Kevin O’Connell Offers Ringing Endorsement of Brian Flores As Future Head Coach

Early this season, Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores’s reputation was called into question when Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa criticized his style of coaching.

On Friday, appearing on NBC Sports’s PFT Live, Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell painted a much more positive picture of Flores in the wake of a successful season.

“I can’t speak more highly about what Brian Flores has brought to Minnesota,” O’Connell said via Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk. “When we identified him as the guy that we wanted to bring in coming off the 2022 season, he has been fantastic. Scheme, relationship with players, my personal relationship with him, how we build our team.”

It’s impossible to draw overarching conclusions on whether Flores has changed his coaching approach writ large from on-field statistics, but Minnesota has routinely fielded capable defenses under him. The Vikings finished 13th in scoring defense in 2023 and fifth in 2024.

Flores appears slated to return in 2025 as Minnesota looks to build on its best season by winning percentage since 1998.

“I think Brian Flores should be a head coach in the National Football League. He will be again,” O’Connell said. “We feel like we’ve got some unfinished business together in Minnesota and we can’t wait to get to work for 2025.”

Vikings Viewed as Super Bowl Contender

Darnold may return to Minnesota after thriving in the regular season for the Vikings, but McCarthy is viewed as the face of the franchise that can step in as early as this season after tearing his meniscus in the preseason.

Minnesota won 14 games last season with Darnold at the helm, and have plenty of firepower to improve on the margins as well, even if the team lets Darnold walk and passes the QB1 role to McCarthy.

The Vikings have $55.7 million in cap space this season, the fifth most in the NFL this season, which can be used to bolster the team’s offensive line as well as figure out its QB situation.

There is some uncertainty with the team, which has kept Vikings number below the likes of the Lions and the Packers at this point in the offseason, but under the guidance of Kevin O’Connell, and with upside in the potential of McCarthy, Minnesota has plenty of upside heading into next season.

Jimmy Butler got what he wanted and is now a Golden State Warrior. Barring something out of left field, Kevin Durant will remain a Phoenix Sun after today’s trade deadline passes. But it almost shook out way differently, as Brian Windhorst shared on Thursday’s Get Up in the wake of Butler’s trade.

“This can be qualified, I think, as a genuine what-if,” Windhorst said. “Because there was a trade sort of in place between Golden State, Phoenix and Miami that would have returned Kevin Durant to Golden State. But Durant stepped up and made it known he did not want a reunion. Once that deal fell apart then Golden State pivoted and tried to get Jimmy Butler.”

Speculation about a potential Durant return to the Bay Area ramped up on Wednesday with a lot of NBA people alluding to the idea without outright reporting many specifics. In addition to Windhorst’s comments, Anthony Slater writes for The Athletic that the “Golden State Warriors ownership group and front office collectively “underestimated” Durant’s coldness toward a return.”

This tentative arrangement would have elevated this trade deadline flurry to another stratosphere but it will still go down as an all-timer. The Western Conference will now be a proving ground for teams to prove that they pulled the right levers and made the right calls.

And it’s yet another opportunity for Durant to wonder if he made the right decision or to have regrets, which has been the story of a wonderful career that carries that what-if factor.