Kevin O'Connell will be next Vikings coach

[Crax]

https://m.startribune.com/vikings-choos ... =n&clmob=y

Sounds like it's a done deal that will be official after super bowl.

[Foreman44]

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately for me, I used up my free articles fo,r the star and tribune..,
I was not sure how I felt about Harbaugh. I never cared for any of the Harbaugh

. But if he would have been the one chosen, I guess I would have to change that.But it doesn’t sound like that will be a concern anymore.

I don’t know much about 0 Connell. Outside of that he is young36/37 The OC of the Rams.

With our GM being young like O Connel, maybe a young group will bring in some freshness of ideas, getting better results, getting away from old school Mike Zimmer types.curious even how Belacheat will do without Brady


I know a friend that told me she was projecting o Connell as our upcoming head coach for some time. Even though she said she didn’t know a lot about him .

I just hope we hit the jack pot with our choices. Many look great before they coach there first game, anyone remember how good former viking coach Les Steckel Fared. He had different ideas bad Viking memory,,

[allday1991]

Like everyone else really don’t know much about this guy. However the rams offence is completely loaded and has McVay as a HC so makes me wonder how much O’Connell was involved. Feel like Harbaugh was the best choice if he didn’t want a ridiculous contract. That being said with the current skill level of this team we should see at least a minor increase in his first year or else he’s not the guy.

[StumpHunter]

Like everyone else really don’t know much about this guy. However the rams offence is completely loaded and has McVay as a HC so makes me wonder how much O’Connell was involved. Feel like Harbaugh was the best choice if he didn’t want a ridiculous contract. That being said with the current skill level of this team we should see at least a minor increase in his first year or else he’s not the guy.

If the skill level were that high Spielman wouldn't have been fired.

There is a lot of work to be done with this team. The Vikings have huge needs at:

CB X 2
DE
LB
RG
C
TE2

They are 11 million over the cap, two of their most important players on offense are at ages where their positions begin to decline and their best player on defense has suddenly become super injury prone.

We all want to win now, but the franchise might be better off taking a step back next season rather than trying to hover around .500.

[Texas Vike]

I'll go on record and say I'm excited by this hire. I think the future is bright. It's a cautious optimism as I still don't know a lot about our new GM or our new HC, but I very much like what I have seen from both.

https://www.denverbroncos.com/news/he-s ... ap-s-greg-

Greg Beacham: "The thing about Kevin O'Connell is he's been at the controls of the Rams' offense in almost every way, except actually calling the plays, for two years, which makes him a guy who's seen what Sean McVay does and what makes the Rams so successful over the last five years. And there's only a handful of guys in the world who can say that; three of the other assistants who can say that are currently head coaches of their own teams, and two are still in the playoffs along with Sean McVay, so the pedigree is impeccable. There's no doubt that Kevin is the next guy in that lineage."

Part of my sanguine disposition towards these hires is that they match the messaging that the Wilfs gave upon firing Rick and Mike. Collaboration, communication, creating a positive, evidence-based/analytical culture. Harbaugh felt retrograde and a poor fit in that sense.

[IIsweet]

Love how Von Miller spoke of the atmosphere with the Rams as opposed to the Broncos. Hopefully O'Connell is the same type of cat and brings that type of locker room environment.

[VikingsFan84]

I do not have any problem with the hire, I am glad the rumors are over and I hope O’Connell will be a good coach and bring Vikings a Superbowl championship

[Crax]

I'll go on record and say I'm excited by this hire.

I'm also excited overall as well. Bit worried too. We have a new GM and a new Coach, and the new coach wasn't calling the plays on game day in LA. Sounds like we have 2 people that have definitely been around the game and FO, but somewhat jumped ahead to where they are now. Hopefully it's because they are that good. It will be real interesting to see who gets hired as OC/DC and who ends up calling at least the offensive plays.

[HardcoreVikesFan]

I have not posted in quite sometime, but I needed to come out of retirement to vent.

I think I have finally reached my breaking point supporting this team. You have Jim Harbaugh in the building for 9 hours and you decide, "nope, Kevin O'Connell is better." How can anyone with some level of football knowledge truly believe a 36-year old OC who DOESN'T CALL PLAYS is better than Jim Harbaugh? What is the point of hiring a GM to make decisions if a minority owner is going to have more say on the matter than the GM? What the hell kind of message is that? If ownership and the team role-players have more decision-making capacity than the GM, why bother having a GM in the first place?

