Building NFL greatness

Greatness builds quietly—in places people rarely look. It’s built by hands and minds working behind the scenes, on freezing practice fields, in edit bays, and in hotel rooms long after midnight.

It’s built by people who prepare, adapt, and adjust—who see problems before anyone else does, and who keep moving when the plan falls apart.

Modern football is built on more than grit and talent. Code, cloud architecture, and real-time analytics help bring everything to life.  And that’s where greatness shows up—before the kickoff, before the first snap, before anyone’s even found their seat.

See it from both sides—different routines, same energy. Because greatness starts in the preparation.

Prepare the body. Prepare the mind.

Vikings linebacker Dallas Turner approaches game day with intention, preparing mind and body all week, so when the lights hit and the noise turns up, he’s already there.

Every lift, every sprint, every recovery session—is a rep in the game. On Sunday, he’s explosive, balanced, playing fast and physical from the first snap to the last. Turner studies opponents for tendencies, tells, timing—anything that gives him a half-step before the ball even moves. He’s running the game in his head, reacting on time. He slows the chaos down, and that’s when he plays free—confident, clear, in control.

The secret to Turner’s game day is alignment. Body ready to strike, mind ready to decide. Turner is showing up to change the game and make an impact.

Athletes like Turner, who carry childhood dreams into adulthood with equal parts joy and gratitude, approach greatness as a ritual. The treatment sessions, the workouts, the training—it’s the preparation that grounds him, and the ability to find solutions when things go wrong. Turner leans on the people who support him, remembering the kid who once imagined these moments.

Behind-the-scenes innovation

Luke Burson, Senior Director of Football Information Systems for the Vikings, and his team built Viper for the one thing the NFL never has enough of: time.

Because every week, the clock is coming with hours of raw film, a short week, and a team that needs answers. The Vikings built Viper on Azure to turn that chaos into clarity. Viper ingests footage at scale, tags the moments that matter with real precision, and puts the right clips in front of the right position group without the endless digging—first look, final cut-up, clean workflow, same language every time. And when the week gets loud, Azure is the engine that keeps humming.

Inside the team, everything speeds up. Install meetings move faster because everyone’s seeing the same, structured truth. Position coaches can build playlists tailored to a player’s development plan. Leaders get a sharper read on what’s going to win on Sunday. Viper turns prep into a competitive advantage—insight to execution, faster decisions, cleaner reps, and a team that’s locked in.

In the off season, the Vikings use Viper to grind through draft prep—college tape, all-star games like the East-West Shrine Bowl, in-person workouts, the whole runway to April—tracking the NFL Scouting Combine in March using the NFL Combine App. This Azure AI-powered tool gives all 32 teams instant player insights and data comparisons in Indianapolis so evaluations move faster and decisions get smarter.

Viper is in the mix for free agency planning and internal player evaluations, keeping decisions moving as the league moves. Coaches, scouts, and staff can pull up film almost instantly, then slice it exactly how they need it. And it all stays protected: Viper is secured through Azure Entra ID, with centralized authentication and conditional access to protect production environments and admin portals, keeping sensitive player information and strategic data locked down.

With Microsoft tech like Entra ID, Azure Blob Storage, and Copilot—new ideas are turning prototypes in hours, not weeks.  This is the new frontier of the NFL—where games are shaped on the field and in databases, code, and cloud pipelines.

Coaching greatness

Head coach Kevin O’Connell sees greatness as a collective pursuit—helping individuals reach their potential, learning from adversity, empowering players, and communicating with authenticity. Technology is woven through every decision, every matchup, every moment that requires speed and clarity. The relationship between coaches and technologists, he says, is now part of the competitive edge.

Realtime analytics—once scribbled manually—now arrive instantly, reducing human error and accelerating adjustments that can change a game’s outcome.

O’Connell is also about clarity, trust, and being ready.

Because in this league, kickoff is just the test. O’Connell sets the standard, he says it straight, and he gets everyone to understand why it matters. That’s when guys stop hesitating and start playing fast. That’s when confidence shows up… and accountability becomes the fuel.

What sets O’Connell apart is his ability to connect the human side of the game with the demands of high performance. He leads with empathy while holding the bar high, understanding that peak performance comes when players feel seen, challenged, and supported. His approach blends discipline with adaptability, allowing the team to respond to adversity with composure and to success with humility.

For O’Connell, technology is part of how the week gets won.

Used the right way, it enhances leadership by sharpening decisions, speeding up learning, and surfacing the tells that become big plays on Sunday. It gives the staff and players what they need to prepare smarter, adjust faster, and hit game day a step ahead.

Greatness is building

Greatness shines in the players and coaches you see under the lights.

Because behind every prepared team are the people who make the league smarter and faster—analysts digging through millions of data points, and developers building tools that turn raw information into clarity. Their work becomes the foundation you feel when the game is on the line. When everyone’s moving together, greatness grows every day.