Why Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell's 7-7 record now is more impressive than 13-4 last season

First, starting in the first quarter of the first game, no one wearing purple could hold on to the football. A trend began, and now the Vikings have 26 giveaways, the third most in the NFL.

The fumbling continued, and they sat at 0-3. Soon after, Justin Jefferson, the best non-quarterback in the game, went down with an injury. Then Kirk Cousins, who deserves more credit for his accomplishments in Minnesota than he's received, was lost for the season in Week 8. Alexander Mattison, the first-choice running back at the beginning of the season, has been nothing but inconsistent all along. Three of the four quarterbacks who have started a game this season have missed time with injuries.

Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell has needed a super-sized broom to clean up all these messes. Get this man a Servpro hat.

And O'Connell's clean-ups, for the most part, have worked. He coached a remarkable turnaround, from 0-3 to 6-4. They went 5-2 without Jefferson and are 3-3 without Cousins.

O'Connell has kept this season from falling apart, yet there are grumblings about his coaching decisions. He's not going to pass the white-glove inspection, but having a 7-7 record at this point and being in a playoff position is impressive.

Still, "Fire KOC" was trending on X (formerly Twitter) following Saturday's overtime loss to the Bengals.

You've got to be kidding.

O'Connell's game plan against the Bears, which netted all of 10 points, didn't work. He didn't have the best personnel on the field for the failed tush push against the Bengals. (Where was C.J. Ham, the human wedge, when you need a yard?) But those losses should not be viewed as an indictment of O'Connell's coaching capabilities. It's low-hanging fruit, talk-show fodder, for the second-guessers who moan about batting orders in baseball and line changes in hockey.

The fact that the Vikings are .500 despite the rash of turnovers and injuries, while managing a change of team identity — from offense first to hanging their hat on their defense — is a testament to O'Connell's coaching chops.

The coach got Joshua Dobbs up to speed in less than a week and then needed him to come off the bench to beat Atlanta. In a sport in which coaches drill down on every detail and have contingency plans for their contingency plans, O'Connell put on a master class in preparing a quarterback on the fly.

He's worked with what he's had. He's injected hope into a dire situation. He's stuck his face in the middle of problems while continuing to motivate his players to leave it on the field. When he told them following the win over the Raiders that "this is a championship defense," the room exploded. They could have returned to the field and played another 60 minutes.

Their last three losses have been by one, two and three points, with O'Connell not entirely sure what he was going to get from Dobbs and Nick Mullens.

Last year's Vikings team had a genetic mutation of some kind that had them go 11-0 in one-score games, a record. O'Connell couldn't bring back the gene this season, and they're 6-7 in such games. Being historic is not sustainable — especially when your best players are on injured reserve.

With three games left, the Vikings not only have a shot at the postseason; they could win the NFC North. They have a pair of games against the loony Lions sandwiched around one game against the hated Packers. Win all three, and they are division champs — as long as the Lions lose to the Cowboys. The beatable Lions have the worst path, with the Vikings games surrounding a visit to Dallas. This can be done.

Despite all that has happened this season, O'Connell has the Vikings in range of the division title. Are they a Super Bowl threat? Not many teams are. But navigating The Purple through a topsy-turvy season to reach the playoffs will be a more impressive achievement than going 13-4 a year ago.