It looks like Vikings coach told player to exaggerate injury vs. 49ers

Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell wouldn’t be the first coach to be accused of having a player fake an injury to stop game action, but it sure seems like that’s exactly what he did during the San Francisco 49ers’ Monday Night Football affair with the Minnesota Vikings.

In the second quarter, with the Vikings driving down the field, tight end T.J. Hockenson came up hobbled after a play that earned the Vikings a first down. Hockenson would go down on the field and get attention from the trainers, sparking a media timeout.

But as soon as Hockenson went down, Monday Night Football play-by-play broadcaster Joe Buck made an accusation that O’Connell told him to go down — and had ESPN’s production crew back it up moments later.

“I’ll say this: we just caught Kevin O’Connell on camera saying, ‘T.J., go down,’” Buck said. 

After Hockenson goes down, ESPN showed O’Connell talking to Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins. ESPN then proceeded to show a replay of O’Connell screaming as they went to a commercial break, with the word “down” very clearly said four times, all while waving his arms in a downward motion.

Hockenson would miss the first two plays after the commercial break ended, but returned to game action for a third down play. He proceeded to play in the rest of the half.

The benefits for an offense to do so aren’t as obvious as they are for a defense, but it can serve as an effective extra timeout — which it appeared to provide on Monday night. Former NFL offensive lineman Mitchell Schwartz said that doing so is “not faking an injury for a benefit” on X, formerly known as Twitter.

But the Vikings did, clearly, benefit from not having to use a timeout for Hockenson’s “injury.” Minnesota was able to use two timeouts late in the second quarter when the 49ers were driving into a goal-to-go situation on offense, but still have one timeout left after a Christian McCaffrey touchdown with 1:01 left. They used that timeout with 30 seconds left and, after a short gain and a spike, the Vikings tacked on another touchdown on a 60-yard pass from Cousins to Jordan Addison with seven seconds remaining to extend their lead to 16-7 at halftime.

On that final score of the half, Hockenson blocked 49ers star Nick Bosa’s pass rush to give Cousins time to make the pass. He also caught one pass on the quick drive to help the Vikings get in position for the ending score, giving him six receptions for 66 yards in the first half.