Current Cowboys DC Mike Zimmer Doesn't Hold Back About Last Days Of Coaching Minnesota Vikings

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Mike Zimmer has always seemed like a guy who was a straight shooter. He had a pretty long 8 year run with the Vikings that saw them make the NFC Championship Game in 2017 somehow with Case Keenum as his QB (only to be blown out by the Eagles 38-7). He was let go after a disappointing 2021 when the Vikes went 8-9. I assumed it was pretty understood by Zimmer that he had run his course there.

SOURCE - Zimmer was crushed. Angry. Sleep-deprived. The rare coaching lifer who had never been fired.

“They asked me if I wanted to address the team,” he says. “And I said, ‘Hell, no. They got me fired!’

“I didn’t know I was supposed to go to HR and sign out or whatever. No one told me. I just got all my stuff, got in my truck, and left.”

“I can tell you I’ve not watched one Minnesota game since.” 

Holy shit. Guess not. Like I said, Zimmer was always a straight shooter.

Zimmer getting hired by the Cowboys seems like an odd move on paper. Zimmer is 68 and hasn't been in the NFL since being let go in 2021. Rumor has it that this is a Jerry Jones decision. Zimmer was defensive coordinator with the Cowboys from 2000-06. But that's a long time ago. There are people reading this blog that were born during that era.

Hopefully Zimmer liked this past draft the Cowboys had because the 2021 shitty draft the Vikings had ruined the relationship between him and then-GM Rick Spielman:

SOURCE - With four third-round picks, Spielman selected, in order, quarterback Kellen Mond, linebacker Chazz Surratt, offensive lineman Wyatt Davis and defensive end Patrick Jones II. Zimmer was there for only the first pick.

“When he picked Mond, I walked out of the room,” Zimmer says. “I left the building. I didn’t even talk to him on the phone.”

The two spoke the next morning.

“Rick said, ‘You mad at me?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I think you took four backups when we had guys there I thought were starters.’

Only Jones, with four career starts, is still a Viking. Mond, Surratt and Davis have zero starts. Mond lasted one year in Minnesota and is out of football, having played three snaps in one game — the 37-10 loss at Green Bay on Jan. 2, 2022, that knocked the Vikings from playoff contention.

“People made a big deal out of me saying after that game I didn’t need to see more of Mond,” Zimmer says. “I saw him every day in practice. Maybe I was omniscient or something. He played three NFL snaps and two were bad.”

Poor Kellen Mond is probably selling insurance somewhere going about his day before getting brutal ricochet shots because Zim still hates Spielman. 

That is an awful group of players and I get how you could make a case that it helped cost Zimmer his job but it's not like Spielman drafted badly on purpose. He did also take Christian Darrisaw in that first round and he's been pretty good. The year before, Spielman took Justin Jefferson!

Spielman is also the guy that hired Zimmer. Both got fired the same day and Zimmer said that while Spielman has texted him, he hasn't replied back. That seems so petty by Zimmer. Spielman was a decent GM the entire time Zimmer was HC. Not every draft pick is going to be great. To not talk to someone years later who made an honest mistake is shitty. 

I always appreciate anyone in sports who doesn't speak in lame ESPN-built cliches. It's refreshing and fun to see someone just go off. But here Zimmer seems needlessly vindictive. I hope I'm not this angry when I'm 68. Zimmer has been through some real life tragedies (his wife passed away at 50 in 2009 and his son just died two years ago). I can certainly understand why that would make anyone bitter.  

But it can also give you perspective. Life can be cruel. It's also far too short to not reply back to a co-worker for almost a decade that was doing his best.