After Sunday night’s game against the Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell got some nice words from Lions head coach Dan Campbell at midfield.
“I’ll see you in two weeks.”
It was a matchup that could happen in the divisional round if the Philadelphia Eagles, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Vikings all won in the wild card round. Both teams won 14 games with the Lions getting the 15th win to clinch the NFC North. If the two teams meet in the divisional round, the Lions will be trying to beat the Vikings for a third time this season.
Dan Campbell gives Rams bulletin board material
The words from Campbell were genuine and uplifting toward O’Connell. It’s the kind of thing that you do when someone you respect is down.
Well, that’s now a statement that could come back to haunt the Vikings. The Rams are now using it as bulletin board material.
Teams will find any way to get motivation ahead of a big game and it didn’t take much for the Rams to find it. The exchange wasn’t just after the end of their week 18 game, it was on NBC and viewed across the nation.
The Rams obviously felt disrespected by that, which is completely reasonable. However, Campbell probably didn’t realize who the Vikings were playing. Even if he did, that likely wouldn’t have stopped him from doing so.
The Vikings did get a nice advantage when the game was moved to Arizona, but the motivation might end up being higher with the Rams because of the outside noise.
Bulletin board material coming from a third team isn’t unheard of but of course it happened to the Vikings.