During the off-season, the Minnesota Vikings shifted toward the future with some of their early decisions.
Gone were veterans and franchise staples like linebacker Eric Kendricks and wide receiver Adam Thielen, who were released before free agency. In their place, the Vikings drafted a wide receiver in the first round (Jordan Addison) and positioned linebacker Brian Asamoah to earn most of the team’s defensive snaps.
In a recent interview with Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell discussed those decisions and why they were made.
O’Connell told Breer that he still has a lot of respect for players like Thielen and Kendricks and made sure both heard from him regarding the decision.
“When those things were final, those decisions were made, I reached out directly to those guys and made sure, once again, they heard it from me,” O’Connell said. “But also, ‘Hey, moving forward, if there’s anything I can do or I can help with in any way,’ I was gonna do that.”
Interestingly, O’Connell mentioned that he discussed Thielen’s options with him. In the end, Thielen signed a multi-year contract with the Carolina Panthers.
“I talked to Adam multiple times about some of the opportunities he had and ultimately just wanted to be a resource for him,” O’Connell said. “As much as anything just as a friend, and somebody that respects him.”
Outside of Thielen and Kendricks, the Vikings kept most of their core in place, despite a difficult financial situation. That meant players like Harrison Smith and Kirk Cousins remained with the Vikings.
As a young first-time head coach, I wanted to not only engage with them; I wanted to learn from them. I wanted to allow them to have their fingerprints on our team, based upon their experiences and how we put together something we could be really proud of, and do it in Year,” O’Connell said. “And in my mind, there really wasn’t a real necessity to say goodbye to a lot of those guys immediately.
O’Connell continued: “It was hopefully as much to their benefit as it was to ours, that they get to have another great year, experience some success, continue to grow in their own right, even at that point in time in their career, and get to look back at that year and feel like they had a real hand in it. Because they really did.”