Minnesota Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell must be hoping the saying about only being as good as the people you surround yourself with holds true, considering he was sitting next to New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick at the annual NFL meeting.
According to O’Connell, the seating was listed in alphabetical order, and when he sat down, he found himself staring face-to-face with the six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach.
There are few better pinch-me moments than that one.
“It’s awesome. I walked in the first day into the large session, and they sat us in there by alphabetical order,” O’Connell told Vikings.com’s Gabe Henderson in an interview. “So I was really right next to Bill Belichick. It was my first time sitting in the big room, and he gives me a big old smile and congratulations and that kind of cut the tension for me there on the first day.”
What a full-circle moment that had to be for O’Connell, who was drafted by Belichick and the Patriots in 2008.
After finishing up his playing career, he worked his way up from a quarterbacks coach for the Cleveland Browns to winning a Super Bowl as an offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams and finally landing the head coaching job in Minnesota.
Years of grinding and hard work placed him at that table to sit across from his former head coach—not as a player but as a peer.
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