Souhan: What does the future hold for Kevin O’Connell, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Brian Flores?

The Vikings and Packers will play in January, in a packed U.S. Bank Stadium, and the result will mean virtually nothing. This will feel like making a toast to the new year with a diet ginger ale.

The Vikings will miss the playoffs for the fourth time in six seasons. They will remain without a playoff victory since the 2019 season and without an appearance in the NFC Championship Game since the 2017 season.

The Wilf family hired Kevin O’Connell as their coach in 2022 to bring them the franchise’s first Super Bowl berth since 1976-77, and their first Super Bowl victory ever.

O’Connell’s results, through four seasons, have been as purple as Prince’s Paisley Park piano.

Conforming to the past 48 years of Vikings history, O’Connell has produced two outstanding regular seasons, two disappointing regular seasons and no postseason success while shuffling quarterbacks like a casino dealer on Red Bull.

He is 42-25 in the regular season, for a winning percentage of .627, the highest in Vikings history. Bud Grant is second at .621, followed by Dennis Green at .610, Mike Zimmer at .562 and Jerry Burns at .547.

Somewhere on the internet, someone lacking perspective and patience is calling for O’Connell to be fired. That is, of course, nonsense. O’Connell is a high-quality coach who runs a good organization and has achieved that high winning percentage without a Hall of Fame-caliber quarterback.

O’Connell is likely to be here for a while, and if J.J. McCarthy turns into a quality franchise quarterback, O’Connell will eventually want to invest in a cabin, mukluks and a hotdish maker, and start ice fishing and taking forever to say goodbye.

So if O’Connell is entrenched, are any major changes on the horizon in the wake of what could wind up being one of the more disappointing winning seasons in franchise history?

General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has not mimicked O’Connell’s winning percentage. Adofo-Mensah’s drafts have been subpar, but his past three first-round picks, Donovan Jackson, McCarthy and Dallas Turner, still have a chance to be standouts.

This year’s class of veteran free-agent signings wasn’t as helpful as last year’s, but overall the Vikings’ ability to build from without has worked pretty well. Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, Blake Cashman, Josh Oliver, Aaron Jones Sr. and Jordan Mason range from outstanding to quite good, and Isaiah Rodgers was a quality corner when not asked to cover a Philadelphia Eagle.

Adofo-Mensah also oversees the organization that found and developed Jalen Redmond, who went undrafted and may be a star in the making.

That leads us to defensive coordinator Brian Flores.

He was an excellent hire and has done excellent work. So why is there doubt about his future in Minnesota?

Let’s start with what we know.

The Wilfs will spend what it takes to win.

O’Connell is known as a good coach to work with and for.

Flores is not likely to get an NFL head coaching job because he is suing the league, alleging racial discrimination. The NFL has 32 teams and only five Black head coaches. (Also, Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel is biracial.) NFL owners don’t hire many Black coaches who haven’t sued the league.

So if the Wilfs are desperate to win and happy to pay big money to fund a winner, and Flores is an excellent coordinator without a realistic chance at an NFL head coaching job, why is there uncertainty about his future?

Maybe Flores signs a new deal with the Vikings in the near future, and any speculation about his future will have been a waste of time.

If Flores leaves, we’ll be asking why.