At his introductory news conference Thursday afternoon, Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell, fresh off a Super Bowl win with the Rams, offered glimpses of the kind of coach he wants to be.
Here are excerpts from his opening remarks and his answers to questions. You can watch the whole news conference here.
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"I think it's important to have a relentless passion to teach, lead and motivate, because that's what we are in its truest form is we're teachers, we're motivators, we're leaders, and then if we're able to connect with our players, they become the same, and everything can take off from there."
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"Consistency is everything that we do in this league. It's too hard to win. It's too hard with the challenges you face throughout a season to not allow your players to see the same exact guy standing up in front of them every single day. It'll be a hallmark of what I want to do here as my first time being a head coach. "
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"To Vikings fans, I just want to let you know, you'll get everything I absolutely have on an every-single-day basis. Knowing how hard it is to win in this league and having come from an organization where we were just able to accomplish the ultimate goal in winning a Super Bowl, I know what it takes. I've seen it. I've experienced it, and I know how hard it can be."
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"It was one of the more challenging months of my life going back to when the playoffs first started, but probably one of the most rewarding."
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On Rams coach Sean McVay: "I've learned so much from him about the type of team and culture that I want to build. But he is truly a remarkable man, a remarkable leader, and I hope to bring a lot of those characteristics to our football team here that he's instilled that just helped us win a world championship."
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On setting the tone in his first meeting with Vikings players: "They've got to know we care about them from day one. I will not hire a coach that will not connect on a one-on-one basis with their players in their rooms. It's very, very important, but our players will feel that from the first meeting all the way through our first time getting on the grass into training camp and on into the season."
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On calling offensive plays as a head coach: "My career as a player provided a great platform for me as a coach, because I did spend a lot of time watching games from the sideline, but I will say that with that becomes the ability to see the game in a way that I feel very prepared to call the game. I feel like I've been around one of the best play callers in the NFL over the last couple years, and obviously the system we run here will have a lot of characteristics of what we did in Los Angeles, the ability to have that attacking mindset, the ability to utilize our offense at the line of scrimmage."
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"The best coaches I ever had, I felt like they cared about me. I felt like they cared about not only the production on the field but the process which we got to that point. ... Play calling and all that other stuff is great, but in its purest form you can teach the game, teach what you're asking them to do, understand how hard it is, some of the things you ask these players to do sometimes, but then give them the why and give them a reason behind everything you do. These players will take off and they'll go run with it, and that player ownership is ultimately what we're striving for."
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On quarterback Kirk Cousins: "I know he's already contract and I'm excited to coach him. We've already started thinking about how we're going to build those systems for him and our other quarterbacks and really the tremendous skill group that we have, our guys up front. It takes all 11 to move the football on offense, to run it, to throw it, to score points in the red zone. But I'm anticipating Kirk being a part of what we do."
"Accuracy is the No. 1 requirement in this league as a quarterback from a physical standpoint. We can talk a lot about makeup and obviously the ability to process at the line of scrimmage and play fast, but if you can't be accurate with the football, it becomes very difficult to consistently move the ball for an offense. I think Kirk, the one thing I've always noticed about him is he's incredibly accurate with the football. He plays with great rhythm and timing and precision, and I think we can build an offensive system like we had in L.A. to take advantage of that skill set."
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"I definitely have a vision of what I want the defense to look like and play like. First and foremost, the core characteristics of playing good defense, which is guys flying around, a great tackling group. We're going to force turnovers with how we play from a scheme standpoint, but that's an effort thing. That's playing with great effort, sustaining that, finishing plays, making it about the football."
