With Dalvin Cook gone and Danielle Hunter holding out, Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell met with Twin Cities media during the team’s first day of mandatory minicamp.
On Danielle Hunter
Danielle Hunter started his holdout in an attempt to either get a better contract with the Vikings or a trade to another team that will pay the 29-year-old pass rusher.
“I’ve got all the respect in the world for Danielle as a player, a leader, a person on our team. Those situations we feel very strongly about being solution oriented about everything that comes about. We hope to have continued dialogue and have a really positive outcome,” said O’Connell.
On Dalvin Cook
The Vikings parted ways last week with Dalvin Cook after six seasons in Minnesota.
“I did want to touch on Dalvin Cook and my appreciation for Dalvin,” O’Connell said. “Not only what he meant to me in Year 1 as the head coach of this team, but what he’ll mean to me forever in my coaching journey. His leadership, his work ethic, what he meant to our football team in 2022 but much, much farther back than that with his impact on our organization. He’ll forever go down as one of the great running backs in Vikings history. There’s great things out ahead of him.”
O’Connell was also asked about the competition in the running back room now that Cook is gone.
“I feel really good about our running back room and Alex Mattison is a huge reason why,” he said. “I feel great about where Alex is at. The next step in his career is just more consistent opportunities, which we hope to provide for him. And then with Kene [Nwangwu] and Ty [Chandler] and the rookie (DeWayne McBride}, we want to allow real competition to take place. We feel there is talented guys behind Alex that can provide roles in our offense.”
On the Vikings’ direction
“As far as future years and things like that, I know there’s a reason for everything that we want to do in the short term and in the long term,” O’Connell said.
“I believe my job is to coach this football team to compete every opportunity that we get. Part of that is I have great dialogue with our team. I talk to our team about intent, purpose, what we’re trying to get accomplished in this next meeting, this next practice, this week, this offseason program, this training camp and all the way through.
“I’m very well aware of some of the leadership that we’ve lost on our team and have really challenged some guys to step up and really harness those things that they learned from a lot of great players over the years and become the next group of guys that can maintain a standard of how we want our organization to function.”
