The NFL is chock full of head coaches, position coaches and front office personnel who had stints in the league as players, to varying degrees of success. One of those who had a stint in the league as a player is Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell.
With the Vikings seemingly poised to take a quarterback early in the 2024 NFL draft, O’Connell was asked to reflect on his playing days in an interview with Gabe Henderson for the Minnesota Minute. Henderson avoided asking O’Connell his thoughts on the team’s draft strategy but did ask O’Connell how he thinks the 2008 version of himself would stack up to the QBs available in this class.
How would Kevin O’Connell stack 2008 Kevin O’Connell against this year’s QB class?
“A developmental later-round pick with a ton of upside.” pic.twitter.com/b1f4JmHXqH
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) April 11, 2024
After a second of reminiscing on the players taken before him, like Matt Ryan, and praising this year’s class, O’Connell tabbed himself as a “developmental, later-round pick with a ton of upside.”
O’Connell never reached that upside during his playing days, spending five seasons in the NFL bouncing around the league as a back-of-the-roster-type player. However, after his playing days were over, he has developed into one of the better head coaches in the league, with a chance to take the Vikings to the next level — if they can get the situation right at quarterback.
We’ll see in two weeks whether or not O’Connell’s experience and his assessment of this year’s class turns into the team getting its quarterback of the future.