Kevin O'Connell grossly underrated in recent head coach list

After his first season with the Minnesota Vikings, Kevin O'Connell deserves to be ranked much higher than where he landed on a recent NFL head coach list.

In their entire history, the Minnesota Vikings have finished a regular season with at least 13 wins three times. One of those times happened in 2022 during the Vikings' first season with Kevin O'Connell as the team's head coach.

Despite Minnesota's success in the regular season, O'Connell and his team didn't deliver in the 2022 playoffs, as the Vikings fell to the New York Giants in the first round of the postseason in a game that was played inside U.S. Bank Stadium.

Even though Minnesota failed to win a playoff contest in 2022, the team's performance during their first season with O'Connell leading the way should still be viewed as a success. But this isn't exactly how everyone feels about the Vikings' head coach heading into the 2023 campaign.

Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell brutally low in recent list

Tim Kelly of Cowboys Country recently decided to rank all 32 head coaches in the NFL heading into the upcoming season.

There were certainly some surprises on Kelly's list, and O'Connell landing in the No. 20 spot was definitely one of them. Minnesota's head coach was surprisingly ranked behind Dan Campbell of the Detroit Lions (whose team missed the playoffs last season), Frank Reich of the Carolina Panthers (who was fired in 2022), and Mike McCarthy of the Dallas Cowboys.

Oddly enough, Kelly actually praised O'Connell in his explanation for why he landed where he did on his list.

"Despite having a -3 point differential, the Vikings finished O'Connell's first season as head coach with a 13-4 record. That perhaps should have been a clue that they might be in trouble come the postseason, but it's also indicative of the impressive job O'Connell did managing each game."

So the job O'Connell did was impressive, but it wasn't impressive enough to be ranked higher on the list?

With Sean Payton (now the head coach of the Denver Broncos) landing at No. 3 and Bill Belichick landing at No. 2, most of this list felt like it was based on career success rather than what each coach accomplished in 2022.

And if it was based on how successful each coach will be in 2023, do we really think Belichick and Payton are going to lead their teams to more success than head coaches like Nick Sirianni of the Philadelphia Eagles and Zac Taylor of the Cincinnati Bengals?

Regardless of his ranking on Kelly's list, O'Connell had arguably the most successful first season as a head coach in Vikings history, and that's something that can never be taken away from him.