Vikings Owner/Chairman Zygi Wilf and Owner/President Mark Wilf addressed the media after Kevin O’Connell’s introductory press conference on Thursday.
MINNEAPOLIS — After five straight wins without the team’s best player — and two of them without the starting quarterback — Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell has forced his way into the coach of the year conversation.
O’Connell has the Vikings at 6-4 after winning just one of their first five games. He’s won games with three different starting quarterbacks, multiple starting offensive line combinations and a young, injury-ridden defense.
Past Coach of the Year winners
To gauge O’Connell’s odds this year, let’s look back at the last 10 coaches of the year to see what commonalities we can find, as well as whether O’Connell fits the profile.
Here are the last 10 winners, with their teams and records:
- 2022: Daboll, New York Giants (9-7-1)
- 2021: Mike Vrabel, Tennessee Titans (12-5)
- 2020: Kevin Stefanski, Cleveland Browns (11-5)
- 2019: John Harbaugh, Baltimore Ravens (14-2)
- 2018: Matt Nagy, Chicago Bears (12-4)
- 2017: Sean McVay, Los Angeles Rams (11-5)
- 2016: Jason Garrett, Dallas Cowboys (13-3)
- 2015: Ron Rivera, Carolina Panthers (15-1)
- 2014: Bruce Arians, Arizona Cardinals (11-5)
- 2013: Rivera, Panthers (12-4)
Of those coaches, four of them were in their first year (Daboll, Stefanski, Nagy and McVay). Voters clearly put stock into overachieving freshman coaches.
Seven of the 10 coaches won their division and all of them made the playoffs. They averaged 11.1 wins, with Daboll’s nine in 2022 being the fewest. No other winner had fewer than 11 victories.
Daboll is actually a useful outlier to analyze. His team was fairly middling — it ranked 15th in points scored and 17th in points allowed. The Giants had a winning percentage of .529 and finished third in the NFC East. Daboll’s award was, seemingly, an acknowledgement that the team made the playoffs in his first year despite not being all that good (the same could’ve been said for O’Connell, but that’s beside the point).
