Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin talks about what it was like to cover Mike Zimmer and what's next for the Vikings

Episode Date: January 12, 2022

Matthew Coller is joined by ESPN's Courtney Cronin to talk about the fallout from Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman getting fired and what comes next for the Minnesota Vikings' organization. They also talk about what it has been like to cover Zimmer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. And now, what you have all been waiting for, Courtney Cronin to join post Mike Zimmer, Rick Spielman era, Courtney. I'm just going to leave the floor to you. I just want you to give your thoughts on Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman being let go and where the Vikings stand now. Go ahead.

Yeah. I mean, the last couple of days where there's fallout coming out of the game and we all expect Mike Zimmer's going to be gone. Right. And then there's the surprise on Monday of the game and we all expect mike zimmer's gonna be gone right and then there's the surprise on monday morning that rick spielman's gonna be gone and you know everybody i've talked to was caught off guard by it and people and those same people within the franchise like we're saying that rick was caught off guard by it so it's kind of like whoa okay full-on rebuild they're serious the Wilfs are serious about getting this thing right.

And that to me signaled a far different culture shift within this organization than we've seen in years past where it felt like, okay, they're a couple pieces away. Let's run it back this way. No, no, no. Let's tweak this and let's push forward ahead this way. It was time. This team had hit its ceiling. They could no longer continue going the direction that they had with Mike Zimmer, with Rick Spielman. Those two, for better or for worse, are linked together. And I honestly, as I look back at it from a high-up approach of, did they do the right thing? The answer to me is yes, because I really don't believe

that you could go forward with one and not the other when they have been linked together by so many things. That's my general summary of the firings and the Wilfs getting it right. I mean, there was no sort of internal schism or dysfunction or scandal or anything like that. It was just time. The message grew stale. They needed to move in a different direction, and that's ultimately what they're doing. The Rick Spielman thing is curious because it seemed that all of the buzz

was pointing to some role in the organization, and then all of a sudden it wasn't. Now, I think that this is vastly better. Give somebody else who is at least better in understanding value. I think that Rick Spielman is a scout and he knows talent, but he does not know value. And you could point to the quarterback situation and the contracts that were handed out, but there's so many examples of this, signing a running back to a big contract in a year where you just weren't good enough i mean if you if you sign a running back to a huge contract in a year where you're about to win

win a super bowl yeah yeah but even then i mean the cleveland browns signed nick chubb to that huge deal thinking they were super bowl contenders and now it's like oh uh well you just wasted a great year of his well the vikings wasted two ofvin Cook. But that's like the ultimate no-no. It's like the biggest red flags. Like, do not pay a running back. Do not pay an average linebacker huge money. All these things. Don't overpay nose tackles that Bill Belichick for many years. To me, the king of efficient decisions, Bill Belichick,

he doesn't get credit for that that often, but he is the king of this where every year Bill Belichick would be like, all right, there's a fat guy in free agency who can stuff the a gap. Let's sign him for five million bucks. And then the guy would be good for him because a lot of people do that job. Alan Branch, Danny Shelton, like they would just bring in dudes and they were fat and they were fine after Vince Wilford, of course, was there for a long time. But this was a thing that they tried to just pay everybody. They picked up the fifth-year option on Trey Waynes, who wasn't all that good. They franchise-tagged Anthony Harris, who wasn't all that good. And then Anthony Harris goes and gets a $5 million contract with the Eagles after he leaves here. That, to me, was you need someone with the exact opposite approach who says my scouting staff is here to tell me who has the talent.

And I think that the Vikings probably have a solid scouting staff since Spielman was what it sounds like to me, kind of unilaterally just making all the decisions. So they might actually use these people now. And you can have the general manager looking at how do I make this the most efficient? How do we spread the money out in the right ways? Because it's a league where a lot of teams are getting smarter every single day and adding more people who understand the fine details of this job. And it felt like they had a general manager,

just like they had a coach who was kind of doing things like back in the day where you just say let's just let's just put the most talent together out there like well that's not really how it works you don't draft the center in the first round it's just not efficient i think that with this new general manager and we know that the order they've aced it already the wolf set is with their priorities at least hire the general manager first let the gm have a say in the head coach, which ultimately the GM is going to be the one who hires the head coach. I think that the Wilfs are people who have admitted they don't know what they don't know. And you don't want to just like ultimately leave it up to them. That's why you have general managers, they come in with lists of coaches and coaching staff that they'd like to put together.

And that's a big thing to do. But the overarching issue, I think, with the GM position in Minnesota has been that you have a football guy, a scout, the top scout is your GM. That needs to be a CEO position. We've learned in this era of the NFL that it's not just, you know, a lot of people who scoff at the notion of analytics and other things that play into football. I mean, they are very, the numbers game is very much a part of why teams are successful and why they're not. You need somebody who can delegate and can manage this from a business

perspective. Like think of somebody who has an MBA and knows how to manage a business because this is a billion dollar operation. It's not just get me the best 53. Like that's why you have pro personnel directors. That's why you have a college scouting director. It's why you have all these other roles within a front office that those people should be empowered to do their jobs. And I'm not saying that Rick Spielman was bad at finding talent. He clearly found a lot of really good pieces, whether they were in the first round or whether they were, you know, later round draft picks that ended up panning out.