The Wilfs blew an amazing opportunity to generate fan and NATIONAL buzz in the team. Can you imagine how much revenue this team will lose out on because they chose not to hire Harbaugh? Ticket sales would have been through the roof. The team would have easily had more prime-time games. My interest in the team has decreased over the years. I, for one, would have been all-the-way back in with the Harbaugh hiring. Harbaugh was perfect for this team. They needed a strong leader who was able to mend fences and bring strong developmental traits to help many of these young players reach their potential. Harbaugh is all about winning. I can no longer ever take the Wilfs seriously again when they say, "we are all about winning." No, you are not. If you were, Mark and Zygi, you would have hired Harbaugh.

This O'Connell hiring will blow-up in Minnesota's face and the team will be on the lookout for a new coach again in 3-4 years. I guarantee O'Connell is not ready to be a head coach. I guess the Wilfs found their 'yes-man' candidate at least.

[fiestavike]

Ugh. Would have preferred anyone else mentioned.

[allday1991]

I have not posted in quite sometime, but I needed to come out of retirement to vent.

I think I have finally reached my breaking point supporting this team. You have Jim Harbaugh in the building for 9 hours and you decide, "nope, Kevin O'Connell is better." How can anyone with some level of football knowledge truly believe a 36-year old OC who DOESN'T CALL PLAYS is better than Jim Harbaugh? What is the point of hiring a GM to make decisions if a minority owner is going to have more say on the matter than the GM? What the hell kind of message is that? If ownership and the team role-players have more decision-making capacity than the GM, why bother having a GM in the first place?

The Wilfs blew an amazing opportunity to generate fan and NATIONAL buzz in the team. Can you imagine how much revenue this team will lose out on because they chose not to hire Harbaugh? Ticket sales would have been through the roof. The team would have easily had more prime-time games. My interest in the team has decreased over the years. I, for one, would have been all-the-way back in with the Harbaugh hiring. Harbaugh was perfect for this team. They needed a strong leader who was able to mend fences and bring strong developmental traits to help many of these young players reach their potential. Harbaugh is all about winning. I can no longer ever take the Wilfs seriously again when they say, "we are all about winning." No, you are not. If you were, Mark and Zygi, you would have hired Harbaugh.

This O'Connell hiring will blow-up in Minnesota's face and the team will be on the lookout for a new coach again in 3-4 years. I guarantee O'Connell is not ready to be a head coach. I guess the Wilfs found their 'yes-man' candidate at least.

Yeah I liked Harbaugh and Ryan’s. the fact our gm (who has 49ers ties) couldn’t entice either Ryan’s or Harbaugh is concerning. Do the wilfs have more say or are these coaches not interested in what KAM is purposing, seems like in the Harbaugh situation there was clear mis communication. Ryan’s turn down the job because he felt he isn’t ready yet however actually calls the defensive plays, then we hire a guy who didn’t even call the offence for the team he was with on. Again it seems like Ryan’s, Harbaugh and O’Connell were are clear three choices and just like our gm the choice was made for us. Spend all this time and resources to narrow it down to 2-3 guys and only one of them actually wants the job. Starting to think it is the Wilfs.

[Texas Vike]

I have not posted in quite sometime, but I needed to come out of retirement to vent.

I think I have finally reached my breaking point supporting this team. You have Jim Harbaugh in the building for 9 hours and you decide, "nope, Kevin O'Connell is better." How can anyone with some level of football knowledge truly believe a 36-year old OC who DOESN'T CALL PLAYS is better than Jim Harbaugh? What is the point of hiring a GM to make decisions if a minority owner is going to have more say on the matter than the GM? What the hell kind of message is that? If ownership and the team role-players have more decision-making capacity than the GM, why bother having a GM in the first place?

The Wilfs blew an amazing opportunity to generate fan and NATIONAL buzz in the team. Can you imagine how much revenue this team will lose out on because they chose not to hire Harbaugh? Ticket sales would have been through the roof. The team would have easily had more prime-time games. My interest in the team has decreased over the years. I, for one, would have been all-the-way back in with the Harbaugh hiring. Harbaugh was perfect for this team. They needed a strong leader who was able to mend fences and bring strong developmental traits to help many of these young players reach their potential. Harbaugh is all about winning. I can no longer ever take the Wilfs seriously again when they say, "we are all about winning." No, you are not. If you were, Mark and Zygi, you would have hired Harbaugh.

