVay’s offensive coordinator in 2017, who left following the season to take the Tennessee Titans’ OC job. Instead of filling the vacancy, the Rams operated without an official offensive coordinator in 2018 and 2019.
That worked in 2018, and the Rams reached the Super Bowl. However, they never found a full-time replacement for quarterbacks coach when Zac Taylor left after the Super Bowl to take the Cincinnati Bengals’ head coaching job. The Rams operated without a true offensive coordinator and full-time QB coach in 2019 and fell to 9-7.
Jared Goff regressed in 2019. Despite throwing 65 more passes than he did in 2018, Goff threw for 50 fewer yards, 10 fewer touchdowns, and four more interceptions in 2019. The Rams tasked O’Connell with helping Goff return to the form that led the Rams to the Super Bowl.
However, he had to do so as a new coach while navigating the COVID-19 restrictions.
“Do they even know who I am at this point?” O’Connell joked with reporters on a Zoom call that May. “Hopefully, they can click through that team meeting and find the little box that says ‘O’Connell,’ so when they catch me walking in the halls, they know who I am.”
But like usual, O’Connell found a way to connect with Goff, who rebounded slightly in 2020. He was much more accurate, completing 67% of his passes. However, his 3.6 TD% and 2.4 INT% remained similar to those in 2019 (3.5 TD%, 2.6 INT%), and his 7.2 yards per attempt were slightly lower. The Rams returned to the playoffs, but the Green Bay Packers bounced them in the Divisional Round.
That offseason, the Rams went all-in and traded Goff to the Lions for Matthew Stafford. LA’s offense clicked again, ranking fifth in passing yards and second in passing touchdowns en route to a 7-1 start and 12-5 finish. They beat the Arizona Cardinals handily at home before winning tight contests against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and 49ers on their way back to the Super Bowl.
Although he had a Super Bowl to prepare for, O’Connell had spent much of his time during the playoffs interviewing for head coaching opportunities. Assistants under McVay had seen success as head coaches. LA’s Super Bowl opponent, the Cincinnati Bengals, was the latest example. Zac Taylor had taken a four-win team and turned them into a contender.
O’Connell interviewed with the Denver Broncos, Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Vikings. He impressed Minnesota’s ownership shortly after they had hired Adofo-Mensah, leading to a second interview. Although there was interest late in the coaching cycle for Jim Harbaugh, ownership hired O’Connell, who had left a huge impression on them.
It was a move that deviated from Minnesota’s norm. They didn’t want to be stuck in football purgatory, balancing between being good enough to compete but not great enough to contend for a Super Bowl. O’Connell’s ability to collaborate and form relationships inside the building was a stark contrast with the Mike Zimmer era. His culture-building was almost as important as his coaching ability.
The Rams won the Super Bowl, and two days later, the Vikings officially hired O’Connell as the ninth head coach in franchise history. Years of playing and coaching led to the biggest step of his football journey.
For some coaches, their connections help them climb the ladder, leapfrogging more accomplished and deserving candidates. But for everyone who came in contact with O’Connell before Minnesota hired him, it was only a matter of time. He was a coach even before he had the title, even if he wasn’t willing to admit it.
Former Jets teammate and quarterback Greg McElroy could see it back in 2011. In a piece for the New York Times, McElroy said that O’Connell viewed football differently than anyone else, referring to his teammate as a coach.
“He’s a coach with a lot of football talent,” said McElroy. “That’s really what it is. He has a great mind for it, a great eye for it. He has a tremendous feel on game days. He can see the entire field from the sideline. He can see the game vertically, as if watching film, from the sidelines.”
As Minnesota’s head coach, O’Connell had to blend his football IQ and relationship-building skills with leading an organization. He was no longer managing a position group. Nor was he coordinating an offense that his head coach had ultimate control over. O’Connell was stepping into an organization that had walked the razor’s edge for years and was worn down and tired from tripping over its own feet.
He wasn’t going to get a rebuilt roster. He wasn’t going to get his own handpicked quarterback. The Vikings were tasking O’Connell with working his magic on Rick Spielman’s old roster. His response may have surprised fans. But to those who saw O’Connell work his way up in the league, it was clear he was up to the task.