But to me, the thing here about the relationship between Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman and why it ran its course is because the buzzword that we heard all Monday from players and Mark and Mark Wilf was that, you know, we need somebody who's strong leaders, strong communicators, strong collaborators, those last two things, the communication, the collaboration, everything you talk about that happened behind the scenes, and then was was set out in the open yesterday. That's that that was where things broke down when the front office when it felt like front office

was pitted against the coaching staff the same way that on the coaching staff from people i've spoken with since i started covering this team five years ago a lot of times under zimmer it was offense versus defense and that's not a way to run a team and that's why i think they had so much internal i want to i don't want to it internal strife, but just like a rift between, you know, coaches and that trickle down effect to players and just the way that rookies were treated and valued. I mean, we saw this on Zimmer's way out, how he really felt about the front office and the decisions that they made to draft Kellen Mond and the way that Zimmer made Kellen Mond and Wyatt Davis inactive in the final

game of the season when that should be a time that rookies are playing there were a lot of signs or messages that were delivered in not such a subtle fashion to end the era of both of them and it was the right move to move on you could not run this back or continue this or anything like they had to do this yeah i uh completely agree especially with how it became sort of a dictatorship with the spielman and zimmer and they were calling all the shots and zimmer's calling all the shots on the offense when i mean it's always been the case that he's been meddlesome with the offense but it seemed like even more in recent years after the DeFilippo thing, it was like he decided nobody is going to screw me here.

No more offensive coordinators. I'm just hostile takeovering the offense, and I'm not going to leave it to any of these stupid offensive coordinators. I'm going to tell them exactly what to do. How many times after a game do we hear Zimmer say, I told them to throw it there. I told them to run it there. I told him to run it there. I told like,

wait, Mike, why are you telling the offensive coordinator what to do? Remember? I think it was a fourth down in the first game of the year in 2020 against green Bay, where they actually had a chance on fourth down to convert and maybe even go tie the game against green Bay or make it interesting,

whatever it was. And he said, well, I told Gary, take a shot here. Yeah. It was like, well, I told Gary, take a shot here. It was like, well, Gary Kubiak, I think, just to throw this out there, knows how to call a game. He's one of the legendary offensive minds

in the history of the league. I think he knows how to get the feel for a football game, Mike. You don't need to be telling him or you don't need to be telling Kubiak to get up in the box or you don't need to be telling him or you don't need to be telling Clint Kubiak to get up in the box or you don't need to be telling Kevin Stefanski that he's disloyal for wanting to go be an OC somewhere else or whatever. It's just always the headbutting I think was defining. But but because of this, because that was much more out there, I think maybe people didn't realize that Spielman was just calling all the shots when it came to the front office that somebody told me once on a particular contract, it wasn't, Hey guys, what should we do? It was no, this is happening. You make it work on a particular contract. And I think that's how a lot of things were going down.

A very interesting point. I just pulled up. Kevin Clark wrote an article that really caught my eye about the NFL and hiring and general manager positions. And I'll just read you this paragraph. He says in short NFL teams, look for scouts from Superbowl participants when they might want to look for cap guys from any team. This makes me think of a candidate like Kansas city's Brant Tillis who massively managed, managed the chief superstar salaries in recent years.

I think that's maybe a name to watch. Cause I've heard that from several people about Brant Tillis from Kansas City. I think that that's exactly right, though. I think their next person needs to be someone who understands all the ins and outs of the details of how the money works, because that's where you win, aside from just having Aaron Rodgers. But even then, they've worked around that contract and built a good roster that's better than the Vikings from player two to 53. Yeah. And I think that's the benefit of still having someone like Rob Brzezinski, who's their EVP of football ops and their cap guy on staff. Now, will Rob end up being part of the search internally? It definitely feels like that, even though Mark Wilf didn't say

directly who's a part of the search committee. Rob's been here for 23 years. He's part of the search committee, like read between the lines. Now, does Rob want to be the general manager? You know, I'd heard his name floated around just kind of in casual conversation with people from the team for a couple weeks now. And he was in this role, whether it was GM title or not, when he first got here, he was in this role. And I don't know if it's, if it'd be too much to have like your cap guy also be the person that, you know, is managing, you know, the CEO of the team. It makes sense. I feel like that's a hefty responsibility though. I just feel like maybe this is teaching us something about the NFL and the balance of power within front offices, where you can create more roles to divvy up more responsibility.

So it's not all falling on one person. I mean, think about it. George Payton was not getting, he didn't have an assistant GM title here in Minnesota until he started getting offers elsewhere to go be the GM other places and the Wilfs didn't want to lose him. So they gave him that title, bumped his pay up considerably, and compensated him for what he was worth. And then of course, he leaves because he got a much better opportunity. They couldn't say no to, but they never replaced the assistant GM here. It was just that Ryan Munnins became the co-director of player personnel over the pro side. And then Jamal Stevenson became the co-director of player personnel over the college side, which, which makes sense in theory,

because it's like you've got your two branches, then you've got your general manager. Like, I do wonder are they going to change the structure of the front office to where you have maybe more of a balance of power and responsibility. If you have a GM, maybe you'll have an assistant GM, then you'll have your directors of player personnel. And that, I mean, the NFL is so title driven, which is just, it's all money. Like that's all it boils down to whether you're, you know,

