A few days ago it felt like the coaching staff of the 2024 Minnesota Vikings was complete. Yesterday, the team announced the hiring of another coach. Josh McCown will coach the Vikings quarterbacks. Chris O’Hara had coached the team’s quarterbacks for the past two seasons. He’s now the Pass Game Specialist. McCown played quarterback in the NFL for 18 seasons with 12 different teams. He started his career as the third round pick of the Arizona Cardinals in the 2002 NFL Draft. He finished his career with the Houston Texans in 2020.
McCown’s teams:
Arizona Cardinals
Detroit Lions
Oakland Raiders
Miami Dolphins
Carolina Panthers
San Francisco 49ers
Chicago Bears
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Cleveland Browns
New York Jets
Philadelphia Eagles
Houston Texans
He also played one season (2010) with Hartford Colonials of the United Football League.
Josh McCown’s first season with the Cleveland Browns (2015) was the first season of Kevin O’Connell’s coaching climb to the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings. O’Connell was McCown’s position coach with the Browns. Now, McCown is the quarterbacks coach for O’Connell. Coaching after playing was inevitable for McCown. For most of his 18-year playing career he was as much coach as player. The Texans thought so highly of his coaching potential that they interviewed him on two separate occasions for their head coach position. The first occasion (2021) was when he was still a player on their roster. The second occasion was a year ago. It isn’t difficult to imagine McCown as a head coach in the NFL. For now, it’s likely that O’Connell hired him with a particular project in mind. It’s a near certainty that the Vikings will select a quarterback early in the 2024 NFL Draft. With O’Connell, McCown, O’Hara, and Grant Udinski, the young quarterback, and all of the team’s quarterbacks, will have tremendous coaching resources in the building and on the field.
Minnesota Vikings Offensive Coaches:
Head Coach: Kevin O’Connell
Offensive Coordinator: Wes Phillips
Quarterbacks: Josh McCown
Assistant Quarterbacks/Chief of Special Projects: Grant Udinski
Pass Game Specialist: Chris O’Hara
Pass Game Specialist/Game Management Coordinator: Ryan Cordell
Run Game Coordinator/Running Backs: Curtis Modkins
Receivers: Keenan McCardell
Assistant Receivers/Quality Control: Tony Sorrentino
Pass Game Coodinator/Tight Ends: Brian Angelichio
Offensive Line: Chris Kuper
Assistant Offensive Line: Shaun Sarrett
Quality Control: Derron Montgomery
Offensive Assistant: Ben Ellefson
Assistant to the Head Coach: Henry Schneider IV
Kevin O’Connell put together a solid coaching staff when he was hired as the Vikings head coach in 2022. The most impactful coaches might be two that he hired since his first season. Brian Flores last year. Josh McCown this year. Flores crafted an impactful defense with marginal talent in his first season in Minnesota. The second year, with a hand-picked talent infusion, should be even better. McCown could have a similar impact on the Vikings quarterbacks. Last year was his first official year of coaching NFL quarterbacks. In reality, he’d been coaching NFL quarterbacks for most of his 18-year playing career. The Carolina Panthers hired him to coach #1 pick Bryce Young. Owner David Tepper’s knee-jerk detonation of his Panthers coaching staff made McCown available. O’Connell was wise to grab him. Nine years ago, O’Connell coached McCown. Now, McCown coaches for O’Connell. The hope here is that the new coach will be working with an old, gimpy Kirk Cousins. Perhaps more importantly, the new coach will likely be tasked with getting a rookie quarterback ready for the NFL. The Quarterback of the Vikings Future. It might be the most important quarterback-coach relationship in franchise history since Fran Tarkenton met Norm Van Brocklin. Hopefully, this Vikings quarterback-coach relationship is much less volatile. As with Flores, McCown’s stay in Minnesota could be a short one. Many assumed Flores coached his way last season into another head coach opportunity this season. For whatever reason, he didn’t even get an interview request. I like to think that he was happy in Minnesota and didn’t want an interview or to move his family again. Every season that Flores coaches the Vikings defense will bring worries that it’ll be his last. The better his defense plays the more likely it becomes that owners will pull their heads out of their asses and give him the head coach job he deserves. We should all just appreciate every season Brian Flores does coach the Vikings. McCown feels like a quarterback-whisperer that’s on a fast-track to a head coaching job. Like Flores, it feels like his stay in Minnesota could be short. If it is short, it surely means that he was wildly successful with the Vikings quarterbacks. That’s a good thing. No matter how long his stay, I’m thrilled with the addition of Josh McCown to the Vikings coaching staff.
No comments:
Post a Comment