To Kevin O’Connell’s left, out a window and over a set of practice fields, there is a set of apartment complexes. One is done, and some of the coach’s younger Vikings colleagues live in it. Another is visible but not done, with the siding still not up and plenty of finishes left to be completed. All of it is part of the vision O’Connell’s bosses, the Wilfs (real-estate developers by trade), have for building around the team’s palatial headquarters.
The race the Wilfs are running in building up the land parallels the one their football coach and the GM he was hired with, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, are leading the team on.
Last year, for the new Vikings brass, was about laying down the foundation, which would serve as the centerpiece for O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah’s burgeoning program. Now the challenge is to maintain that foundation while also building up everything else around it. Which means some goals (like winning) remain the same, while the pursuit of others looks different.
Gone now are long-term Vikings cornerstones Adam Thielen and Eric Kendricks. Harrison Smith is back on a reduced contract. Dalvin Cook’s status is still up in the air, as he and the team have tried to find a financial middle ground. And none of that, O’Connell emphasizes while leaning back in his office chair, takes anything away from what those players gave him and his staff, or Adofo-Mensah and his crew, during a 13–4 debut season for the coach and GM.
“The respect factor, the relationships I built with those players, they were all real,” O’Connell says. “They were all valued tremendously by me. And I hope it was the same for those players, in knowing that 2022, for us, was my first year, and I leaned on those guys. I hope they look back [fondly on it]. And it didn’t end the way we wanted it to, but there was a lot of real positive that they had a direct hand in. And as we move forward here, that won’t change. That’s the foundation we’re building upon, that they were absolutely a part of it.”
So why not, after such a successful maiden voyage, run it back?
To me, the answer brings you to one of the NFL’s most interesting, and often overlooked, team-building stories of the 2023 offseason. Because as certain pieces are coming out, others are being built up, like all that land around the team facility, piece by piece. And so much of it reflects the vision the Wilfs bought into by hiring O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah, and the background both men brought with them to the Twin Cities.
In the MMQB Lead for this Memorial Day Monday, we’ll take you inside all of that.