a director of player personnel or a manager of player personnel, you're doing the same damn job. You're just being paid differently based on, you know, the organization you work for. Titles aside, though, I think that when they decide who they're going to bring in as a general manager, like Rick Spielman did a good job here for a number of years. You're not with an organization for 16 years if you're awful at your job, no matter what relationships you have. I just feel like the way the roster was structured and the fact that rookies were not contributing to this team

outside of like, you know, a Justin Jefferson, which of course that's going to happen. That has to do with the divide between the coaching staff and the front office. And when you can't get these people, no matter how good your rookies are, if you can't get the front office and the coaching staff, people who are making the decisions with the coaching

staff, like the head coach, if you can't get them on the same page, it's over because you're going to have people infighting and trying to advance personal agendas over doing what's best for the team. And that's honestly what boiled down to here. Like we can talk to our blue in the face about, oh, missing the playoffs and, you know, all the stuff that happened the last few years. They saw that this thing was going the wrong direction because of the friction between the head coach and the general manager. Don't kid yourself. They may be hands-off owners who live in New Jersey.

They know what's up because they hear what's up. They're in the building every so often. And the fact that Rick Spielman, according to Adam Schefter, was already making calls to try to find the next head coach and facilitate that hire. And the fact that all of a sudden he's out of a job and he's not in a part of the franchise moving into a different role, that to me is pretty telling that maybe the head coach said something

on the way out or there was some sort of further divide that the Wilfs were just like, you know what? We appreciate it clean slate we cannot like you you both are at fault for why this team is the way it is i feel like it's the two children fighting um actually no one gets the toy the three children if you include cousins who kirk where you at buddy where you at oh the offensive tackle has to talk about the coach being fired huh offensive tackle is that is that who should be talking the day after I mean sure like but shouldn't the starting quarterback be talking where's that offseason press conference

that Kirk kept alluding to yeah we'll talk about that in the offseason um never happens it sure as hell not happening four straight years of no locker clean out conversation with kirk cousins to look back at the season but incredible that the coach could be fired and they run out a receiver a linebacker a tackle and the leaders of the team is what that was called those are the real leaders they are they are anyway uh it's just one of those things where it's like if you want to know why it's 500 there are plenty of reasons why and that's one of them well yeah if your quarterback's a passenger and not the driver that's a problem that is a problem but that's not going to change like we we could talk about this

all day that's not going to change and you know i think the situation with Cousins now and what you do with him, that's a whole nother podcast. Like, I mean, that's, you know, as far as what what ownership wants to do. Do they want to pay to move him? Basically pay to have him on someone else's roster, pay for a first round draft pick. Do they think that they can keep him and that you can make your cap healthy other ways? Do they like how does he fit into the plans? Now that the dust has settled or it's settling and they're going to get a GM and a head coach, everything, all lights turn to Kirk Cousins

and what he's going to be doing, whether it's here or somewhere else in 22. Not even a tweet or Instagram or nothing saying thanks for the memories Zimmer which I guess I understand but to me it tells you exactly where he thinks he sits within the organization that he doesn't feel like it's necessary for him to say anything when they fire the head coach and general manager that signed him to the biggest deal in NFL history at the time and he just is completely quiet so yeah to me to me that's just the definition of And he just is completely quiet. So yeah, to me, to me,

that's just the definition of what he's been here. He's been the mercenary quarterback. You pay me to show up and throw to the open receivers. And if you want anything else, well, you got to find somebody else. So, but my point was just that,

like, I'm sure with the Wilfs that they looked at it like three children fighting and it's like, well, all, all of you have to go to your room. But isn't it kind of ironic that the kellen mond thing seems to be the the turning point or what pushed it all over the edge to spielman not being here anymore that people believed spielman would continue to be here

and yeah hey look if mike went in there on the last day and they said well we're letting you go mike what's your last thing to say and he said I've got a whole list here of all the reasons why the roster wasn't done correctly. He could put together a list and he'd be right about the way Spielman put it together. And I wrote that at our website today about how just like you can actually build around expensive contract. It is possible. Eight of the most 11, 11 highest cap hits, eight quarterbacks to the 11 highest are in the playoffs. So it's possible the Raiders are there and their coach had to be fired mid season for having racist emails. Like it's,

it is not impossible to build a roster that makes the playoffs. It's hard to beat Tom Brady in the super bowl, but you should be able to build a roster that makes the playoffs. So they all had it coming and they are now better for it uh let me get your opinion then i want to talk about you and i covering mike zimmer because mostly on the show i've sort of been you know breaking down everything that went wrong and occasionally just occasionally i raised my voice i'm sorry to tell you that i know that i normally am very calm on the show. I usually am the unhinged one.

It just depends. Like I, I sometimes just reach the breaking point. And especially, especially when you've broken Eric Kendricks, it's like, okay, I, this needs to be said, but what do you think about the coach search? Just like Doug Peterson is supposedly being interviewed that makes a ton of sense I mean it's a guy with a Super Bowl ring uh Lane Kiffin's name is being thrown out there all over the place on the internet now I just wonder what you think of like the timing and what they're looking for and just your general feeling I think they have to get a general manager hired within the next week if they are truly going to go about it in the fashion where they have a GM in place who's going to hire the head coach. There's a lot of panicked fans that I'm seeing right now saying, oh my gosh, why is Chicago putting all these requests in? What about Denver? And Jacksonville has already had a two week head start.

