Kevin O’Connell’s teams will throw the ball as long as he calls plays. The Minnesota Vikings had the third-most pass attempts in his first season as head coach. Two years ago, they still had the fourth-most attempts in the league despite losing Kirk Cousins to injury halfway through the season.
The Vikings made a more concerted effort to run the ball in 2024, but O’Connell shifted to a pass-first attack again as Sam Darnold became more comfortable and the run game became less reliable. Minnesota finished the season ranked 14th in pass attempts, but nine of Darnold’s 10 games with over 30 pass attempts came after October.
Part of that decline in rushing attempts resulted from Christian Darrisaw suffering a season-ending ACL injury. Darrisaw played seven games in 2024, six of which were among Minnesota’s nine best run-blocking games of the year, per Pro Football Focus.
The Vikings still went 14-3 as Darnold and the passing game again became the offense’s identity. The running game finished 19th in total yards, but their 4.1 yards per attempt ranked 26th in the league. Minnesota’s 39.2% success rate also ranked 26th in the league, and only three teams scored fewer rushing touchdowns than the Vikings (9).
Issues with the running game were easy to gloss over when the Vikings were on their nine-game winning streak. However, five red-zone drives against the Detroit Lions resulted in only nine points. Darnold was missing receivers in the end zone, and when O’Connell tried turning to the running game to punch the ball in, Detroit stifled Aaron Jones and Cam Akers.
The Vikings enter the 2025 season with J.J. McCarthy at quarterback, but they are doing what they can to take pressure off their 2024 first-round pick. They brought back Jones and traded for San Francisco 49ers running back Jordan Mason to give them a strong one-two punch.
Minnesota also added former Indianapolis Colts guard Will Fries and teammate Ryan Kelly to help beef up the line. They drafted Ohio State guard Donovan Jackson with the 24th-overall pick. The main priority, as always, is to protect McCarthy.
Still, the Vikings expect them to help bolster a run game that has been lacking since O’Connell arrived in 2022. The best way to ensure McCarthy stays clean is to keep the ball out of his hands and be able to lean on a run game.
O’Connell entered the 2024 season with a new quarterback and wanted to adjust the offense to insulate him. The coach had complete trust in Kirk Cousins. However, despite being the former third-overall pick, Darnold had never put together a complete season in the NFL. Because of that, O’Connell prioritized the running game early in the season.
That doesn’t mean we should expect an Adrian Peterson-like workload from Jones and Mason. The Vikings don’t need a Herculean effort to bring a counter-punch to their offensive attack. Still, they need a reliable counter-punch from their run game, not a last-ditch haymaker when they’re up against the ropes in the 10th round.
O’Connell was the offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams from 2020 to 2021. He found more consistent success in his two seasons with the Rams than in three seasons coaching the Vikings. The best success rate he has seen in Minnesota came in 2023 when the Vikings had a 40.5% success rate. But Josh Dobbs‘ scrambling ability also aided that, and only two teams ran less than the Vikings did.
During the 2020 season, the Rams averaged 4.3 yards per carry, but they had the seventh-most attempts in the league. Their 42.7% success rate ranked 13th in the league, helping the Rams build a 10-6 record. However, they ranked 20th in the league in EPA per dropback (0.0), leaving them with questions at quarterback.
Believing Jared Goff couldn’t take them to the next level, LA traded him to the Detroit Lions for Matthew Stafford after the season. With a more experienced and superior quarterback, the Rams only ranked 23rd in overall rushing attempts in 2021. Still, although their rushing success was 40.5% (21st in the league), they were tied for the highest EPA per pass (+0.16).
The shift in offensive identity showed the Rams could adapt to their personnel. Whether it was Darrisaw’s injury or Darnold’s showing he could take on a larger workload, O’Connell began altering the offense to return it to its roots halfway through the season.
Would O’Connell do the same with McCarthy if the second-year quarterback shows he can carry the offense? Or would O’Connell look at the season’s final two games as reason to continue to protect his young quarterback through success and show the Vikings can win in more ways than through the air?
O’Connell’s success in early 2024 and during his time in Los Angeles shows that the offense can adapt to become quarterback-friendly. That can manifest in a pass-happy system that consistently gets receivers open downfield. It can also mean leaning on a more run-heavy approach that takes the ball out of the quarterback’s hands.
Minnesota’s approach in the first four games of 2024, which relied on the running game, helped Darnold win NFC Offensive Player of the Month in September. He threw 40 or more four times in the season’s final month, including the two losses to end the season.
That and McCarthy’s growth could convince O’Connell to stick to what worked early in the season. Maybe he’ll rely on a running game that can provide more consistent results down the stretch to aid the young quarterback. It may not help McCarthy match Darnold’s gaudy passing stats, but it could help set him and the Vikings up for their first postseason win since 2019.