Vikings Announcer Paul Allen Blasts Source Of Kevin O’Connell Rumors
Credit: Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports
Teams and players can say that they block out distractions, that they don’t read the press, that they don’t watch or care about the things that are said about them. Here’s a dirty secret: They’re lying. Everyone’s human and everyone — even the ones who are disciplined enough to avoid scrolling social media — has the buzz surrounding them filter in.
This is to say, you can bet when rumors came out about Kevin O’Connell the morning before the Minnesota Vikings played their biggest regular-season game in generations, the locker room heard about it. FOX’s Jay Glazer dropped a report that morning claiming that “multiple teams” were interested in trading for KOC. Why wouldn’t they be, in the midst of a 14-win season where he squeezed the most out of Sam Darnold?
But insiders like Glazer don’t get their reputations by throwing out anything. There’s usually smoke behind what they’re saying, leading to speculation of the future of the Vikings’ coach, even as O’Connell tried to stamp out those rumors in a press conference. “I love this team. I love everything about this organization. This is where I want to be,” KOC declared between the Lions and Rams losses.
Now, did it lead to them losing to the Detroit Lions that night and LA Rams next week? Probably not. Might it have affected their mindset and preparation, with a cloud of uncertainty in the locker room? Hey, everyone’s human.
Voice of the Vikings Paul Allen, who is around the team and well-connected with the players and organziation, feels like the rumors had some effect. He sounded off on these rumors on his KFAN show, and even voiced some suspicion that they came from KOC’s camp (though, not KOC himself).
Did @JayGlazer derail the #Vikings season when he dropped the trading HC Kevin O’Connell rumor last Sunday before the #Lions game? @PAOnTheMic seems to question the timing of it and briefly discusses how it impacted the team that day in Detroit and also Glendale 👀
PA,… pic.twitter.com/hFs09k52LH
— The Purple Persuasion (@TPPSkol) January 14, 2025
Allen points out that insiders have to cut through the sheer volume of nonsense that they hear and only go with rock-solid sources. And since the power brokers in the NFL rarely leak information for fun, you have to ask the ancient question: Cui bono? Who benefits?
“I’m just gonna lay it out like this,” Allen starts plainly. “If that rumor came from Kevin O’Connell’s agent — and I don’t even know what his agent’s name is — shame on him. And shame on everyone involved in that rumor, if it came from there. Because it deflects attention from a game that day to secure a No. 1 seed for a 14-win team.”
Allen stops short of accusing KOC’s agent outright, acknowledging that he doesn’t know where the source of the rumor came from. But regardless of where a leak was, he’s firm in his belief that it affected Minnesota at a crucial moment.
“I just know what it was like being in Troy, Michigan in the team hotel when it popped off, and then the conversations on the sidelines before the game, and the conversations after the game, and some conversations I had last night with people about the future of the Minnesota Vikings’ head coach, which I’m flabbergasted if he does not get a contract extension.
“But when that thing popped off the way it did… Why? Why at that time? And if it came from anybody associated with Kevin O’Connell’s camp, I’m gonna put it as bluntly as I can: Shame on you. That’s selfish, and lacks self-awareness, and it jettisons the totality of the team.”
Strong words, but as Allen points out, we’re almost certainly never going to know who said what, and why. It’s hard to imagine O’Connell himself would want anything like that out there as a distraction for his team while preparing for the two biggest games of his career so far. If Allen’s suspicions are right, then the leaker did more to hurt their own cause than help.
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