They're leaking them, folks. You know, are the Vikings ever going to get like a an interview with anybody they don't have anything set up outside of what we saw i believe from doug peterson earlier today that he will eventually interview here so i think that by the end of this week they have to have at least one or two gm candidates in for an interview whether you start internally um or whether you go outside the organization and cast a really wide net. Like the unfortunate thing for them is that they didn't, you know, if you, if you blow up the thing mid season, then you can hire a search firm to help you and to, you know, guide you. I think the fortunate thing is when they do do this thing internally, you are going to have

people who have been around who know what parts of the team need to be fixed and where the culture is the most rotten, like where the bleeding is and how you stop it. So I think there is a benefit to that. But as far as the head coaching search, there's a lot of names out there. Personally, I know a lot of people were mad at me when I said this last night. Like, I think you start within your own division and go outward. You heard what Mark Wolf said, leave no stone unturned. So when someone like Anthony Lynn, who was a successful head coach, and I think honestly got a pretty rotten deal at the end of his time with the Chargers, he's now available. What harm is it to bring somebody like that in either for a head coach interview or an OC interview eventually?

Nathaniel Hackett, no brainer. Eric Bien-Ami, no brainer. The ties to the organization, you know, the fact that he's with the Chiefs, the whole thing. Like there's a lot of names that are out there that I think as the days start to, you know, get closer to the first round of the playoffs, we should have a better idea of what direction they're going to go in. But they absolutely have to get a GM search going and hire people or bring people in for interviews. So you can hire somebody to actually make the calls with your head coach. Otherwise, I mean, this thing's going till February, I think that that's pretty clear where they're at right now, it just kind of feels that this is going to drag on and on because they

don't even have a GM in place. Like that's when you start over, you are committing to starting over and hopefully doing it the right way, which means you're going to give thorough thought and not just jump your process and be like, well, crap, like we're worried that the bears are going to hire like who we want. And if we want Kellen more, then we have to go do this right now. And then you like you, you screw up your process. Like you don't want to do that. So I think that they really do realize, okay, we are in a time crunch. Unfortunately it is, but you know, you're not playing right now. You don't got a game to plan for. Like you can probably start focusing on what you need to do for this GM search

to try to get it expedited hopefully by the end of next week. Yeah. I guess in my mind, the timeline was maybe a little quicker just thinking about, although what the heck is the date? I lose track of even what date is today. So just because I think that a major part of hiring a GM is their coach list. These are the top three questions or so are, how are you going to work with everyone? Will you just make all the decisions yourself and not talk to anyone else? Or will you,

you know, work with collaborate is the word that's question one. And then it's, what do you do with quarterback and who are your coach candidates? And okay. All right. We've got these three, three,

four people that are at the top of this GM's list. That's who we're going to focus on. Let's see who we can hire. And I also think that there will be coaches. You tell me your opinion on this. There will be coaches who wait on the Vikings. I think it's a great job. Absolutely.

That's how I view it. Is that let's say the bears say, Hey, Nate Hackett, we'd love to hire you. You're like, okay, well maybe give me like 48 hours to call the Vikings and see if they want me instead. I just think the stability of the organization and what you inherit on offense should be very attractive to the type of people that they want. Yeah. And you have a hands-off ownership group,

which definitely is a blessing and a curse, but given the dysfunction of the McCaskey family, which probably should have sold that team a long time ago before it ran it into the ground. And soon there'll be moving to arlington heights and everything else i i draft capital aside i would not want to go to chicago like they have two picks in top four rounds the vikings you know might be getting a first round pick for kirk cousins like they have draft capital that rick spielman to his credit built up through last year's draft

you have a better situation here you have owners who throw money out the window to whatever you want. They are willing to pay. You have awesome facilities. I know we don't talk about these things probably nearly as much as we should because it's kind of like, oh, whatever, billion dollar, we're spoiled.

We work at a nice facility when we're out at TCO. There are a lot of teams where the facilities are not nice. The resources that they have to like do their job at a high level are very inadequate. Like when you think about like a billion dollar organization, billionaires are billionaires because they keep a lot of their own money. And I think a lot of owners are cheap. The Wilfs are not like that. So that's honestly a big portion of the type of salary you're going to get, what your resources are going to be to, you know, buy parts that you need to fix the car to, you know, upgrade the roster. And also, like, what are you going to be allowed to spend? Where are you going to be allowed to spend it? Like, you want to get on the same page with somebody. You don't want to walk in and have a GM who's like, let's keep Kirk Cousins. You're like, no, let's not keep Kirk Cousins. Like, that's the type of stuff that they have to get on the same page about

because this ownership group is willing to do feels like just about anything. Like to say that they are invested in this is an understatement. They've thrown a ton of resources, a lot of money at players. Their defense last year, they guaranteed north of $46 million in guaranteed contracts. That's insane. Like, and defense was 31st. like so clearly even when stuff is like at its worst they're willing to toss a lot of money in there and i think that that stuff outweighs a lot of like oh well i'm gonna go here because i mean for the short term chicago's not i know we're using that as an example

the wolves exude patience. They really do. The McCaskies fired what's-his-name, Matt Nagy, after four seasons, and they have a franchise quarterback potentially in Justin Fields. Like, how long is your leash really? And the defense is going to get blown up. So, yeah, there are going to be a lot of head coaches that probably are eyeing this as one of the pinnacles. I know Bill Barnwell put an article out last week or the week before that about the most attractive coaching openings before we knew some of them that were going to be open. He had the Vikings as number one, and it makes complete sense.

