>>>ALL THINGS VIKINGS<<<

Vikings hiring Jerrod Johnson as offensive assistant

The Vikings are hiring Jerrod Johnson as an offensive assistant to work with the quarterbacks on new coach Kevin O’Connell’s staff, Aaron Wilson of Pro Football Network reports.

Johnson is a two-time participant in the Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship and served as a quality control coach for the Colts last year.


He also has worked with the 49ers.

Johnson, 33, played quarterback for Texas A&M. He went undrafted but spent time with six NFL teams. Johnson never saw regular-season action.

PFT

 

Report: Vikings set to hire Brian Angelichio as TEs coach

The Vikings have not yet officially announced that Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell is their new head coach, though that is set to happen this week.

But O’Connell has filled another position on his coaching staff.


According to Joe Person of TheAthletic.com, the Vikings are hiring Brian Angelichio to be their tight ends coach.

Angelichio spent the last two seasons on Matt Rhule’s staff with the Panthers in the same role. He’s previously coached tight ends with Washington, Green Bay, Cleveland, and Tampa Bay.

Angelichio and O’Connell overlapped with the Browns in 2015 when O’Connell was the club’s quarterbacks coach. They were then on the same Washington staff in 2019 when O’Connell was the offensive coordinator.

PFT

 

The Vikings are close to having their man.

The team and Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell are finalizing their deal for him to become their head coach, Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports.


The Vikings are expected to announce O’Connell as their new head coach in a Thursday news conference.

 

Vikings announce Kevin O’Connell as next head coach



The Vikings have announced that Kevin O’Connell is their next head coach.

O’Connell, who was the Rams’ offensive coordinator the last two seasons, was widely expected to be the head coach of the Vikings, and the team said today that it is now official.


“We are ecstatic to add Kevin as our head coach,” Vikings owner Mark Wilf said in a statement. “He is a strong leader, an innovative coach and an excellent communicator. Kevin played the game at all levels, which gives him a unique connection to players, and he is highly respected throughout the league. Vikings fans should be excited for the future of this team under Kevin’s direction.”

The 36-year-old O’Connell had a brief career as an NFL quarterback after the Patriots chose him out of San Diego State in the third round of the 2008 NFL draft. He spent time with the Patriots, Lions, Jets, Dolphins and Chargers before becoming the quarterbacks coach of the Browns in 2015. He has also been on the coaching staffs in San Francisco and Washington.

O’Connell spent a year as Kirk Cousins‘ quarterbacks coach in Washington, and he’ll be tasked with getting more out of the Vikings’ offense than it has shown in Cousins’ four seasons at the helm.

 

It's official now Kevin O'Connell is the brand new coach of Minnesota Vikings this should be interesting and very different let's GO VIKINGS!

 

Deshaun Watson wants to be a Vikings or a Buccaneer's QB next season. Im not interested.

 

To much mess as good as he is it just to much mess the Vikings don't need this headache

 

Sweet I'm looking forward to the Vikings being an Offensive Powerhouse welcome Kevin O'Connell to the land of Purple and Gold may you do what Mike Zimmer refused to do

 

Vikings announce nine assistant coaches, including Ed Donatell and Mike Pettine

The Vikings have finally made the hiring of head coach Kevin O’Connell official and that means they can move on to formalizing many of the reported agreements they made with assistant coaches while waiting for O’Connell to wrap up his duties as the Rams offensive coordinator.

Minnesota announced nine additions to O’Connell’s staff on Thursday. The announcements included confirmation that Ed Donatell will be their defensive coordinator and that Mike Pettine will be the assistant head coach.


Donatell spent the last three seasons as the Broncos defensive coordinator and he also worked under former Broncos head coach Vic Fangio as an assistant with the Bears and 49ers. He’s spent most of last three decades coaching in the NFL.

Pettine was a senior defensive assistant for the Bears last season and he brings head coaching experience to the Vikings staff after spending two years running the Browns. He’s also been a defensive coordinator with the Packers, Bills, and Jets.

The Vikings also announced the hirings of tight ends coach/passing game coordinator Brian Angelichio, assistant quarterbacks coach Jerrod Johnson, offensive line coach Chris Kuper, running backs coach/run game coordinator Curtis Modkins, quarterbacks coach Chris O’Hara, assistant offensive line coach Justin Rascati, and defensive line coach Chris Rumph.

