Kevin O'Connell was slapped on the back 56 mornings ago for deftly maneuvering his way to the top of this voter's Associated Press NFL Coach of the Year ballot.
It was Nov. 10. O'Connell's Vikings were two days from going 6-4 after a 1-4 start and 5-0 without Justin Jefferson. They were about to win a third straight game with a third different quarterback. And O'Connell's expert handling of newly arrived Joshua Dobbs — the rocket scientist, NASA nerd and beloved "Passtronaut" — was becoming the talk of the league and, as this voter told O'Connell that day, "some special Coach of the Year type work that could provide a finish for the ages" if the Vikings could catch the Lions, who were only 1 ½ games ahead in the NFC North.
In hindsight, sorry for the Jumbo Jinx, Kev.
Since the Nov. 12 win over the Saints, O'Connell is 1-5 with 15 turnovers, 14 by the quarterback. He's benched his quarterback three times in the last four games. The Lions wrested the NFC North title from him at home on Christmas Eve, the Packers embarrassed him 33-10 at home on New Year's Eve and the Bears pulled even with him in the division basement while securing the first overall draft pick via the selection they got from Carolina last spring.
Ouch.
As for the Passtronaut, well, he disintegrated upon reentry, benched during the 3-0 win over the Raiders on Dec. 10 and banished to No. 3 on the depth chart.
Earlier this week, the voter who sang praises to KO back on Nov. 13 couldn't help but finally ask, "What the heck?!" with regard to Dobbs.
"When he first got here, he did an unbelievable job of going out and making some plays within our offense and then being able to make some plays above the offense from an off-schedule standpoint," O'Connell said. "Maybe like other facets of our team, you put that on tape enough and people start trying to defend certain ways that individual player plays and activating some things to try and limit their ability to do some of those things. And maybe as we went on, we saw some of that."