And I thought it was kind of tongue in cheek. His pro and con list included quarterback for both of them because of the arguments that you can split for either one with Kirk Cousins. But this is a very attractive job. Mark Wolf just wasn't just like patting himself on the back when he said that yesterday, it is a very attractive job. You are always relevant. You're in a great division that could get even better if Aaron Rogers isn't here in a year or two, right? Like, so, I mean, like that's gotta be a big part of it. When you look at the competitive advantage coaches would have to coming in

here. Folks, we've got an even better offer to tell you about from SodaStick. If you use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER, one word, you can get 15% off your purchase. That's right. At SodaStick.com, your place for Minnesota sports inspired apparel. You can get 15% off just by using the code PURPLEINSIDER. I've told you about all the great football designs, but they've added a few more, including the Axe is Back for Minnesota football fans.

You can get that on a shirt, on a hat. And also, Randy Moss is the Goat, the Purple People Eaters, Bud Grant designs for the old school fan, plus the hockey and basketball teams are both actually exciting this year. And SodaStick has you covered there as well. Go to SodaStick.com. actually exciting this year and soda stick has you covered there as well go to soda stick that dot com that is s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k dot com and use the code purple insider for 15 off

you also get to pick your quarterback i mean whether you pick kirk kirk or you put somebody else right or kenny pickett or or Sam Howell or whoever you like, you get to pick that as the GM and as the coach, if you're Chicago, it's already been picked for you. Trevor Lawrence, I think still will be a very good quarterback. Well, yeah. Jury is still out on him, right? Like, do we kind of consider that maybe he gets a do over because his coach was so stupid and like all of the decisions they made were not, didn't make any damn sense. Like, yeah, I tend to think, and maybe I'm an apologist for Trevor Lawrence, but I tend to think that his rookie season in earnest is next year. Yeah. I mean, I think that just rookie seasons in general,

aren't that telling for, if you look at their statistics, you can find all sorts of guys who had decent years and then turned out to be bad or had bad years and turned out to be either decent or really, really good. But, but you, if you don't like Trevor Lawrence as a coach and you watch his tape, you go, Oh, I don't think this guy's all that good. You're stuck with them anyway, for not only a year, but if it's fields or Lawrence, it's multiple years. This is a quick situation. Either way, like you get to make a quick decision decision like, okay, we will, there's a couple options. We will either trade Kirk Cousins, move on. We might have some issues with finances for like a year or two, but we'd be back on track. I can go get my guy in the draft or I can, you know, do something else. Find a stopgap guy. Or it's, yeah, we like Kirk Cousins. We've, we, me and my big GM brain and my coach brain, I can come in and I can build around him.

I know how to do it. Let's give him an extension. Let's get a healthy salary cap. Let's cut the fat other places on the roster, which there are going to be some hard decisions with some veterans who are very expensive next year who are at the other side of 30 and probably should be on their way out. It's a great situation because it's not like you're locked.

If you want to be locked into Kirk Cousins long-term, by all means, you can. If you don't, you it's a great situation. Cause it's not like you're locked. If you want to be locked into Kirk cousins long-term by all means you can, if you don't, you don't have to be like, that's the great thing about it where you're not coming in already cemented to a plan. That's not yours. Right. If,

if, if I was doing the GM interview and the GM said, no, our, our first plan should be to give the 13th best quarterback in the league the most money, then I would say on to the next GM candidate. I mean, really, when you look at the previous four years, there's a lot of mistakes that we broke down from Zimmer and Spielman, but I've got to think that, and I could be completely wrong, but the Wilfs are business people. They don't pay for quarterback rating or whatever else.

They pay for wins and home playoff games. And they had one after 2015. They had zero during the Kirk Cousins era. And even though you go down to New Orleans and get that win playoffs, it's not a home playoff game. That's what you're looking for is the ownership. You want the buzz around your franchise. You want the gate. You want to be the team that's not a home playoff game like that's what you're looking for is the ownership you want the buzz around your franchise you want the gate you want to be the team that's because you're even though it's it all goes into one pot as the nfl but you want to be that team

bringing in the big money at your home stadium and have that atmosphere and have trey achman and joe buck showing up at your stadium and national writers flying in to talk about your team like that's what you want and you got of that. And you put out a hundred something million dollars for it. Like, I really think from a business perspective, you have to look at the results and say, there's just no way we can continue to do this because it's not a good investment and it hasn't been. So anyway, let's go. That'll be interesting, but I lean heavy that, that they want to talk to GMs who are looking to move on and pick their own quarterback, um, because of that. So let's talk about covering Mike Zimmer, uh, because I'm sure we could go down all the things that have gone wrong again,

but I feel like it's been a 17, 18 week funeral for Mike Zimmer anyway. So, um, I just want to say from my own perspective, um, that I got along well with Mike Zimmer through the years. I think that asking him football, football questions was kind of his favorite thing. There were a lot of great times that we had gathered around his golf cart in training camp, or it's just a handful of us writers throwing football questions at him, talking about fullbacks, our favorite fullbacks one

time um there was another time where i made a joke about the madden video game and he said that he didn't play video games like game of thrones like that's not a video game but kind of classic zimmer um i thought that he was very helpful for my understanding of football and just it grew immensely. I had covered a lot of hockey in Buffalo and then got here and wanted to learn. And he was willing to teach if you were willing to ask. And that's why, you know, that that's why our job is just different from the way that a lot of people would consume a team or something. That's why we are different because even though I personally got along with Mike Zimmer very well, there was one article that I wrote that he didn't particularly like, but he didn't give me a super hard time about it or anything like that.