This O'Connell hiring will blow-up in Minnesota's face and the team will be on the lookout for a new coach again in 3-4 years. I guarantee O'Connell is not ready to be a head coach. I guess the Wilfs found their 'yes-man' candidate at least.

Many Vikings fans share your frustrations. I think the Vikings did not manage the optics of the HC hiring process well. Many fans got the impression that Harbaugh was KAM's top choice and, due to their link in SF, that we were only so LUCKY to have Harbaugh's attention and consideration due to this connection. Those fans have seemingly concluded that a minority owner's opposition overrode the new GM in this hiring decision.

To me, that doesn't make any sense. O'Connell was reported to be one of KAM's top choices. They went to LA to interview him and by all accounts, he knocked his interview out of the park and was the front runner. We simply don't know enough about the situation and what the factors were for making the decision or even WHOSE voice had the most weight in the decision. It might very well be that Kwesi didn't feel like Harbaugh's vision matched what they are hoping to do. To me, with our light OL and JJ, I was worried about Harbaugh's offensive tendencies.

Lastly, I understand the desire folks in MSP have to be part of national media discourse. It is very ingrained in the MN psyche to feel like the overlooked child in 'flyover' country who never gets any attention. That all matters very little to me. Attention just for attention's sake is not something to value.

We got a young, offensive mind. If he does well, we won't have to worry about our offensive mind being perennially poached by other teams, so we can establish some continuity with our system and with a QB. It was time for a hard reset, and that's what it looks like we're going to get.

[fiestavike]

It's a very predictable and tedious hiring. Taking the young coordinator from the team in the Super Bowl is such a cliche, and shows very little creativity and vision. Just following the herd. Maybe they really love O'Connell, but I think this move has very little chance of success. The fact that they also interviewed Morris, the DC from the team in the Super Bowl is abjectly humiliating and suggests that they didn't just love O'Connell in particular. Maybe they would have been interested in Both Morris and O'Connell if the Rams had lost in the first round of the playoffs because those were two guys they had their eye on...but I highly doubt it.

[makila]

Athletic article on it this AM:
-----

From Jim Harbaugh to Kevin O’Connell: An inside look at a shocking day amid the Vikings’ coaching search

By Chad Graff and Jon Krawczynski 27m ago 23

As the sun rose over TCO Performance Center in Eagan on Wednesday morning, the winds of change whipped through the frigid February air.

The Minnesota Vikings had spent weeks interviewing candidates and mulling a replacement for coach Mike Zimmer, fired in January after missing the playoffs for the second straight season and suffocating the organization with a hardass approach to leading. After newly hired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah joined the organization two weeks ago, the coaching search had shifted into overdrive. The last candidate slated to be interviewed was the most high profile, and polarizing, of the finalists.

Jim Harbaugh arrived at Vikings headquarters early in the morning brimming with his trademark confidence. He hoped to complete his journey back to the NFL where he’d again chase his dream of a Super Bowl after seven years at his alma mater, the University of Michigan.

An electricity rippled through the building upon his arrival. For all of his eccentricities and concerns about people skills or leadership style, the 58-year-old Harbaugh has an undeniable presence about him, one that fills any room he enters, be it a conference room where the Vikings set up shop for the NFL Draft or the sprawling indoor practice field. It is a different kind of energy from the other three finalists, 36-year-old Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell, 43-year-old New York Giants defensive coordinator Patrick Graham and 45-year-old Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris, all younger up-and-comers, though Morris did have previous head coaching experience in Tampa Bay and Atlanta.

Harbaugh was batting cleanup in the interview order, which, coupled with coaching the San Francisco 49ers to three NFC title games and a Super Bowl appearance in four seasons and fresh off leading his Wolverines to a long-sought conquering of rival Ohio State, put so much more attention on his turn than the previous three relatively anonymous candidates.

But while many Vikings fans salivated over the possible addition of a big name with a big resume and a bigger personality, and with some media reports painting Harbaugh’s interview on national signing day as nothing more than a formality, the Vikings made it abundantly clear to Harbaugh that he was coming in to compete with the other three men for the job, sources told The Athletic. There were some in the organization who wondered if his hard-driving ways, which had been known to grind on those around him in San Francisco and Ann Arbor, would fit in Minnesota after the Vikings had just extricated themselves from the tension-filled end of the Zimmer-Rick Spielman regime.

