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Reporter’s Misquote of Kevin O’Connell Leaves Vikings Fans Confused, Media Scrambling

Posted on February 8, 2025 - 4:36 am by

On Thursday night, Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell won 2024 NFL Coach of the Year, as voted on by the Associated Press. It’s the premiere Coach of the Year trophy, which is why the award was presented during the NFL Honors ceremony as part of the Super Bowl festivities down in New Orleans.

It’s a big deal. AP Coach of the Year has been voted on and awarded to the NFL’s top head coach since 1957. O’Connell — whose Vikings went 14-3 this season after being projected to win just 6.5 games during the preseason — is only the 2nd Vikings coach to ever win the prestigious coaching award. The other Vikings coach to win? You know. Bud Grant – 1969.

                                  

But instead of celebrating Kevin O’Connell’s extremely rare individual victory this weekend, we are instead focused on something else. After the NFL Honors award show, KOC met with reporters for a podium-style press conference surrounding his COY award. It was not streamed live and no local Vikings reporters were present.

Incorrect Detroit Lions reporter causing chaos for Minnesota Vikings

There was a different NFC North reporter at O’Connell’s presser, though. His name is Dave Birkett and he writes about the Detroit Lions for the Detroit Free Press. The 4X Michigan Sports Writer of the year (according to his X bio) quoted KOC from the podium, via tweet: “our goal is to win a championship and Sam Darnold is going to be a huge part of it when we do”.

Given that Darnold’s status in Minnesota is the No. 1 talking point of the offseason, this post started to make the rounds pretty quickly, even being retweeted by Vikings reporters like Kevin Seifert (ESPN) and Ben Goessling (Star Tribune).

Which position do you think the Timberwolves most need to strengthen next season?

I saw this tweet pretty immediately after it was posted. At first, I yawned it off as a joke post, being it came from a Lions’ reporter. With Darnold’s fate still weeks away from being decided, I can’t even imagine a world where an NFL head coach as media savvy as Kevin O’Connell would say something this telling in private conversations, let alone on the record during a press conference

As mentioned above, being that Birkett is such an accomplished sports journalist (and in the mainstream fraternity), most Minnesota Vikings beat reporters took his report as truth. And even into Friday, there was no video or transcript to prove him wrong.

Seriously, doubt Dave Birkett at your own peril. After taking some heat in his replies, Birkett doubled down on his report, posting “WTF? Yeah, he actually said that.” in a quote tweet if one reply to his original post.

What did Kevin O’Connell actually say about Sam Darnold?

Thankfully, it is 2025. While it took a lot longer than it normally does, video of O’Connell’s full press conference surfaced on Friday. The entire thing lasts only four minutes. He was asked one question about Sam Darnold, but his answer was nothing like what Birkett quoted him as saying.

Instead, he talks about how he was happy to be a part of Sam Darnold’s QB journey and praised the 27-year-old quarterback for an incredible year. Never once does he divulge into whether or not the former USC No. 3 overall draft pick was a part of his plans for a Super Bowl future.

I burned captions into the video below for those that need to watch on mute. O’Connell’s answer on Darnold is only 1.5 minutes long but because there’s no “ah ha” quote to pull, since he never says what Birkett quotes him as saying, I didn’t transcribe anything underneath.

KOC was talking about Justin Jefferson not Sam Darnold

What it appears the 4X Sportswriter of the Year actually overheard, after breezing into Kevin O’Connell’s presser, was the head coach answering a question, not about Sam Darnold, but about Justin Jefferson.

That’s where the ‘our goal is to win a championship and [he] is going to help us do that’ line appears to have come from. This one, I did transcribe below. The line that’s similar to what Birkett tweeted is in bold.

Reporter: “Just kind of talk about Justin Jefferson, being we are just a couple minutes away from his hometown?”

KOC: “Justin Jefferson is capable of accomplishing absolutely anything that he wants and he is so competitive and his drive is so championship worthy that that’s what we want to go and try to do together is bring Minnesota a championship. He’s gonna be a huge part of it when we do it. I feel very fortunate every day to get to coach Justin Jefferson. It’s been an absolute blast with him these last three years.”

Kevin O’Connell on Justin Jefferson after winning NFL COY

We should be celebrating our head coach today, not picking apart a quote he never uttered. Even during arguable the greatest regular season in Minnesota Vikings history, when Dennis Green led the 1998 Vikings to a 15-1 record, he did not win NFL Coach of the Year.

Not only did he lose to Dan Reeves’s Falcons in the NFC title game that January, but he also lost to him in the 1998 Coach of the Year voting, 23.5 (50%) to 14.5 (30.9%) too. But a reporter from another town decided to rain on the parade instead. Now, reporters are either covering his tracks (like Seifert) or backtracking on a report they originally believed to be correct.