We've ripped him a bunch of times for a lot of different things. And I always felt like my personal dealings with him were professional. But there were so many other things that weren't that we have to say it. So that's where my own personal sort of feeling about how much I advanced as a reporter just by covering him has to be put aside when we talk about what went wrong. But if we're talking about how it was like to cover him, I thought we had a lot of really interesting exchanges where I took a lot away from it. And just listening to him talk on a daily basis about evaluating players, how you watch players, how you

make decisions as coaches, my understanding of how this league works and how football works is so much greater from having covered him. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I really appreciated my professional working relationship with Mike Zimmer. And like, I know a lot of people for some reason, maybe it's just because I'm the only woman beat writer that we have here. Like, you know, I'm here every single day, not just here a couple days a week as a TV person. Like I'm, I've been covering this team for five years, day in and day out basis. So a lot of people are like, man, I hate how condescending Zimmer is with your questions and like with your answer. I'm like, honestly, the last couple of years, I never took it like that.

Like I ask what needs to be asked. Sometimes I have to I feel like I've worked to a point now where I'm comfortable saying the uncomfortable part of questions and having to ask Mike Zimmer some really tough things that, that maybe weren't asked until I, until I opened my mouth. And I'll say this though, it wasn't always roses. Like I walked in here in 17, I met him at training camp. He, you know, it was pretty gruff and he made me work for my keep. And I don't know if he did that. I doubt he did it purposely. I don't think he cared, but I had to learn how to ask questions to Mike Zimmer

in a way that with other coaches I had interacted with in all of my years covering sports and particularly football before I got here, like I had to do it differently. I remember in 17, I'm not afraid to admit this. Like I I'm comfortable in my skin and where I'm at. I used to write my questions out because I would get shot down by him in not knowing the culture. Like you have to like take the temperature of the water with someone like Mike Zimmer, know what kind of mood he's in, know what else is going on right now that might get under his skin or, you know, make him upset and know what is the appropriate time to ask something and what's not. Like, so like in 2017, I remember I remember I was like damn I'm not getting

anywhere with this guy like I'm not like I don't feel like I'm getting good responses I feel like I'm not really building anything here this is early on so I was like I'm just gonna write out my questions I'm gonna come over prepared to every damn press conference and I did like and I think I earned his I feel like I earned his respect like you tell me because you're there like I feel like I earned his respect. Like you tell me because you're there. Like I feel like he and I had a mutual understanding of each other where I don't think I backed down from him. I definitely took some heat. God, I can pay. I remember that press conference where he snapped at me. It was ahead of week five in 2018. Um, it was Everson Griffin was had his issue, um, where he had been hospitalized and they were playing in Philly after they lose to the Rams. And it's kind of like, you know, well, what are they going to do to his pass rusher? So like all season long, it's my second year on the beat. We had heard about Anthony bar is a pass rusher at one point. He was nice, flat out asked about it before the Friday game at Philly. And he,

I don't remember what exactly he said, but he ripped my head off in that press conference. You know what I did? Four questions later, I came back and asked something else. I didn't shut up. I didn't get, I didn't cower. I came up and asked something else. You know what? His answer was fine. He just didn't want to, my question at that point, I've learned, like as a journalist, you have to be self-aware about this stuff. My question was too obvious of an answer. Like he'd be giving away the game plan effectively, even though we all knew that that's probably what they should do. Him saying it out loud does him no benefit. That's one thing I've learned as a reporter, because sometimes as reporters, we get irritated about like, why do they react this way?

Like when this is the most basic, simple question, and it's because of the way you phrase things and that sometimes things take certain massaging. I learned that that's an art and it's taken me five years to get really good at that with Mike Zimmer. And I can thank him for that because, you know, we never had any knockdown drag out moments. And I know that people listen to press conferences and they hear how he responds to certain questions that come from some people versus other people. And that's fine. Mike Zimmer helped me understand this game a lot more than I did coming in. Just like you, I feel like every time I had a question about football and I wanted to learn a little bit more about the nuances of the game, those Thursday sessions, which are no more because of COVID, where it was beat writers only no cameras, he'd be willing to answer three questions

in a row about something very nuanced or something very small. And I really did appreciate that about him. And, you know, I just felt like we had a good working relationship. I worked to be able to get the invite to go down to the ranch in 2019 and to see a different side of him. And I felt like that really benefited our relationship. Now, obviously I have to put like my own personal working, like, you know, I wish him success. Like, I think he's a very good coach. And while we didn't see eye to eye on everything, that doesn't excuse, that doesn't change that he's a good coach. Now, was he the best leader of men at this point of his career?

