Head coach Kevin O’Connell and general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah are not yet in line for new contracts with the Vikings, team president and owner Mark Wilf said Tuesday.
Wilf did not say his current coach and GM, under contract through 2025, aren’t deserving of extensions but instead said Minnesota is focused on the coming season.
“It’s not something we’re talking about at this point,” Wilf said before Tuesday’s training camp practice. “We’re focused on the season ahead.”
He said it was “fair” to say the Vikings were pushing those conversations to the offseason.
“We’re going to evaluate all the factors that go into how we did and how we’re doing,” he said. “Everybody’s evaluated the same way, on how they’re performing. It’s a competitive business. We have big expectations of our squad and feel very good about our direction under Kevin and Kwesi.”
O’Connell, 39, is in the third year of his four-year deal as a first-time head coach. The Vikings are 20-14 in the regular season and 0-1 in the playoffs under O’Connell.
The Vikings are attempting to answer big questions in training camp after quarterback Kirk Cousins left in free agency and defensive coordinator Brian Flores made significant changes to the front seven.
But the Vikings can still be competitive even considering the possibility of a rookie — first-rounder J.J. McCarthy — starting at quarterback, in Wilf’s view. He said at the owner’s meetings in March, and repeated Tuesday, that the expectations are still to win the NFC North and compete for championships.
Asked about the desire to hold those discussions now, O’Connell said Tuesday he didn’t have time to be concerned with anything “outside of my control.”
“I’ve got a full-time gig here where I’ve got to focus on these players, these coaches, making sure we’re having ourselves the best training camp we’ve ever had here, which will hopefully lead into a successful season,” O’Connell said. “But I’m very much focused on the task at hand and doing my job every single day, looking for any way I can be better for this organization and this team.”
–Field Level Media
