Don’t query the timing of Jay Glazer’s reporting.
Through the “FOX NFL Sunday” pregame show airing before Week 18 on Jan. 5, insider Jay Glazer surprisingly reported that Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell had been drawing trade interest.
Some had questions on the timing of the report while Minnesota prepared to battle the Lions for the division title and NFC’s No. 1 seed that night.
After the Vikings actually prolonged O’Connell on Tuesday, NFL aggregator Ari Meirov of The thirty third Team — the identical company led by ex-Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum that has been contracted to assist the Jets find their next head coach — questioned the timeline and seemingly Glazer’s intention.
“I actually have so many questions on the Kevin O’Connell trade story that dropped on the morning of Week 18,” Meirov posted on X. “While I’m sure teams were fascinated by trading for him, the timing couldn’t have been worse for the #Vikings, given they were playing for the No. 1 seed that night.”
The Vikings would collapse from that time forward, losing to the Lions, 31-9, missing out on a first-round bye, and following that up with an equally embarrassing 27-9 playoff loss to the Rams within the wild-card game.
Glazer, who has worked as a studio analyst and reporter for FOX since 2004, quote tweeted Meirov’s post and offered a fiery response to anyone alleging nefarious tactics along with his timing.
“Welp, the timing was because that’s when our show airs Fox NFL SUNDAY. Not Wednesday or Thursday. SUNDAY,” Glazer wrote. “Every 12 months for probably the last 15 years the identical weekend I do my ANNUAL coaching carousel segment and frequently drop nuggets that day that aren’t known. I don’t work for Twitter, I work for FOX so I wait til Sunday to drop news. I hold news fairly often to make use of on FOX only.”
He added: “Did my job reporting what was happening behind the scenes in a few of these searches. This narrative that I reported it to screw the Vikings once they were going to play the Lions is the dumbest s–t I’ve ever read… and I’ve read some realllly dumb s–t through the years.”
Glazer also provided further context about his reporting on O’Connell, who’s thought to be among the finest NFL coaches and will bring home Coach of the Yr honors following a 14-3 season.
“Oh and btw, yes, there have been actually MULTIPLE teams fascinated by trading for KOC, and yes Vikings were aware of that,” he wrote in his response. “I never reported he’s being traded bc that’s as much as Vikings. Just that he was on several team’s to attempt to trade for. They did the smart thing by moving quickly to make sure he would happily be the Vikings head coach for years.”
Glazer unveiled his O’Connell blockbuster while he offered other news on the eve of Black Monday, including accurate reporting that the Jaguars would fire Doug Pederson.
Fox had a video package ready while he teased “one candidate on the market that can surprise you all,” which proved to be O’Connell before his team attempted to say the NFC’s No. 1 seed.
“There are multiple teams which are actually considering attempting to trade for Kevin O’Connell,” Glazer said. “The rationale why? Next 12 months, the last 12 months of his deal. They’ve had no contract talks yet in any respect.”
With O’Connell now locked right into a latest deal and the discussion put to rest, the Vikings face a critical offseason where they have to determine what to do at quarterback.
J.J. McCarthy is rehabbing from multiple knee surgeries, while pending free agent Sam Darnold limped into the offseason after playing his two worst games of an otherwise wildly successful regular season.
