Head Coach of the Vikings, Kevin O'Connell Joins Us

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to another episode of I TellYou, featuring the head coach of the
Minnesota Vikings, Kevin O'Connell. Itis really good to be here with you,
guys. This is awesome. Dude, I hear you one of us.
I am very much one of you. We've waited for all the years
of Vikings coaches to have one ofus. It's so cool, you know,

(00:21):
because I don't know if we've everreally had we ever had one of
us. Was Bud Grant one ofus? Really a country music guy?
I'm sure he was. I'm surehe was. I got to know Bud
really well, and I could seehim, you know, if air pods
or air buds existed back and thenwhen Bud was coaching, he was probably
out on the lake fishing or huntingand would have been listening to some country
music, probably some old school stuffobviously, but I'm sure he would have

(00:44):
been cranking up K one O two. I love that. Thank you.
We're not gonna let you go.You're here all day. Hey, who
else on the team is a countryfan? Is there anybody that you know?
I'll tell you what anytime I endup fortunate enough to go to any
shows here in Twin Cities. Ialways see most of our offensive linemen,
quite a few of our quite afew of our defensive players. And I

(01:07):
know all of our specialists. Imean from Andrew de Paula all the way
to Ryan Wright and all those guys. We drafted a kicker from Alabama,
so that's a kind of a prerequisite'scoming in love in some country music,
but a lot of our guys areand there's nothing like it getting to go
to a show and seeing the typeof energy. I love going to us
Bank Stadium because it's my only timeto really be able to take you in

(01:30):
the atmosphere and how great of aplace that is. Hey, we're going
right to talk back on the iHeartRadioapp. You listen to Camdle two and
somebody's got a question. Here yougo, Hi, this questions for Kevin.
We saw you at the Riley Greenconcert. I know former Vikings player
Blake Pels coming next week. I'mcurious if there are any current Minnesota Viking
players that have musical talents that wedon't know, any talents of any format

(01:52):
any well, we will. Wewill certainly find out over the next month.
And that's how that when the trainingcamp days get long. We normally
tends to be rookies, but wefind some talents forcefully out of some of
the young folks at the you know, in the team meeting setting. But
Blake literally my first year coaching,I can remember, you know, you

(02:13):
got to figure out stuff to sayto these guys every single day. And
I remember somebody kind of nudges meif you ever heard Blake sing? And
I said, I haven't. SoI just decided at the end of a
team meeting, I said, Blake, stand up and give us something.
I'm thinking he's going to be youknow, he'll sing a little bit,
It'll probably be pretty good. Heblew everybody away, and a lot of
the guys obviously knew already, sothat became a daily thing. I was,

(02:36):
you know, I was his biggestfan on American Idol and expecting him
to absolutely take off in his career. What a dude, Blake is?
I heard that. I heard theytold me that you're doing the national anthem
for us this morning? Is thattrue? That is the one thing I
can promise I will know. Ijust wanted to give the opportunity to throw
it out there and if he coulddo it. You know, I didn't
want you to leaving going head.Why didn't he ask me to do the

(02:58):
national anthem? Yeah, it's hottime picked this week and I just thought
you could drill it. Yeah,I would say that I would give it
my best bet if if it wasjust in the privacy, I trust you
guys. But one of these mics, these weird looking things right here,
they go up to a lot ofpeople. It's really just uh, Friday
afternoon, they're off to the lake. Yeah, hey, how's your how's

(03:19):
your family liking it? You betwhat you're heading into your third year?
Well, my poor kids, youknow, when you're a coach. I
think my nine year old's lived inseven cities in his nine years, so
uh, he loves the Twin Citiesmore than any place we've ever been.
We've absolutely fallen in love. Ithink it's the people. I think every
time we're out and about as afamily, people are so respectful but also
always so excited about, you know, me being the head coach and where

(03:43):
we're hopefully going to go as ateam, and it just makes it that
much more worthwhile. And it's anabsolutely beautiful place. Look at this place
to uh to be able to wakeup and spend our free time. The
limited free time we do have,we spend it as a family here.
Absolutely love it. Do you saythat in February? I do not.
Still I still remember, you know. We my last couple of days in

(04:04):
Los Angeles when I coached for theRams were pretty good. We we won
the Super Bowl, had a SuperBowl parade. I left that parade with
basically a windbreaker on and a pairof jeans, and I got here.
They ended about eleven o'clock at night. It was about minus twelve. Actually,
a couple of these guys were standingthere outside waiting for me, and
I didn't know how it was evenpossible. People, I've I've toughened up

(04:27):
a little bit over the least youget used to it. Yeah, Coach
O'Connell, now that you've been inMinnesota for a while now, one of
our camera too listeners, TJ,wants to know if you've caught yourself saying
things like UFTA or ope a lotmore over the last few years. I
don't think I have, but Iwill say my five year old Colton,
he is full blown. He's gotthe accent. He he sometimes calls me
a coach instead of yeah fun,and we have a we have kind of

(04:50):
a saying. My kids love it. They when we go out and about,
I might take you know, theboys to home depot or something.
We'll count how many times somebody willcome up and say, hey, coach
to me when we're out and about, and they just absolutely love it.
But Colton, it started out asa joke, but he's full blown.
He's, uh, you know,my youngest daughter was born here. Colton's
already assumed, uh, the theaccent. So I think it's working its

(05:13):
way up in our family and it'llbe to me in no time. Oh
yeah, little ol'connalls. Dude,can I ask you? I don't I
get real personal here, but whydid you ever give up that gigyhead with
the Patriots? Dude, that's thebest gig backing up Tom Brady, I
can tell you that's not something thatyou know was my decision, but more

