The Minnesota Vikings had a great season, but unfortunately, it ended in the Wild Card round of the playoffs against the Los Angeles Rams. Throughout the season, there were many questions on whether the Vikings were real contenders, and they would show week in and week out that they were serious about trying to win.
Someone who should take the credit for their winning ways this season is head coach Kevin O'Connell, who had the team prepared almost every week. The next step is for O'Connell to possibly get a contract extension from the Vikings, and he sounds positive about it happening.
“Vikings HC Kevin O'Connell on if he wants to sign a contract extension here: ‘I do.' Said he's had great dialogue this week with ownership,” The Athletic's Alec Lewis wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
If the Vikings want to continue their success going into next season, extending O'Connell should be one of the first things they take care of, among other things they need to worry about.
Vikings have a lot to address in the offseason

The Vikings' loss against the Rams opened up a lot of things that they need to focus on going into the offseason. Sam Darnold was sacked nine times in the game, and whether some of that was due to him or the offensive line, there needs to be some type of shakeup in those areas. After the game, Darnold spoke about getting sacked nine times.
“It's up to me to be able to feel that and either step up, move, go run for a first down or just simply throw it away,” Darnold said, via Kevin Seifert of ESPN. “I felt like there were a lot of sacks that I was responsible for, where I was just holding onto the football and taking sacks where I could have dirted it at someone's feet or simply thrown it over someone's head.”
There will be a lot of discussions on the future of Darnold if they'll move on from him in the offseason. The Vikings will most likely have J.J. McCarthy ready for next season, but it's not certain if they'll just hand him the keys to the offense without some type of competition. The last two weeks of the Vikings' season were not great for Darnold, and it may affect his market in free agency, especially if teams don't want to throw him a lot of money.