Last week, the schedule was released for when head coaches and general managers would be taking the podium to speak during this week's NFL Scouting Combine, and Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell was oddly missing.
O'Connell has taken the podium at each of the previous four Scouting Combines he's attended since Minnesota hired him in 2022, but this year, he and current de facto general manager Rob Brzezinski have opted to just speak to local Twin Cities reporters on the side instead.
This decision has puzzled some Vikings fans, but SKOR North's Judd Zulgad shared on Monday's episode of the "Purple Daily" podcast why O'Connell has likely decided to take a different approach to this year's Scouting Combine.
"I was told, because what happened was, I think it was on Friday, the entire roster of who's
going to speak at the podiums came out, and I was told, 'Look at that. Look at that roster of
coaches. Okay? And look at who's speaking and who's not.'
I didn't realize this, but the NFL has sort of decided that the podium sessions for coaches is sort of a waste of time, because in the opinion of, now, this is their opinion, so I'm not even defending it, but I'm saying, the opinion of teams is, when you look at the questions that coaches are asked at the podium, it's ordinarily from people who are covering a team that now has a [former] Vikings assistant as their coach or something like that.
It's like, 'Kevin, how do you think this guy is going to be?' And basically, the feeling is that you don't get enough [questions about] your team. So they would prefer to do the side session where all the questions are going to be relevant to their team."
Kevin O'Connell wants to answer more questions about the Minnesota Vikings at the 2026 NFL Scouting Combine
What Zulgad shared is that, essentially, O'Connell would like to talk more about his own team and its current players at the Scouting Combine, instead of answering questions about coaches or players who are no longer with the organization.
Looking back at his podium session during last year's Scouting Combine, the Vikings' head coach was asked a total of 12 questions. Of those 12 questions, only four were about players who were still under contract with Minnesota at the time.
At first, it might have seemed like O'Connell was ducking the media by not wanting to step up to the podium at this week's Scouting Combine. But after finding out that he's just interested in answering more questions about the Vikings this year, it's hard to blame him.