You know, I think that there's, there's the culture stuff that we have talked about the last couple of days and Eric Kendrick's coming out and saying, I don't want to be part of an organization. You know, I don't think an organization should be run by fear. And Brian O'Neill saying that, you know, change of voice is good for younger players to feel that they can come in and, you know, be worth a damn. And we know how Zimmer feels about a lot of rookies. Like that stuff is telling that it's coming out now, but that doesn't change that. I feel like I learned a ton from him and I respect him as a coach.

And I feel like he and I kind of had a mutual understanding of each other at the end of his time, by the end of his time here. I mean, you, you, you're the same way. Like when you're around somebody for five, six seasons, it's kind of hard not to. And so I w I will remember those times. And I, and I honestly can like thank him for making me a better journalist. Cause he, he challenged me. He wasn't probably inherently doing it cause he had like 50,000 other things to do, but he made me a better journalist. Cause I had to dig deeper to get, to get a better story, to get a better answer, to do my job better, pretty much. I think that he really wanted us to understand football. There are a lot of coaches who view

the media as just and I think that he did to some extent as trying to like get him or something like that. But he got himself enough times. That was the funny part. So like you guys write all this stuff. You're like, Mike, you said this last week. So yes, we did write it. That is the job. Um, but when it came to things like he wanted us to understand why Trey Wayans couldn't play the ball. And that was so interesting. And I don't know that we'll ever coach or we'll ever cover another coach that is going to tell us that sort of thing. It's like, here's what I'm trying to teach Kyle Rudolph about run blocking. And he would just tell us.

And I know that players didn't like that sometimes that he would tell us. But when he was explaining, why is Kyle Slaughter not making the team? Okay. Because fancy. And this was just great for being able to explain and help fans understand their team better. Fans watch Kyle Slaughter. This is like one of my favorite Mike Zimmer moments because fans watch Kyle Slaughter play really well in the fourth quarter of these preseason games. And they're like, well, why isn't this guy on the team over Sean Manning or something?

And a lot of coaches would be like, we've been really happy with Kyle. Just love him in practice and everything else. Even if we were watching practice. And we're like, we've been really happy with Kyle. Just love him in practice and everything else. Even if we were watching practice and we're like, yeah, of course. But he came up and said he couldn't get guys lined up correctly. And this is his second year here. And if you're in a game and you can't line up people correctly in a real

game, you're going to get killed. And we saw that from like Ian book where he went in and played for the saints and just got sacked every place. Like it's actually really hard for a quarterback to know so many nuances of an offense that they get everyone lined up correctly, make all the right checks and calls. Like one of the reasons why Tom Brady's the greatest quarterback ever is

because he's the best ever at that stuff. And if you can't even do that at a basic level, you can't play in the NFL. And I just, I mean, who would have, who would have really fully understood that until he explained it? Like, this is how it has to be for you to get on the field. So there's so many examples.

I mean, there's hundreds of examples of exactly that type of thing, especially with evaluating young players that you're like, okay, now, now I kind of understand what to think about when I'm watching these guys throughout training camp through the year and conveying what's going on to people who want to know. But like there was also, he also went a little too far at times, right? Like that's the thing.

Like there's, you tow this line where I'm gruff. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. I will always appreciate that brutal honesty where it's not somebody trying to like talk a million miles a minute, like Sean McVay and try to like, you know, cool. I can memorize all these things and I'll say your name in a press conference and make, you know, all that stuff is great. But like, you always knew how Mike Zimmer really felt about things and other people are going to be like, well, Courtney, weren't you like upset about him

lying about tweak and everything else and Daniel Hunter. And yeah, of course, like there's those things. Any coach is probably honestly going to do that. But the way that Mike Zimmer handled rookies and handled certain things, I think he learned along the way, but there's also moments where you're like, did you learn? Like this is before I got here, but the Anthony Barr coasting comment, there's that. And then he respected Anthony Barr after that. Like, I think the stuff that was said about Kellen Mond was egregious. Like, you don't say that. I mean,

that's, I've said this on multiple shows last couple days, a giant middle finger to the front office, a giant middle finger, honestly, on the way out the door. And I think he knew his fate. If you say something like that, you know, you're done regardless. But like, you know, who in the grand scheme of things, he's thinking, who cares? It's Kellen Mond. He's a third round rookie, whatever. But to say what you said about Justin Jefferson and the guy, the guy is your offense you don't win games without him it's just like did you not learn from the situation that you ran into with Stefan Diggs and maybe he thought hey Diggs you're a fifth rounder I made you like maybe he really did think that and then he was you know because I think he respected Jefferson a lot like

the fact that Zimmer like voiced to us at the chargers game. Yeah. He was frustrated this week. He came in, like we talked about it. Like a lot of times he's going to tell somebody to sit their ass down. If they're frustrated, like I don't care, but he could tell that your star player is frustrated. Your other star receiver is apparently reportedly wanting to get the hell

out of there at the trade deadline. I think he realized, okay, I've got to fix some things. He never treated everybody the same. It was basically like a tiered system, and I can respect that. I mean, if you don't think anybody's worth a damn, that's your prerogative. If it works for you and you win games, okay.

