The Vikings didn't finish in first place in the NFC North, did not get the top seed in the conference playoffs, but their coach was named the best in the league.
Kevin O'Connell walked away with coach of the year on Thursday night in the NFL Honors ceremony.
O'Connell received 25 first-place votes and 361 points to win the honor. Dan Campbell of the division champion and top seed Detroit Lions, who handed the Vikings two of their three losses, finished second with 283 points.
This came as Vikings fan favorite Jared Allen was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Antonio Gates, Eric Allen, and Sterling Sharpe were also elected to the shrine in Caton, Ohio in the smallest induction class in 20 years following offseason rule changes meant to make it harder to get inducted.
O'Connell received 25 first-place votes and 361 points to win the honor. Lions head coach Dan Campbell finished second with 283 points, narrowly trailing his divisional foe in first-place votes with 19. The remainder of the finalists were the Chiefs' Andy Reid (119 points), the Commanders' Dan Quinn (85) and the Broncos' Sean Payton (71).
O’Connell gave considerable credit for his honor to the man who made him a third-round NFL draft choice in 2008: former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick.
“As a pretty raw quarterback prospect I was going to play for the greatest coach of all time,” O’Connell said. “So, at times I felt a little bit like being thrown into the deep end of the pool. ... But I remember waking up in the morning and saying to myself, ‘no matter what, I don’t want to miss out on being around any of this.’”
“So many of those things stuck with me and I think my favorite part about the whole journey is he’s now become one of my mentors and somebody I talk to a lot,” O’Connell said.
Belichick was at the ceremony, and presented the award to O'Connell, who recently signed a multi-year contract extension with the Vikings.