Harbaugh knew there would be questions. He knew of the perception that he was a coach who was difficult to work with, and he spent the days leading up to the interview preparing to address all of their concerns. In the end, he is one of the winningest football coaches of the last decade and the owner of a 44-19-1 record in the NFL. He believed that after some time with the Vikings’ decision-makers, his resume and gumption would win over Vikings owners Zygi and Mark Wilf, CEO Andrew Miller and Adofo-Mensah (with whom he worked in San Francisco) and inspire them to bring forth a lucrative contract.

But that offer never came, sources said. On a whirlwind day, the Vikings opted against offering Harbaugh a contract and instead turned to O’Connell. A deal with the Sean McVay disciple can’t become official until after the Super Bowl, but O’Connell is expected to become the franchise’s 10th head coach.

For outsiders intoxicated by Harbaugh’s accomplishments and pedigree, it was a stunning result. For many Vikings insiders, however, it was the logical conclusion to a deliberate process aimed at reshaping how things are done in a franchise that has straddled the line between mediocre and contender for too long. It was an exhaustive process that included marathon interviews, Harbaugh professing his desire to return to the NFL and conversations that didn’t go as planned. The Athletic spoke with multiple sources to understand how the Vikings arrived at hiring O’Connell when everything seemed pointed toward Harbaugh.

When the Vikings interviewed candidates for their vacant general manager job, they asked each contender to name three coaches they’d potentially want to work with. Because they did not want to fall too far behind in the coaching carousel, while they were interviewing candidates to replace Spielman after 16 years of leading the front office, a committee of Vikings executives set about interviewing a group of coaches that intrigued them.

When the 40-year-old Adofo-Mensah was hired two weeks ago, he was known to be a fan of Packers offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, who was among that group of eight coaches to have interviewed with Vikings brass. But Hackett was hired by the Broncos on the day Adofo-Mensah was introduced, so Adofo-Mensah provided the Vikings with three coaches he liked: O’Connell, Graham and Harbaugh.

The Athletic reported earlier in the winter that Harbaugh, who led the Wolverines to the Big Ten championship and a berth in the College Football Playoff, was itching to get back into the NFL. His connection to Adofo-Mensah from their days together with the 49ers made it easy to connect the dots.

Shortly after he became the team’s GM, Adofo-Mensah led virtual interviews with Graham and Harbaugh. Graham impressed the search committee with his smarts and Ivy League background. He became a finalist, along with O’Connell, Morris and 49ers defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans. Then Adofo-Mensah called Harbaugh. Adofo-Mensah and Harbaugh share a circle of friends and Adofo-Mensah was curious if one of the most recognizable coaches in America was truly interested in returning to the NFL. Harbaugh insisted he was.

So Harbaugh became the Vikings’ fourth finalist. When Ryans withdrew his name from the running, speculation swirled that he knew something, perhaps that the job was being steered toward another candidate. The Vikings’ search committee flew to Los Angeles and interviewed O’Connell and Morris on Monday. Both conversations went well, but O’Connell “blew them away,” according to a source. He had studied the team’s roster from the previous season. He came prepared with ideas on how to improve the team and was able to offer a nuanced review of quarterback Kirk Cousins, whom he coached for three seasons in Washington.

O’Connell quickly became the favorite of the search committee, which was looking to overhaul the working environment at team headquarters, prioritizing leadership, inclusivity and collaboration after the front office, coaching staff and roster fractured under the pressure on Spielman and Zimmer’s watch. O’Connell seemed to fit that style and mesh well with Adofo-Mensah’s measured approach. Leadership also believed O’Connell’s offensive background was more in line with where the game is going.

But the Vikings knew the search was not over.

They returned home on Tuesday and spent nine hours with Graham. He had only been a defensive coordinator for three years, but the Vikings weren’t deterred throughout the process by a lack of coordinator experience as long as the candidate impressed with his leadership and willingness to work with others. After all, in the early days of the Wilf family ownership, they watched a young coach named Mike Tomlin join Brad Childress’s staff, spend a year in Minnesota as the defensive coordinator and then leave to become a championship-winning head coach for the Steelers.

For those who believed this was all a show with a scripted ending that had Harbaugh in purple, the length and thoroughness of the interview with Graham seemed to indicate that they were taking their due diligence seriously. While Harbaugh had the most impressive resume and certainly would’ve qualified as the biggest swing for the team, it was also a signal that this process was far from a done deal.

In words and actions, the Vikings made it clear that Wednesday was not going to be merely a coronation and a celebration of Harbaugh’s return to the NFL. The Vikings also knew that Harbaugh was notoriously unpredictable. There was no way they could assume anything when it came to a coach so … unconventional.

