Kevin Stefanski's 13th Vikings season ascended in "a blur."
He exited the team's flight from Seattle near dawn Tuesday morning as the quarterbacks coach. A few hours later, Stefanski got word he'd grip the play-calling sheet for the first time in his NFL coaching career when head coach Mike Zimmer fired offensive coordinator John DeFilippo in an effort to resurrect this Vikings season.
"That's the tough part," said Stefanski, who was named interim coordinator. "These are not ideal circumstances to do this. I'm ready for the challenge."
His preparation for this audition, the 36-year-old Stefanski said, is more than a decade of NFL seasons in the making under six offensive-minded bosses. Taking the lead on this week's game plan and calling the shots against Miami on Sunday will be new, but he said he's called plays in his head for years while working under coach Brad Childress and coordinators Darrell Bevell, Bill Musgrave, Norv Turner, Pat Shurmur and DeFilippo.
"You're always thinking about what you may be calling in that situation," said Stefanski, who started with the Vikings as an aide to Childress in 2006. "I've tried to do that since day one as a coach. I think that's incumbent upon you to take yourself through what you may do here."
The Vikings have groomed Stefanski for this opportunity, with Zimmer blocking him last spring from interviewing for the Giants offensive coordinator job when Shurmur took over as head coach in New York. Stefanski survived two head coaching changes in Minnesota — a rare feat for an NFL assistant. Zimmer kept three offensive coaches on staff when he was hired in 2014 as head coach; only Stefanski remains.
He's since coached tight ends (2014-2015) and running backs (2016), but most years were dedicated to quarterbacks where he was the assistant position coach for five seasons (2009-2013) before Shurmur returned him to the QB room as its leader in 2017.
A well-established relationship with quarterback Kirk Cousins can't hurt. Stefanski said he's encouraged Cousins to speak his mind about what direction the 20th-ranked scoring offense needs moving forward.