PFT

 

New Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell says he’s eager to coach Kirk Cousins.

Asked today if Cousins will be the Vikings’ starting quarterback in 2022, O’Connell indicated that he will be.


“I know he’s under contract and I’m excited to coach him. We’ve already started thinking about how we’re going to build those systems for him and our other quarterbacks,” O’Connell said. “I’m anticipating Kirk being a part of what we do.”

New Vikings General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah also said he is planning the offseason with the expectation that they’re building an offense around Cousins.

O’Connell comes to Minnesota after winning the Super Bowl as the Rams’ offensive coordinator, and he previously spent a year as Cousins’ quarterbacks coach in Washington. O’Connell said that Cousins is an elite thrower who reminds him of Matthew Stafford.

“Matthew Stafford is one of the most talented players I’ve ever been around,” O’Connell said. “I see Kirk being able to do a lot of those things.”

The Vikings would love to see O’Connell have the kind of success with Cousins that he had with Stafford.

PFT

 

So Capt Kirk is staying put he better show some leadership qualities he has so far shown very little,this is not a rebuild this is going to be a much needed tune-up Capt Kirk is not the gunslinger Matt Stafford is

 

Success for Vikings’ O’Connell starts with player connection



EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — Kevin O’Connell has finally arrived in Minnesota with his young family, a new parka and plenty of energy and ideas about leading the Vikings.

O’Connell’s strategy for success as a first-time head coach, honed with and borrowed from the Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams, starts and ends with making his players feel not only comfortable with the team but connected to each other and to their coaches.

“They’ve got to know we care about them from Day One,” O’Connell said.

The 36-year-old coach dazzled Vikings executives during the interview process with his affability, preparation and vision for building a contender out of a middling team that flirted a couple of times with the league’s elite in Mike Zimmer’s eight seasons but mostly fell short of expectations.

Despite no previous experience as a head coach and just two years as an offensive coordinator for the Rams, O’Connell made himself stand out among the 10 candidates the Vikings considered during their deliberate search that was extended when the Rams reached the Super Bowl.

“Maybe in the early days, we’d rush those,” said owner Zygi Wilf, whose family bought the team in 2005 and has overseen four coaching changes. “But this process was enlightening to us and made us understand what a head coach has to be, and that’s why Kevin was our choice.”

As a former NFL quarterback, who by his own quick admission did not play well enough to last more than the four-plus years he bounced around for, O’Connell has a built-in way to relate to the players he’ll now be in charge of.

He’s only three years older than Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins, for whom he served as position coach in 2017 with Washington. The ability to understand millennials and now Generation Z comes more quickly for him than an older coach.

There’s no secret, though, that O’Connell, regardless of age, was attractive to the Vikings because of his belief in and emphasis on collaboration. As much as that concept has the potential to become an empty corporate buzzword, it was clearly missing by the end of Zimmer’s tenure.

“The best coaches I ever had, I felt like they cared about me. I felt like they cared about not only the production on the field but the process by which we got to that point,” said O’Connell, who was introduced at a news conference on Thursday at team headquarters. “Give them the why and give them a reason behind everything you do. These players will take off and they’ll go run with it, and that player ownership is ultimately what we’re striving for.”

O’Connell will have plenty of experience on his staff, including Mike Pettine as assistant head coach. The Vikings also announced the majority of their assistants, including the 55-year-old Pettine, who hired O’Connell as his quarterbacks coach in 2015 when he was in his second of two seasons as head coach of the Cleveland Browns. That was O’Connell’s first job in coaching.

As a first-time head coach with a background entrenched on offense, O’Connell naturally brought in two well-traveled and widely respected assistants to aid in his decision-making and design the defense: Pettine and Ed Donatell.

The 65-year-old Donatell recently agreed to be the defensive coordinator, beginning his 32nd season as an NFL coach. Donatell ran the defense for the Denver Broncos the past three seasons and has previously served as defensive coordinator of the Green Bay Packers and Atlanta Falcons.

O’Connell was also a backup quarterback for the New York Jets for much of Pettine’s tenure as defensive coordinator there from 2009-12, when his respect for Pettine’s acumen was born. Pettine will enter his 21st year of coaching in the NFL with a fresh scouting report on the NFC North, too. He was defensive coordinator for the Green Bay Packers from 2018-20 and a senior defensive assistant for the Chicago Bears in 2021.