Harbaugh was going to have to interview like anyone else. He was going to have to earn it.

But it is not clear Harbaugh saw it that way. When he left Ann Arbor for the Twin Cities, reports out of Michigan were that it felt like goodbye. The parents of recruits were quoted as saying Harbaugh had warned them that he was “definitely looking” for an NFL job.

Besides, the Vikings’ search committee wasn’t 100 percent sold on Harbaugh. The coach had clashed with leadership in San Francisco, and even though many place more of the blame at former GM Trent Baalke’s feet, the way an incredibly successful run came to such a quick and flammable end was cause for concern. Some in the Vikings organization wondered about his leadership style and how that would align with their new goals in the post-Spielman/Zimmer era. They had just endured and been weighed down by a volatile head coach’s moody nature and a GM’s inability to find a way to make it work.

Mark Wilf and linebacker/team leader Eric Kendricks spoke about the need to reconnect players and franchise leadership, to feel supported. And now they were looking at Jim Harbaugh to do that?

Others liked the idea of pairing a proven, veteran coach with an inexperienced general manager and thought Harbaugh, with his track record for winning, was the perfect candidate for a team that doesn’t want to rebuild. With Cousins under contract next year and an aging defense, the ability to make big roster changes quickly will be challenging. Mark Wilf said in January that he didn’t think the team was far away from contending and did not want to tear it down and start over. Harbaugh has proven time and again that he can take rosters that accomplished less under previous head coaches and get them to perform better. He has done it at the University of San Diego, at Stanford, with the 49ers and at Michigan. Why couldn’t he do it here?

Adofo-Mensah’s interest in Harbaugh was considered a statement as well. Adofo-Mensah was in San Francisco in those last, ugly days of Harbaugh’s tenure. So if anyone knew enough to stay away from the coach, one figured it would be Adofo-Mensah.

At first, the interview seemed like it was going well. Harbaugh saw the Vikings’ gleaming new practice facility and the team started to see some of the coach’s most redeeming qualities.

A buzz reverberated through the building. Is this really happening? Are we really going to hire Jim Harbaugh?

Harbaugh started to feel it, too. He left Ann Arbor believing he was not coming back, and as the process got rolling, it started to look like he would be in Minnesota to stay.

But the Vikings had some hard questions to ask. They wanted to know more about his style and ability to work with others. They wanted to know more about how things ended with the 49ers. They wanted to hear his vision for leading this team back to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1977.

Sometime around 3 p.m., for reasons that are not exactly clear, things started to take a left turn. The tenor started to change, and if there was any momentum at Harbaugh’s back as he tried to secure the job, it disappeared.

Shortly before 6:30 p.m. CT, ESPN first reported that Harbaugh called Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel to tell him he was coming back to the Wolverines for the 2022 season and beyond.

The reason had nothing to do with money or a contract because the Vikings did not offer Harbaugh the job, sources said. There do not appear to be any hard feelings on either side — just a realization that this was not the right fit.
Kevin O’Connell is expected to be the next head coach of the Vikings. (Kirby Lee / USA Today)

After that, the Vikings turned their attention to O’Connell. In reality, their attention never left him. Harbaugh would have been the headline-grabbing hire, but the Vikings kept coming back to a guy who was drafted by the New England Patriots in the third round in 2008, backed up Tom Brady for one season and also had short stints with the Jets, Dolphins and Chargers. He had left a positive impression on the entire search committee in a way that Harbaugh hadn’t. He had the makeup and the coaching connections to make the Vikings believe that he would be the perfect partner for Adofo-Mensah.

In the grand view, they thought, what better way to usher in a new era of collaborative, innovative Vikings football than with a 40-year-old general manager willing to delegate and a 36-year-old coach ready to run a modern offense.

The success of past McVay assistants Matt LaFleur in Green Bay, Zac Taylor in Cincinnati and Brandon Staley with the Chargers was a positive for O’Connell as well.

The Rams leaned heavily on 11 personnel this season with wide receiver Cooper Kupp posting a record-setting season. It was easy for the Vikings to envision O’Connell deploying something similar with Vikings star receiver Justin Jefferson. Plus, as questions swirl at quarterback, who better to make a judgment on Cousins than O’Connell, his coach for three years in Washington and a former quarterback himself?

