and Hey everybody welcome to another episode ofider, Matthew Collar here,

along with Andrew Kramer of the Star Tribune

and Dane Mizetani of the Pioneer Press

to break down what we heard today

from Kevin O'Connell and Koesi Dauphomensa

in our sit-down session, only a handful of beat reporters and all of us.

We're so blessed to be invited.

So really appreciate the Minnesota Vikings doing that.

Not every team is even here, much less sitting down with their beat reporters, so we appreciate it.

And I think the place that we have to begin, fellas, is that the National Football League. He was the only coach to be given an A-plus and I was able to break that

dues to him. He had not seen it at the time that we met with him and I think his reaction was that it was important because they had a good year in 2022 and it would be easy to have a good culture in 2022 because he had a lot of veterans and a lot of wins.

But to have it in 2023, Andrew, I think it was a lot harder

and reflective that this man has a special ability

to listen to his players, to connect with his players, to understand them, and to be able to

galvanize a locker room even under adverse situations.

Yeah, and I think you're seeing around the league, whether it's Dan Quinn getting hired in Washington, we're seeing

teams, DeMico Ryan's and Houston, prioritize leaders, prioritize people who can stand in

front of a room and not just be an ex as a nose guru and scheme things open and I think that that's where

Kevin Connell falls in line when you ask what does he bring to the table that's one of the biggest

things and players say it they voted it that this guy can stand in front of the room and listen to us and we actually feel like he's being genuine

about taking our input changing things. I mean this goes back to his first year when he's talking about Adam

Thielen helping adjust routes on certain pass plays listening to a veteran right

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