Kevin O’Connell unintentionally takes a shot at Mike Zimmer

Things are a lot less tense for the Minnesota Vikings since Kevin O’Connell replaced Mike Zimmer as the team’s head coach.

Since the very first day that Kevin O’Connell was hired to replace Mike Zimmer as the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, there has been a ton of talk about the culture change within the organization.

After Zimmer was let go, Vikings players talked about how a “fear-based” culture didn’t work and how they wanted a coach who took more time to care about his players on a personal level.

Much of what Minnesota’s locker room was lacking when Zimmer was in charge was gained when O’Connell was hired to take over last year.

Kevin O’Connell a much more player-friendly coach for Minnesota Vikings than Mike Zimmer

Shortly after the departure of Zimmer, Vikings right tackle Brian O’Neill shared how he believed the team’s next head coach relating to his players on a personal level could be very beneficial for the organization moving forward.

O’Neill declared that “something as little as, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ in the hallway” from Minnesota’s new head coach “could make a huge difference.”

Some interpreted this comment as the right tackle revealing that Zimmer wasn’t exactly the most approachable coach if a player were to walk by him in the hallway at the team’s practice facility.

So these recent comments from O’Connell during an appearance on “The NFL Players Podcast” when he was asked if being a former player gives him an advantage as a head coach are definitely quite interesting.

"“I just remember as a player, there were some days where nobody asked me how I was doing. Nobody cared [how I was doing].So there’s never a moment where if I’m walking by a player down our beautiful hallways in our buildings, I’m never going to not look you in the eye and say ‘how are you doing man?’And you may not always tell me ‘hey coach, it’s actually funny you ask. I’m not doing well.’ You may not, but I’m going to ask you enough, that if I ask you 10 times, and one time I feel like that was different than the other nine times, probably not going to be the last time you hear me ask about you.”"

It’s highly unlikely that these comments from O’Connell were a direct attempt to slam Zimmer’s approach to coaching. But unintentionally, this is still a bit of a shot taken at Minnesota’s former head coach by the team’s current guy in charge.

Is it a coincidence that O’Connell shared how he interacts with players if he sees them in the hallway at the team’s facilities? Probably, but it doesn’t make them any less interesting, especially after O’Neill alluded to Zimmer’s unapproachability in the hallways last year.