Vikings look to social outings to help build greater bonds and a better team

Last week, after Kevin O'Connell threw out the first pitch at wide receiver Adam Thielen's charity softball game, the Vikings coach ambled over to the offense's dugout along the first-base line. Somewhere in between the small talk and the good-natured razzing about players' swings, O'Connell started chatting with quarterback Kirk Cousins as both men leaned along the dugout rail.

Only O'Connell and Cousins know exactly what was discussed — whether it was chatting about their families, comparing ideas for red-zone packages or something in between. But the mere sight of the amiable back-and-forth between Cousins and the Vikings' head coach was striking.

The Vikings' approach this offseason — labeled a "competitive rebuild" by General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah — has been in many ways a wager that the current roster is good enough to make a playoff run if it's handled differently from recent years. Frayed relationships between Vikings decisionmakers and players were summed up by remarks like the one linebacker Eric Kendricks made on Jan. 10, when he said, "I don't think a fear-based organization is the way to go" after the team fired GM Rick Spielman and coach Mike Zimmer after missing the playoffs for a second consecutive season.

O'Connell came to town talking about collaboration and player empowerment; he has carried that approach through the team's offseason program, with shorter on-field sessions meant to keep veterans fresh and convey trust in his players. And as the Vikings have reduced their on-field time, they've built in more events for coaches and players to connect away from the practice facility.

Two days after Thielen's softball game, the Vikings made a team trip to Topgolf in Brooklyn Center. Thursday, they will cancel their final day of on-field work at their mandatory minicamp for meetings and a organization-wide barbecue.

Will it make an on-field difference this fall? No one knows for sure. The Vikings' 11th-year quarterback, however, isn't about to dismiss it.

"It's difficult to articulate or quantify, 'How does time spent together at Topgolf equate to fourth-quarter wins?' But I've been around team sports just too long to believe it doesn't," Cousins said. "I think it matters. I think you build relationships, you build trust, you get to know guys. It makes the day-to-day more fun, because you have these relationships and you're counting on one another, and you want to succeed for the players around you. You want to see them have success.

"It just kind of creates an extra heartbeat, or a greater love for the guys around you that, for some strange reason, I think helps you play football better together."

Vikings wide receivers coach Keenan McCardell, who played for six teams in a 17-year career and has coached for three more, agrees that camaraderie matters on a football team.

Can he cite an example?

"In Tampa — [the] 2002 Super Bowl team," McCardell said.

Ah, yes: the group that won Super Bowl XXXVII in Jon Gruden's first year as head coach — after making the playoffs four of the previous five years under Tony Dungy — with a defense that allowed 196 points all season and boasted a Hall of Fame defensive tackle (Warren Sapp), linebacker (Derrick Brooks) and safety (John Lynch).

Did those Buccaneers really need off-field bonding time to win a championship? Perhaps not. But McCardell believes it helped put them over the top.

"It's kind of funny: I knew I was coming to Tampa, and I knew we were going to win the Super Bowl in Tampa in 2002, because first off I knew those guys," he said. "We played golf together, and when I got there, it was basically a whole team meeting for me, on a visit. I was like, 'This is special. This is a special group of guys.'

"We took ownership, and we held each other accountable, and we loved each other, man. We made sure everybody was all right, and when you can do that and have a great locker room like that, like we have here — we have a great locker room. There are special things to come for this locker room if they just stay together."

It's a different approach from the one Vikings players saw under Zimmer, who canceled the Vikings' final minicamp practice in 2016 and 2021 but said, "We need to work, and we need to get better. You team build by winning," when asked about the idea of ending minicamp with teamwide events in 2015.

Springtime social outings might not lead to January playoff wins any more than a third minicamp practice could. The Vikings, though, are testing a hypothesis that they lacked connection more than talent.

During O'Connell's first offseason in Minnesota, the team spent some time trying to change that.

"Just look at each individual side of the ball: You can't talk about all these checks and tools that they have on defense if these guys don't communicate in a way that's real and authentic," O'Connell said. "And that's just the football side. It becomes a heck of a lot easier to hold that guy next to you accountable — or more importantly, hold yourself accountable — when you a feel a responsibility to those guys."