How strong is Kevin O'Connell's case for the NFL Coach of the Year Award?

Under certain conditions, the halftime speech Kevin O'Connell delivered to his players with the Vikings down 33-0 last Saturday could have been met with eye rolls and dismissed as white noise.

O'Connell needed to convince 53 players, nearly all of whom had played more than 100 organized football games in their lives, that the 67 points scored against in them in their previous six quarters were merely a precursor to the historic rally they would accomplish in the next two. A skeptical listener could have dismissed it as inspirational pablum — except in this case, O'Connell had veteran cornerback Patrick Peterson already providing the opening act.

"I overheard him walk over towards the offense — 'We're going to get stops, you just need five touchdowns. That's nothing,' " O'Connell recalled after the game. "It was a nice little moment for me to lead right in off of. I said, 'Pat, you're exactly right.' That's what we needed at the time. It was probably the most motivated I've been to challenge our players."

In O'Connell's view, none of the words would have counted without the months of messaging he's used to give them weight. The first-year coach had preached about the Vikings' culture for more than 10 months by that point, using each of the team's first nine one-score victories as an example of its togetherness as a competitive advantage.

It's impossible to prove his point concretely. But 14 games into the 2022 season, the Vikings have their first NFC North title in five years and as many wins as they have ever recorded under a first-year coach. To them, the wins, and the close ones especially, prove the coach's philosophy has worked.

"In today's world, in particular [in] football, there's so many ways to measure everything," defensive coordinator Ed Donatell said. "The human heart and resiliency, there's just no way to measure that. We're drafting guys; until we see our guys under pressure, we don't have a way to measure that. The other thing we don't have a way to measure is the connectivity and the team chemistry. The best way that I know is when it's times under pressure, when you really need people. And right now, I would say we're at a high level there."

With the Vikings' comeback victory over the Colts, O'Connell joined Dennis Green as the only coaches in team history to win a division title in their first season. Another win this season would be O'Connell's 12th, allowing him to pass Green for the most in his first year. And though he is in the middle of a crowded field, O'Connell could have a chance at becoming the first Vikings coach to win Associated Press NFL Coach of the Year honors since Bud Grant in 1969.

The coaches leading the Vikings' toughest potential playoff opponents might be O'Connell's stiffest competition for the highest NFL award given to a head coach. Philadelphia's Nick Sirianni is leading a 13-1 team in his second year with the Eagles, while the 49ers' Kyle Shanahan (who has never won the award) has a 10-4 team that has won its past two games with its third-string quarterback.

But recent history suggests voters could be favorable to O'Connell. Three of the past five winners of the award were first-year head coaches: O'Connell's old Rams boss Sean McVay in 2017, the Bears' Matt Nagy in 2018 and former Vikings offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski with the Browns in 2020.

All three coaches inherited teams that had worse records than the Vikings' 8-9 mark a year ago, but wins in the Vikings' final three games would leave O'Connell tied with the 49ers' George Seifert in 1989 and the Colts' Jim Caldwell in 2009 for the most wins ever by a first-year head coach. Neither Seifert nor Caldwell won the AP Coach of the Year award, but both took over for Hall of Fame coaches (Bill Walsh and Tony Dungy) and started their jobs with Hall of Fame quarterbacks (Joe Montana and Peyton Manning).

O'Connell has helped Kirk Cousins play more assertively on the way to his fourth Pro Bowl, built an offense that could help Justin Jefferson break the NFL's single-season receiving yardage record and has gone 10-0 in one-score games with a team that was 5-8 in such situations last year. The Vikings became the first team to win in Buffalo's Highmark Stadium after trailing by 14 or more at halftime, and completed the biggest comeback in NFL history last Saturday.

They have outscored opponents by just two points this season, a fact that invites questions about the veracity of their 11-3 record. Those questions could linger in some voters' minds as they weigh O'Connell's résumé against those of Sirianni and Shanahan, whose teams have stacked up comfortable victories this year.

Whether or not O'Connell's work produces hardware at the NFL Honors ceremony during Super Bowl week, he has put together an inaugural season that ranks among the most unusual of the Vikings' 10 head coaches.

There's a direct link, he believes, from the way he connected with players in April and May to the comeback the Vikings made last weekend.

"First and foremost you got to believe it yourself. I think the one thing in this league is if you're not authentic and real, those 53 guys in there will notice," he said after the Colts game. "I've built that up with these guys over a long period of time. They knew both at halftime and after the game, they know I mean every word I say to them in any moment. Good or bad, I'm going to consistently be me every single day because I just don't know any other way."

Kevin O'Connell is one of only three Vikings coaches to have a winning record in his first full season on the job, and with one more victory he can set the team record for victories from a first-year coach:

Norm Van Brocklin (1961): 3-11, .214 winning percentage

Bud Grant, 1967*: 3-8-3, .273

Les Steckel, 1984: 3-13, .188

Jerry Burns, 1986: 9-7, .563

Dennis Green, 1992: 11-5, .688

Mike Tice, 2002**: 6-10, .375

Brad Childress, 2006: 5-10, .375

Leslie Frazier, 2011**: 3-13, .188

Mike Zimmer, 2014: 7-9, .438

Kevin O'Connell, 2022: 11-3, .786

*-before 1972 ties did not count in NFL winning percentage

**-took over as interim coach to end the previous season