O’Connell only attempted six passes in an uneventful four-year playing career. He entered the coaching ranks in 2015 as the quarterbacks coach in Cleveland, and his rise has been swift. After a year working for the 49ers together with Adofo-Mensah in 2016, O’Connell spent three seasons with Washington, then joined McVay as the Rams’ offensive coordinator in 2020.

Success has followed and brought O’Connell and the Rams to the Super Bowl, prepping for a matchup against the Bengals. That, of course, is the end goal for the Vikings as they undergo this transition from Spielman and Zimmer to Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell.

O’Connell will not be officially announced as the new head coach until after the Super Bowl.

If Harbaugh would have been considered a risk, O’Connell certainly constitutes one as well. He has never been a head coach and did not call plays for the Rams. But the NFL is trending younger with its head coaches, and the Vikings are the latest team to go in that direction after saying goodbye to the 65-year-old Zimmer.

What this means for the direction of the team is not immediately clear. Was Harbaugh the “win-now” coach? Does the younger O’Connell represent an openness to rebuilding? Not necessarily. The 42-year-old LaFleur has won the NFC North in each of his three seasons and taken the Packers to two NFC title games. The 36-year-old McVay has won three NFC West titles and is coaching in his second Super Bowl in five years.

Zimmer, on the other hand, won two playoff games and two division titles in eight seasons in Minnesota.

What we do know is it will most certainly be different with Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell in charge.

Because on Wednesday evening, change came to TCO Performance Center. It just wasn’t the change many expected.

(Top photo: Justin Casterline / Getty Images)

[vikeinmontana]

I have not posted in quite sometime, but I needed to come out of retirement to vent.

I think I have finally reached my breaking point supporting this team. You have Jim Harbaugh in the building for 9 hours and you decide, "nope, Kevin O'Connell is better." How can anyone with some level of football knowledge truly believe a 36-year old OC who DOESN'T CALL PLAYS is better than Jim Harbaugh? What is the point of hiring a GM to make decisions if a minority owner is going to have more say on the matter than the GM? What the hell kind of message is that? If ownership and the team role-players have more decision-making capacity than the GM, why bother having a GM in the first place?

The Wilfs blew an amazing opportunity to generate fan and NATIONAL buzz in the team. Can you imagine how much revenue this team will lose out on because they chose not to hire Harbaugh? Ticket sales would have been through the roof. The team would have easily had more prime-time games. My interest in the team has decreased over the years. I, for one, would have been all-the-way back in with the Harbaugh hiring. Harbaugh was perfect for this team. They needed a strong leader who was able to mend fences and bring strong developmental traits to help many of these young players reach their potential. Harbaugh is all about winning. I can no longer ever take the Wilfs seriously again when they say, "we are all about winning." No, you are not. If you were, Mark and Zygi, you would have hired Harbaugh.

This O'Connell hiring will blow-up in Minnesota's face and the team will be on the lookout for a new coach again in 3-4 years. I guarantee O'Connell is not ready to be a head coach. I guess the Wilfs found their 'yes-man' candidate at least.

I understand your feelings, and I can't say you're wrong. I can't say you're wrong because I have know idea how the hiring process went. No one does. Which is why I find it so funny when fans get so excited or so upset about the hiring process. None of us have a clue what went down yesterday.

On paper, Harbaugh would have been a splash hire. The guy wins. But if you read some articles you'll find that his style isn't for everyone. He's a guy pushing 60's and seems to be set in his ways. We're seeing an influx of young, very smart coaches having success in the league right now. This isn't to say I wouldn't have wanted JH to coach this team. I would have been fine with it. Just as I'm fine with O'Connell as I trust the process and the people actually making the decisions after interviewing these guys. Something none of us got a chance to do.

It's all speculation. People assume that Harbaugh would have won no matter what, just because he's Harbaugh. Maybe he would have, but it's not guaranteed. I look at guys like McVay, Lafleur, Shannahan, and Zach Taylor (who also never called plays before landing a head coaching gig) and all the success they've had. Young, successful coaches. Will O'Connell be the next one? I hope so. It's not guaranteed just because his other young, bright counterparts are, but it's not impossible either.

I understand the trepidation. Splash hire vs a young, fairly unknown guy. But I for one am excited about this hire. More so than I was about Harbaugh but I would have been fine with either.

Here's a link of an article I read last week in regards to the Broncos coaching vacancy. Nothing earth-shattering, just a new perspective of the dynamic the Rams have with McVay and O'Connell.

https://www.denverbroncos.com/news/he-s ... ap-s-greg-