I Love Zimmer and His Blue Collar Approach
Joe Johnson
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As was widely reported earlier in the off-season, former Vikings tight end Rhett Ellison’s dad (and most likely Rhett Ellison himself) wasn’t the biggest fan of current Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer. In a rant posted on Facebook, Riki Ellison essentially claimed that the Vikings players were damn near a mutiny last season. The reason? Essentially coach Zimmer was too hard on the players in the media and in practice. Toxic leadership, is what Ellison called it. Now, outside of an overblown situation against the Green Bay Packers (In which it was initially reported that the Vikings defensive back’s refused Zimmer’s game plan (It was one play, sort of)), there has been zero indication that the Vikings players were anything but in love with their head coach. So, this came as a huge shock to many of the Vikings faithful, myself included. Zimmer being Zimmer, he came out and essentially addressed the “controversy” head-on, saying that he attempted to get in touch with Ellison (To no avail). He also did admit that he wasn’t a perfect coach and that he had heard from some of the team’s leaders (Including the now retired Chad Greenway) that there were some things that the team wasn’t happy with. Zimmer took the advice given and opened up his office to multiple players to learn what he can do better as a first time head coach.
That story came and went and was mostly forgottten, until yesterday. In a conversation with the excellent Ben Goessling of ESPN, Zimmer discussed those meetings as well as some meetings he’s had with other head coaches this off-season, in an attempt to improve as a head coach. That’s why I love Zimmer, he’s obviously a genius when it come’s to (Defensive) X’s and O’s, but he’s very, very old school when it comes to… Basically everything. Despite that, he’s trying to learn what it takes to coach an NFL team in 2017, and that’s something we should all be thankful for. I’ll admit I’m pretty excited about the conclusion(s) he’s drawn from those meetings, as one of the so-called beef’s that the players did have with Zimmer (At least according to Ellison) was how physical the practices were during the season. It was said that that physicality is what lead to both the injuries that plagued the Vikings and the late season morale drop that was apparent on the defense, especially.
Apparently Zimmer’s conclusion was that he was too soft in last year’s training camp. Speaking to Goessling, he said:
“Going into last season, part of my whole goal was, I thought we had a pretty good football team and I wanted to make sure we got to the first game healthy, and so maybe I was a little bit cautious in some of the things. We’re going to get back to being the Vikings. We’re going to be blue-collar, and we’re going to do the things that got us to be, where we played teams, that they respected the way we played.”
Zimmer knows his football. He knows that he’s coaching in the ‘Black and Blue’ division. That teams in the NFC Norse are known for being hard-hitting, mean teams. This quote makes me so giddy, simply because it hearkens back to the days that my dad talks about. Now, while some (Included me) have interpreted this quote to mean that the practices will be even more physical than they were last year, that may not necessarily be what he means. However, with the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement that the players signed, there’s really only so much you can do as a coach these days. Gone are the full pad two-a-day… Days, but that doesn’t mean that Zimmer can’t work towards creating an environment where work ethic is the main focus. What that means in practice, is anyone’s guess, Zimmer did say that the team will practice until he feels “good about it”, too, so I guess there’s that.
But, to me, I do think it’s important that these guys have that work ethic. The CBA did make training camp A LOT easier on the players and while they really don’t need to work like they did in the 70’s, 80’s or even 90’s, because they come into camp already in shape (as they train year round now), these guys do play a physical sport and are paid millions of dollars to do so. So, I do feel like the players that did complain have gotten a bit spoiled, I mean, kids that play hockey growing up have stories about doing “killers” as Squirts, for christs sake, so I’m not going to feel bad that a millionaire has to run sprints for a couple weeks. That’s why I love Zimmer and do feel like he’s the right coach for a team that’s history is so deeply rooted in that tough, blue collar approach.
So, more power to you, Coach Zimmer…