Kevin O'Connell is the ultimate hype man.

The Vikings head coach has gone viral after Minnesota's seven wins so far this season, highlighting impressive individual games with goose-bump-inciting encouragement to his team in the locker room.

Vikings Entertainment Network has captured his off-the-cuff postgame speeches, and social media has frenzied over them. It's a behind-the-curtain look at the intensity instrumental to winning in the NFL.

And it's evidence that the culture of selflessness O'Connell has instilled in Minnesota starts with himself.

Matthew Coller of Purple Insider on Thursday went in depth on the epic moments that have generated millions of views and likely turned many agnostic football fans into big O'Connell and Vikings supporters.

For his story on the matter, Coller met with O'Connell and included insights from key players.

"My delivery could sometimes improve because my mind is racing 1,000 miles a minute," O'Connell said to Coller. "It all circles back to the principals that I feel are most important [and] me being authentic, even in those moments. It can't be pre-determined. And having a little bit of humility.

"I have to be able to let these guys know that I'm not perfect."

O'Connell's vulnerability sets the standard. Coller wrote the following:

"I made a pact with our team that I always tell them that I'm going to be honest with them in regards to expectations," he said. "I hope the expectations that they have for themselves and that I have for this team outweigh anything out there. If not, then I'm not doing my job. That gives me an incredible runway to tell our guys when it's not good enough or what they need to improve for the team."

The messaging affects the entire room, because it's directed at the entire room.

"He lifts everybody up," Vikings running back Aaron Jones, Sr., said recently.

Outside linebacker Jonathan Greenard added: "I feel like K.O. makes everybody feel wanted, appreciated."

Only a handful of guys make headlines, but 53 play an important role on game day and even more contribute to winning performances during the week. O'Connell values every person in Purple.

"The power of belonging is a powerful thing," he told Coller.

Cornerback Shaq Griffin is in his eighth NFL season and first in Minnesota, his fifth team. He's played for a Super Bowl champion head coach and multiple head coaches who were fired. In other words, Griffin has perspective and understands the impact that O'Connell's messaging has on players' mentalities.

"I've been in a locker room like that before early in my career with [ex-Seahawks coach] Pete Carroll, those speeches sound a lot the same," Griffin said. "K.O. is a younger version of someone like Pete Carroll.

"The acknowledgement means more than K.O. can actually imagine."

Oftentimes, winning is a serious challenge. Players get hurt, balls take weird bounces, adversity strikes when sailing initially looks smooth and final scores depend on clutch execution. It's a grueling process.

An intimate one, too, because of the energy and passion expounded. Emotion comes with the territory, as Coller noted.

If he's being completely honest, O'Connell would tell you that he doesn't always love his rawest feelings after a win being on display for the world to see. He rarely bristles at questions about anything but recoils sometimes when he's asked in press conferences about specific things he said in the postgame speech.

"There's no drug or high in the world that can emulate the feeling of winning an NFL game and being in the locker room with everybody who helped make that happen," right tackle Brian O'Neill imparted.

Of course, O'Connell, in line with his great character and carefulness to not overdo it, is self-critical.

He told Coller he's wary of overusing colorful language: "If they're bleeping out half of it, my kids are now old enough to understand that they had to bleep that because dad said something he shouldn't have."

In those moments especially, it seems more than acceptable for O'Connell to be unfiltered.

Most interesting 'Hitman'

Future Hall of Fame safety Harrison Smith is headed home this week.

The East Tennessee native is 2-1 in three games against his home-state team, including a win his rookie season when he played a quarter of the snaps. Smith had an interception in the 2020 loss to the Titans.

On Thursday, his exploits were featured by the Star Tribune's Chip Scoggins – his exploits off the field.

Smith is one of six defensive backs in NFL history with at least 35 interceptions and 20 sacks. Also, he's a pilot, musician, 1-handicap golfer, collector of vintage cars, welder and do-it-himself handyman.

Scoggins called Smith a "person of infinite curiosity."

"I'm just a tinkerer," Smith told Scoggins.

Smith's wife Madison shared with Scoggins: "We actually have a name for it in our household: It's called Smithing. … If something breaks and we don't want to get it professionally done, we just Smith it."

The safety's tinkering led him amongst other things to building a training apparatus called Pravilo that was popular with the Cossacks – ancient Russian warriors – and used to prepare their bodies for battle.

Smith's hobbies are expansive – and impressive.

He found joy in welding after taking a metal class at Notre Dame; he attended aviation ground school – and earned his private pilot license and instrument rating and took part in spin training – and purchased a 1986 Beechcraft A36 Bonanza; he had eight birdies in his low round of golf; and taught himself to play "Roses" by OutKast on a piano gifted to him by fellow safety Camryn Bynum.

The list goes on.

Here's one excerpt from Scoggins' article:

Smith's older brother Garrett links Smith's curiosity to his competitive nature. He doesn't like being stumped by anything.

Garrett and a friend who played college basketball visited Smith in Minnesota early in his career. The three went to a bar that had arcade games, including a video punching bag machine. Pay a buck, punch the bag to register a score.

The group played for two hours, trying to get the highest score. Garrett's friend, who is 6-6 and 240 pounds, set the bar record.

"We left and didn't really think much of it," Garrett said.

Garrett received a text from his brother a week later with a photo of his score. He had broken the record.

"He said he had gone down there by himself and just sat there hitting the thing for an hour until he beat it," Garrett said. "He didn't go down there with anybody. Didn't tell anybody. Didn't talk to anybody. He finally hit it and broke the record. He grabbed his coat and walked out."

That sounds awfully similar to Smith's understated demeanor and iron-willed effort between the white lines.

Read the entirety of Scoggins' profile of Smith here.