Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

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Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

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Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

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Re: Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

Post by Cliff »

Promoted because I thought it was pretty cool.
Zimmer is the highest-ranked coach without a Super Bowl. His no-nonsense approach is a perfect fit in Minnesota, where the Vikings made a run to the NFC championship game last season and appear to be the new team to beat in the NFC North. They should only get better with Kirk Cousins.
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Re: Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

Post by Pondering Her Percy »

I agree. I think he's definitely a top 10 coach. Some may disagree due to the whole Super Bowl thing which I can see but I think there are a lot of good coaches out there that don't have a SB and not so good coaches that do have a SB.
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Re: Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

Post by J. Kapp 11 »

Pondering Her Percy wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 7:58 am I agree. I think he's definitely a top 10 coach. Some may disagree due to the whole Super Bowl thing which I can see but I think there are a lot of good coaches out there that don't have a SB and not so good coaches that do have a SB.
Yeah, I think you'll see that with Gruden in Oakland. Yes, he has a Super Bowl. But there's no way you'll ever convince me he's a top coach, especially 10 years after the last time he walked a sideline.

Personally, I think we're lucky to have Mike Zimmer. I know some Vikings fans see the negatives, such as the infrequent collapse of the defense, but I see a man who learns from his mistakes and gets better every year. He's surrounding himself with good coaches, and he's set a culture of accountability. Obviously winning a Super Bowl is the end goal, and it's a roll of the dice even for good teams. But if any Vikings coach is ever going to get it done, I'd put my money on Zimmer.
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Re: Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

Post by PacificNorseWest »

I agree with this...the marked improvement of the defense alone and then the team as a whole under his tenure is notable for sure. Got to get to the SB though going forward though. His age may not allow for a second chance, so he needs to capitalize on what he's built/building in 'Sota.

Kapp: I'd love to disagree with you about Gruden, but you could be right. He was always one of those hot coaches in the league as I remembered it through my teen years and I grew to like the guy and his similar no nonsense approach. However, I can't help but think that he won a Super Bowl with a team that Tony Dungy built. He did work in Oakland, for sure, because Bill Callahan is no SB coach, so he gets credit there, but he was hungry. A lot of how he handled is later Bucs teams and his comments in the booth make me think he's lost touch with today's NFL. We'll see. Kinda rooting for him though. Nostalgia reasons, I suppose...May be good for one more blast from the past season, but in my opinion, he doesn't have the staying power in today's NFL.
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Re: Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

Post by J. Kapp 11 »

Just listened to a segment on the Colin Cowherd radio show, and T.J. Houshmanzadeh just destroyed Cowherd when it comes to the Vikings.

Cowherd was talking about the teams he thinks will do better than predicted, and then he talked about the teams he thinks are overrated. First on his overrated list: The Vikings.

He talked about how tough the opening schedule is, how the Vikings only had to play against Aaron Rodgers for one quarter last year, how they were lucky to beat New Orleans, yada yada. This is nothing new. Cowturd always rags on the Vikings. He ended by calling them the "darlings who are most likely to fall flat."

Houshmanzadeh basically told him, "You couldn't be more wrong. Those first five games, they'll be at least 4-1."

Cowherd was aghast at this and asked him what would make him predict such a thing.

"Simple," T.J. said. "Mike Zimmer."

Cowherd, typically uninformed, couldn't believe Mike Zimmer was anything special. Houshmanzadeh immediately put him in his place.

He said, "You can't possibly understand how good a coach Mike Zimmer is unless you play for him. Not only is he incredibly prepared when it comes to opponents' tendencies, he also really knows what he's doing when he coaches you. A lot of coaches in the NFL don't really know what they're doing. They have a job because somebody got them a job. Mike Zimmer is the best there is at coaching up his players. When you play for Mike Zimmer, you become a better player."

(I would just like to add ... I present as Exhibit A the player named Andrew Sendejo.)

Houshmanzadeh went on to talk about how the culture around Cincinnati changed when Zimmer came on board, even though he was only the defensive coordinator. He said Zimmer's drive and personality just kind of permeated throughout the locker room.

I'm not sure he convinced Cowturd of anything, but he definitely echoed the sentiments of every player who has ever played for Zimmer (with the exception of Rhett Ellison ... or was it Rhett Ellison's dad?). That he's a coach they'd run through a wall for. And he gave us yet another testimonial to what a top-notch coach we have in Minnesota. I truly believe that if anybody is going to get us a Lombardi Trophy, it's going to be Zimmer.
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Re: Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

Post by S197 »

Cowherd makes a living off his "shock jock" or unconventional type of thinking so I take everything with a grain of salt knowing that he's trying to drum up stuff. Who else was on his overrated list?

Good to hear TJ's perspective though, always nice to hear from a former player. I remember when we were very close to landing him.
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Re: Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

Post by 808vikingsfan »

S197 wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 8:10 pm Cowherd makes a living off his "shock jock" or unconventional type of thinking so I take everything with a grain of salt knowing that he's trying to drum up stuff. Who else was on his overrated list?