Also hired on O’Connell’s staff were Brian Angelichio (tight ends coach and passing game coordinator), Jerrod Johnson (assistant quarterbacks coach), Chris Kuper (offensive line coach), Curtis Modkins (running backs coach and running game coordinator), Chris O’Hara (quarterbacks coach), Justin Rascati (assistant offensive line coach) and Chris Rumph (defensive line coach). Wide receivers Keenan McCardell will remain in his role and give O’Connell at least one holdover from the previous staff under Zimmer. Offensive coordinator, special teams coordinator and position coaches for linebackers and defensive backs are the most important spots left to fill on O’Connell’s staff.

O’Connell took part in the Super Bowl parade on Wednesday, before flying on a private jet with his wife and three children to frigid Minnesota. His parents and his wife’s parents also attended the introduction, and the easygoing, smooth-speaking, wide-smiling O’Connell found his voice cracking a bit when he mentioned his family.

The native of Carlsbad, California — who starred at nearby San Diego State and was drafted by the New England Patriots in 2008 — befriended new Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah when they both worked for the San Francisco 49ers in 2016. They’re all in on the concept of working together, which is good because there’s plenty to do in the next month.

Adofo-Mensah said the Vikings are focused on building the team around Cousins, who will carry a $45 million salary cap charge on the final year of his contract unless it’s reworked and thus extended to create more room for free agents in 2022.

“I know who he is as a player, and I know what he’s capable of, and part of our job as coaches is maximizing a player’s ability to go out every single Sunday and have success,” O’Connell said. “I feel that’s going to be an advantage for us as we build our system.”

AP

 

At the least we have a brand new system and staff to look forward to next season and Im excited.

 

New Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell has spent the last two years working for Sean McVay as the Rams’ offensive coordinator, and O’Connell says he’s bringing everything he learned in Los Angeles with him to Minnesota.

O’Connell confirmed at his introductory press conference that he will be the offensive play caller, and he said working closely with McVay will help on that front.


“I feel like I’ve been around one of the best play callers in the NFL over the last couple years [in McVay], and obviously the system we run here will have a lot of characteristics of what we did in Los Angeles, the ability to have that attacking mindset, the ability to utilize our offense at the line of scrimmage,” O’Connell said. “With that, you have to have ownership of what you’re doing to call it, you have to have ownership of what you’re doing at the quarterback position to run the offense, and I feel very strongly about the circumstances and situation here to be really prepared to do that.”

O’Connell praised McVay as the kind of team leader he wants to be.

“He’s had a huge impact on me the last two years, but even going back beyond that, I’ve learned so much from him about the type of team and culture that I want to build,” O’Connell said. “But he is truly a remarkable man, a remarkable leader. I hope to bring a lot of those characteristics to our football team here that he’s instilled that just helped us win a world championship.”

Vikings fans can only hope that O’Connell will get results like McVay’s.

PFT

 

Looking back Rick Spielman he really did some serious damage with these large azz contracts and Mike Zimmer didn't help were they ever on page the last few years?

 

By this insane Kirk Cousin contract is a big problem this is starting look like a FU from Rick Spielman they got to get rid of him cause he does not have a winning mindset,is he more about me than team seems like it What a NIGHTMARE

 

Vikings interviewing Chris Beatty for offensive coordinator



Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell is making progress on his search for an offensive coordinator.

According to NFL Media, Chargers receivers coach Chris Beatty is interviewing for the position on Saturday.


Beatty, 48, made the jump from coaching in college to the NFL last year for Brandon Staley’s first staff in Los Angeles. His previous stop was a two-year stint as the receivers coach at Pitt. He’s also worked at Maryland, Virginia, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Vanderbilt since 2011

Rams assistant head coach/running backs coach Thomas Brown reportedly interviewed for Vikings offensive coordinator on Friday. Rams tight ends coach Wes Phillips is also reportedly a candidate to become Minnesota’s OC.

PFT

 

I'm checking this out Kirk Cousin said he will not take a pay cut WTF he's becoming millstone around the Vikings neck,been waiting for that breakout moment so far nothing,wow he ain't all that if true trade him and go forward GO VIKINGS

 

I keep reading stuff like Kirk is taking a hard line with the Vikings, he must think oh I'm so good THEY CAN'T WIN WITHOUT ME does he think he has the Vikings by the short hairs