Can you feel the love between the Vikings coaches?
Brian Flores will be one of the hottest names as a potential head coach this offseason. Vikings head coach Kevin O' Connell doesn't believe his next move, if there is a move at all, will be a lateral one to become another team's defensive coordinator. O'Connell relayed his feeling based on his conversations with Flores and said: "Based upon my dialogue with him and, obviously, the enthusiasm and the want-to for us to get something done."
"I know he enjoys being here. I know he and I, just from our recent dialogue, that he feels very similar about me that I do with him," O'Connell continued. "Hopefully I can come to this podium and say, 'He's going to be here for as long as we can keep him here before another team makes him their head coach.'"
O'Connell did say the dialogue has been very positive. He went on to share his love and admiration for Flores.
"Flo' knows I love him. He was the guy three years ago that I identified to bring in here, and the growth and just our relationship and what he's meant to me personally is so massive," O'Connell said. "That's not even taking into account what he's been able to do defensively for our team. Been such a huge part of helping us daily, minute-to-minute kind of weather the different storms we had to navigate this year.
"I absolutely want Brian Flores to be the defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings as long as we can have him," he added. "I would say this, I do know that he's demonstrated a lot of things that, having gone through the process of the head coach hiring process before, myself, I imagine he's going to be a pretty popular guy there as well — and rightly so, he's earned everything. [But] that doesn't take away from the route we want to go to make sure he's our defense coordinator for the foreseeable future."
O'Connell did acknowledge that discussions are difficult still with a game left in the 2025 season and the Vikings chances at winning their ninth game and securing a winning record against all odds. Flores is likely focused on putting more good things on tape to bolster his resume. The problem with the Vikings this season has not been their defense and Flores continues to be one of the top defensive minds in the NFL.