(05:35):
get your stuff and get out ofhere. But is that a Belichick thing?
Yeah, he's become an absolute mentorof mine. But Coach Belichick was
the person who showed me the door. But Tom Brady, I can't say,
having been around him for a goodchunk of time there. I can't
say enough good things about him.Have you met Bill Belichick's girlfriend? I

(05:56):
was just wondering. I have not. Okay, I just wanted because he
finally found somebody that he can reallyrelate to, which is nice. Everybody
deserves. It's really cool. Iwanted to know. I've been watching on
the Netflix the Wide Receiver things,and I saw that they had Jefferson on
there doing the gritty, So Iwanted to know, is that something we'll
ever see you do on film?I have a current agreement with one Justin

(06:21):
Jefferson if we're ever able to winthe NFC Championship Game, which I believe
we will, while while I'm here, before we go to the super Bowl,
at some point, I will Iwould be scheduled to attempt my first
grid. You will, Okay,you've been practicing a little bit of the
well it's kind of like the nationalanthem. Yeah, you know, I

(06:43):
may have been practicing, but youguys will never know till you actually get
to see the first gritty. Oh, we can't wait any chance. As
the interview goes on, this iswhere I get kind of Kaki weird.
But is there any way you guys, I would just love this, dude.
I would hook you up with anynot because I hear it's tough for
you to get kind of tickets,but I'm your source, right If you
could work Kyoto two into a playeran audible, you know, like on

(07:06):
on National TV, like Kywottle twolaser whatever. I know it's cheesy,
but if you could nobody know,I mean, it would be really kind
of our little thing get there.Then with how we do some of our
cadence, it really would not bethat difficult. So you send me a

(07:26):
reminder at some point, and uh, you know, it might have to
be in one of those games wherewe're about to you know, maybe take
any at the end of a bigwin. Yeah, okay, just as
long as there's still people watching.Yeah, you know that kind of thing.
Apparently with the NFL, everybody's alwayswatching. So uh no, we'll
try to work that and you sendme a reminder. I will do that.
I don't know if we can doit fresh out the blocks to start

(07:47):
the season. No, it's preseason. I think like a big national game.
Yeah, you know, yeah,like right before like Luke colmbs is
coming to town or something like thatboom. There you go. Well,
we'll work something out that well.And speaking of Luke Combs, we had
a Kimo two listener who also askeda question. Jeremiah asked us which country
music star would coach O'Connell like onthe team and what position? Oh man,

(08:11):
that one. I know. Iknow it's tough because there's some pretty
good tough guys out there. Yeah, I would probably let me think here,
and I'm putting you on the spotright question. It is a great
question, you know. I thinkLuke Combs, would you know have I
mean, he's he's probably a powerfuldude. Yeah, you know, lead
blocking for Aaron Jones or whatever itwould be. But I'm gonna say just

(08:33):
because he happens to be somebody thatI know loves football more than any country
music star I know, I wouldsay Kenny Chesney that he loves throwing a
helmet on. He gets but I'mtalking like, don't tell him. I
said this like nineteen ninety eight.I agree. You know, we had

(08:54):
a discussion before I got there.I played with Wes Welker in New England.
That's where I'm going with it.That little slot receiver that he's always
open, we can find a spotfor kissing. I'm with you. I
got one more wacky question for you. So, if your whole team got
stranded on an island, who doyou think would have the best survival skills

(09:16):
out of everyone? Oh? Youknow what I'm going to say. Our
long snapper Andrew Depaula. He's he'sour oldest player. He's wise, he's
been able to, you know,have a heck of an NFL journey.
But he is really good at justa lot of random stuff. Any events
we ever do. We had akind of a Vikings cookoff in the in
the in the spring, We've donedifferent kind of team activities, and he

(09:39):
always seems to be if he's notwinning, he's on the podium to Sitaly.
So I would say Depot would bethat guy. But we've got a
lot of guys, a lot oftalented guys, a lot of guys that
would be able to survive a lotlonger than me. I know that.
Well, here's the key question.Then who would be the worst at surviving?

(10:00):
That's good, he would kill meif I said this, But I
think it's got to be Justin Jeffersonat this point. You know, he's
you know, he's pretty used toliving a pretty comfortable lifestyle, and you
know, if he ends up beingone of the last few on there,
I don't know whether he's hunting orgathering or I don't know what he would
be doing. But you know,but knowing Jets, he'd find a way

(10:22):
out of there before we did,for sure, before we let you go.
Training camp is this week and peoplecould get tickets at Vikings dot com.
You must be pretty stoked on.Yeah, I think that would be
the biggest thing is training camp.For me, it was my favorite thing
as a kid too. My dadalways took me to Philadelphia Eagles training camp
when I was growing up in NewJersey. And I remember the day Randall
Cunningham walked over signed something for me, gave me a wristband. I still

(10:45):
have it, and he became myabsolute favorite former Viking quarterback as well.
And you know, just the interactionsyou can have, especially for our young
kids to see the game at thatlevel up close and all of our guys,
all of our players, and howwe set up training if it's really
built for kids to kind of realizehow much they love football and how much
they love the Vikings it's cool thatyou do that. It's a very cost

(11:07):
effective, very family fun, familyfriendly, and you can afford it.
It's like, what, just afew bucks to get into the training camps.
Just don't be a spy. Fora spy. They don't let you
in, right, Yeah, we'llfind you kind of stuff. Yeah,
I tend to be a little sensitiveabout filming our plays during practice. Flip
the phone over to your kid andI won't say anything. Well, one

(11:28):
thing about Packers fans, they nevernot wear green and gold, so you
always could pick down. Kevin O'Connell, head coach of the Minnesota Its appreciate
it. Super nice guy. Goingto have them coming again, head coach
of the Vikings, Kevin O'Connell inthis episode of You, If would be
so kind to please rate, review, subscribe, download and share. Thank you,