Following a disastrous 27-9 loss from Sam Darnold and the Minnesota Vikings to wrap up Wild Card Weekend, head coach Kevin O'Connell left the media with something to chew on before the upcoming offseason. Although the Vikings would've preferred to defeat the Los Angeles Rams and advance to the next round, that wasn't the outcome, and O'Connell gave a humble message heading into the 2025 season, per ESPN's Kevin Seifert on X.

“An emotional Kevin O’Connell: ‘Back to work we go,' ” Seifert wrote.

Now, this was a tough loss for many reasons. The Vikings were a Week 18 win away from earning the No. 1 seed and not even having to play in the Wild Card. However, that wasn't how the cookie crumbled, forcing this Wild Card matchup between the Vikings and Rams.

Given all the distractions the Rams had to endure surrounding the Los Angeles wildfires — including having to relocate the game itself — both teams were facing some sort of adversity heading into Monday night.

And while the Vikings shocked many with their impressive 14-3 regular season, O'Connell kept it brief in his post-game press conference.

With emotions running high after back-to-back losses, the Vikings' head coach understands this is still a talented football team.

From Week 9 to Week 17, Minnesota proved they have talent on their roster following their nine-game winning streak.

And with rookie quarterback JJ McCarthy looking to make his NFL debut in 2025 after suffering a season-ending injury in the preseason finale, the Vikings could look even better in 2025.

It all depends on how the team chooses to react to this loss. Sure, it stinks to lose in the playoffs, but it would be even worse for a team to perform this week in 2024 just to flush their success down the drain in 2025 because of a poor Wild Card performance.

At the end of each season, only one team can say they achieved their goal of winning a Super Bowl. The other 31 teams head back to the drawing board to figure out what went wrong in their respective seasons.

Some teams are further away from achieving their goal than others, but with the Vikings ending the regular season 14-3 under a step-in quarterback, the sky is the limit once they hand the keys over to McCarthy.

Well, that's if this team can do what O'Connell said and get back to work instead of dwelling on what could've been.