Good to hear TJ's perspective though, always nice to hear from a former player. I remember when we were very close to landing him.
Yep. Just a couple of months ago, he was saying this:
"This division has officially changed. It will be the Minnesota Vikings division for the foreseeable future."
Now he's saying this:
"They're not going 13-3. In fact, they'll be closer to .500."
Unless he means all the other North teams will be below .500.
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Re: Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

Post by Rhodes Closed »

I'd take Cowherd's opinion with a grain of salt. He's out there, like any "sports analyst", to get viewers by saying outrageous things.

Until Rodgers either A.) Retires, or B.) Leaves the NFC North, it'll be Packers' division.
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Re: Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

Post by PacificNorseWest »

He also said that every year he does this, he picks teams that he thinks double their wins and is going to take a big jump up along with a team that will fall well short of expectations and that the fans of teams he says will double their wins love him and praise him and the fans of the teams he thinks will fall, they complain, call him names and tell him he doesn't know what he's talking about. You proved him right. :lol:


Colin gets a lot of ####, but for a shock jock, he's actually pretty good at NFL talk. He takes a logical approach and even if you don't agree with him, every reason he gave to why he thinks the Vikings will be near .500 were facts. Whether those facts drive the outcome remains to be seen, but it is true that they didn't have to face Rodgers for a full 2 games, their schedule was favorable, they avoided injuries (mostly and specifically on defense, their best unit) and in their biggest win of the year, it's called a "miracle," which in essence means it shouldn't have happened. I don't see much wrong with that. And the Vikings do face a tougher schedule as it stands right now, though I never buy into that stuff and even if they're better than the Packers, facing the Packers with Rodgers vs. without is a huge difference. Packers would have a chance in both games. And if I was anyone but a Vikings fan, I would just tell you that Houshmanzadeh is just sticking up for his former coach, so of course, he's bias.

No need to get riled up about it. He'll be wrong in the end...I hope.
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Re: Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

Post by S197 »

The defense was relatively healthy but I think it's a pretty big oversight that he failed to realize we went most of the year with our 3rd string QB. And on top of that, the loss of Dalvin Cook. The 2nd Saints game may have been a "miracle" but the first game, when we had our starting QB, was a dominating win.

He's right, the schedule is certainly harder. This team has beat a healthy Rodgers many times in the Zimmer area, including the NFCN title in Lambeau and also the opening game in US Bank (where Rodgers threw the game losing interception I might add).

Honestly, if his point was the Vikings won't win 13 games again, that's probably pretty fair. Saying they'll be .500 or close to it sounds like he's drumming up controversy. Defensively, they lost no one and gained Richardson. On offense, Cook is back and they nabbed Cousins. Any given Sunday and all that, so sure the Vikings could end up .500 or 0-16, who knows, I just don't know that there's a compelling reason to think that right now.
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Re: Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

Post by J. Kapp 11 »

S197 wrote: Tue Jul 10, 2018 6:30 pm The defense was relatively healthy but I think it's a pretty big oversight that he failed to realize we went most of the year with our 3rd string QB. And on top of that, the loss of Dalvin Cook. The 2nd Saints game may have been a "miracle" but the first game, when we had our starting QB, was a dominating win.

He's right, the schedule is certainly harder. This team has beat a healthy Rodgers many times in the Zimmer area, including the NFCN title in Lambeau and also the opening game in US Bank (where Rodgers threw the game losing interception I might add).

Honestly, if his point was the Vikings won't win 13 games again, that's probably pretty fair. Saying they'll be .500 or close to it sounds like he's drumming up controversy. Defensively, they lost no one and gained Richardson. On offense, Cook is back and they nabbed Cousins. Any given Sunday and all that, so sure the Vikings could end up .500 or 0-16, who knows, I just don't know that there's a compelling reason to think that right now.
This is exactly right.

We gained a heck of a lot more than we're given credit for. Richardson is a huge pickup on defense, and Mike Hughes may well be (yes, he's a rookie, but Cowherd is giving the Packers credit for shoring up their D-backfield because of rookies). We picked up Cousins, and we might as well say we picked up Dalvin Cook because we only had 3.5 games with him last year. Obviously the jury is out on John DeFilippo as OC, but my money is on him doing a great job and being the next hot young head coaching candidate. We've also got guys like Trae Waynes, Pat Elflein and Ben Gedeon with another year under their belts.

With our schedule, 13 wins would be an unbelievable season. But .500? Nobody with an ounce of credibility is predicting that.
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Re: Lunchbreak: Zimmer Ranked Among Top 10 NFL Coaches by 'Sporting News'

Post by Purple Domination »

J. Kapp 11 wrote: Wed Jul 11, 2018 6:07 pm With our schedule, 13 wins would be an unbelievable season. But .500? Nobody with an ounce of credibility is predicting that.
I agree with this. The only way I see .500 being a reality is if we are bit hard by the injury bug (KNOCK ON WOOD). Luckily we still have a relatively young roster which historically has been the biggest influence of this very random variable.
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