Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell is expected to become the Vikings’ head coach after the Super Bowl, and Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins is thrilled.
Cousins said this morning on NFL Network that he knows O’Connell well from the season they spent together in 2017, when Cousins was Washington’s quarterback and O’Connell was the quarterbacks coach. And Cousins thinks he benefited from that experience.
“With Kevin I see a lot of the similarities that I saw with Kyle Shanahan, Matt LaFleur, Sean McVay,” Cousins said. “When they were hired as head coaches you knew they had great football minds, they were innovative, hard workers, good with people. The only real question was, they’re young. Do they have the experience? I think time has proven with Kyle, Matt and Sean that they knew what they were doing and they were able to learn quickly and being a head coach wasn’t too big for them. So I feel a similar sense with Kevin. He is a great football mind. He’s been around a lot of a great football minds. He’s a hard worker. He was big in my development. The fact that he’s never been a head coach before, that he’s a little younger than a lot of head coaches, I think the track record with the other guys would suggest that he’ll be just fine.”
With Cousins set to cost $45 million against the Vikings’ salary cap in 2022, Minnesota badly needs him to play like a franchise quarterback. If O’Connell can make that happen, the Vikings will be in good shape. If not, they’re likely looking for a new quarterback in 2023.
