Vikings OC Wes Phillips Arrested on DWI Charges

The Minnesota Vikings are off their bye and heading out to Las Vegas for their week 14 matchup vs the Raiders. Offensive coordinator, Wes Phillips, is traveling with the team. But before he could get on the plane, he had to get bailed out of jail for a DWI arrest that happened Friday night.

Minnesota Vikings OC Wes Phillips arrested on DWI charges

Vikings OC Wes Phillips was arrested Friday night for misdemeanor DWI. He has since been released on bond. He'll accompany the team to Las Vegas. Full story to come.

Vikings statement below: pic.twitter.com/0LKEN1aHKs

— Kevin Seifert (@SeifertESPN) December 9, 2023

Phillips was arrested at 11 PM last night and released before 1:30 AM Saturday morning. His charges are misdemeanor DWI and he posted an initial bond of $300 to be released.

Wes is the 44-year-old son of long-time defensive coordinator and NFL head coach, Wade Phillips. He’s been coaching in the NFL for 17 seasons. His start in the NFL came under his father’s Dallas Cowboys in 2007 when he was hired as a quality control assistant on offense.

Wes Phillips’ before coaching in NFL

Prior to his NFL coaching career, Wes Phillips (according to Wikipedia) graduated from UTEP with a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy. He spent most of his college years as a UTEP backup quarterback. He won the starting job as a senior, throwing for 1,839 yards, 10 touchdowns and 11 interceptions.

After spending two years in the Arena Football developmental league (AF2) — which I didn’t know existed until writing this blog — with the San Diego Riptide, Wes finally gave up on his professional football dreams.

That’s when (I’m guessing) he realized a Philosophy degree wasn’t going to take him very far in life. So, he went back to UTEP and spent one year as a student assistant, before being hired in 2004 as West Texas A&M’s (D2) QB coach. After two years and a ton of offensive success in division II, Baylor hired him as their QB coach for the 2006 season.

NFL coaching career

Wes outlasted his dad in Dallas, climbing the Cowboys’ offensive coaching ranks, eventually reaching Tight Ends coach in 2013, the position he’d coach for nearly a decade before being named offensive coordinator in Minnesota under O’Connell.

After one season in his new role as Cowboys tight ends coach, Phillips joined Jay Gruden’s coaching staff in Washington, one that already included a budding Sean McVay. A few years after Wes’ arrival in DC, (2017) a young broad-shouldered QB coach named Kevin O’Connell was hired.

When McVay left the capital to become head coach of the LA Rams in 2019, KOC went along as his offensive coordinator and Wes made a lateral move to be the Rams’ TE coach. O’Connell was named head coach of the Vikings for the 2022 NFL season which he used to offered Wes Phillips his first promotion since 2013.

Initial research into Wes Phillips past did not reveal any sort of known drinking problems or run-ins with the law, prior to Friday night.