If it doesn't, then clearly you need to change. And that's kind of the thing that I gathered, the biggest thing outside of Eric Kendrick's comments from Brian O'Neill, was that rookies come in here and kind of seem like, unless you're Justin Jefferson, who, again, did not start until week three last year. Let's not forget that. A lot of rookies come in and are scared of their own shadow because they have the fear of God put into them or that they just don't feel like they can do this because they're not in an environment i'm not saying you need to nurture and do all these things and people act like

you can't have emotions and empathy in football football men are some of the most emotional human beings we have ever been around they are highly volatile individuals who need perfection and they're type a and they're alpha males like Like miss me with that. Like when it's, when we're trying to like pivot now to what the new head coach is going to be, I hate the discourse out there of like, well, Justin Jefferson shouldn't care about his record, whatever. Or, you know, these players are soft for doing it the way that they did it and saying stuff about Mike Zimmer on the way out the door. This is a different generation.

I will say this again, the Bill Parcells stuff, it's not going to hit with somebody like a Justin Jefferson or a 21 year old. That's going to come in here next year. The way it did with Chad Greenway, different generation of player. He kept getting older. The players keep getting younger. Like that's just is what it is. And I, I do think that the way, you know, those comments, those comments don't just affect the public, like what he's willing to say in a press conference. Like I will definitely miss that level of honesty.

Cause I don't think we'll get that. That doesn't just like resonate with the public though. That resonates with the locker room, like players here and read everything. Like don't ever for a second, believe that they don't. So I think that that stuff didn't sit well with them and, you know, go back to the vaccine comments. Personally, I was on Zimmer's side about the whole thing, but there's a reason he came down in August, the day after absolutely annihilating Kirk Cousins in the quarterback room

for their decisions and everything else. And when the next day comes down being like, I'm not going to talk about the vaccine stuff anymore, guys. Locker room got to him. Players got to him and said, hey, you need to chill out here. Like that is what happened. guys locker room got to him players got to him and said hey you need to chill out here like that is what happened and so and then he did anyway because they brought in an expert as they said what it's always been one of the issues that he had is he just couldn't help himself

yes exactly self-control well i think that a big part of it was well let me just touch on the the generation thing i don't think anyone has has ever liked a really uncomfortable work environment. I think that younger people now have opportunities to say what's going on to the world, and we know about it. And I also think that Bill Parcells had a big heart and was hard on people in practice and things like that, but found ways to show how much he loved and cared about his players that I'm not sure Mike Zimmer ever found that way of connecting with people, which I, which I think was kind of a downfall of his, that he didn't have that sort of, Hey, yes, I was hard on you, but I also love you. And that kind of thing where that other part was missing. Yeah. He talked about like trying to find

that, that like, that's kind of the balance. I just don't know though. I mean, and granted we are only hearing a select example of these things. There are plenty of players who still support Mike Zimmer, who, you know, might not be publicly saying it, which I don't know.

I don't know whether that's the right thing to do or not, but the loud, the loudest comments right now are the ones that kind of make you go, wow, that person just said the quiet part out loud. Yeah. And I don't mean that Mike himself didn't himself love the players. It's the way that he coached them.

Right. Coaching them, expressing them, making them feel valued. That has been missing forever. Going back all the way to the first year I got here, 2016, that ends with the players going rogue at the end of the season and doing whatever they wanted. I mean, it's just, it's been a thing that existed that he always had trouble connecting with people.

And I think that that's one thing they'll look for with the next head coach. And there's another part too, that Mike is an incredibly intelligent person. And I think that it drives him crazy to try and like work around the truth or what he thinks or when he's right, it just sticks with him. And he was right about cousins and he was right about the cap hit and what it would do to the roster and all those things. And he couldn't

let it go. And he was probably right that he wanted a corner instead of Kellen Mond and couldn't let it go at the end of the year. And so these things, there's a part of me that sees myself in Mike Zimmer this way because things stick with me that, that drive me crazy. And when I'm right about something, I can't help, but say, look at Mac Jones in the playoffs, everybody. That's also, that's also my job. Like it's my, it's my job to be the, say the parts out loud. That's also my job. It's my job to be the say the parts out loud. It's not the job of a head coach to always. Always be doing that.

I think you've got to pick your spots. And I think that at certain points he did, but he also got caught up with doing it a little too much. And I think on Sunday night, this is going to stick with me for a little too much. And I think on Sunday night, this is going to stick with me for a while, was the Daniel Carlson succeeding to get the Raiders into the playoffs and how I think back on that interview

you and I had with him after the game, you, me, and John Krasinski, talking to him at his locker, breaking the news to him, be like, you hear what your head coach just said? Like, not obviously in that fashion, cause we have class, but, um, I do think that that was the beginning of the end of that. And when you, you know, look at how good Daniel Carlson is now,

had he not had psychological warfare committed on him in that game, preseason game against Seattle, maybe we don't see the the meltdown that happened like maybe and I think that's a lesson about the tough love aspect which you know I'd be curious to see what people think about this like I just I know it's like I know it's a concept but tough love doesn't mean part of my language doesn't mean you need to be an asshole it does not mean that you need to mother f somebody or publicly embarrass them. Tough love can mean, you know, you're going to stay out here and kick 10 field goals from the

50 until you make them all. And you're going to do it in the, in the rain. Like, and maybe that's even extreme, an extreme example. There's a way to do it though, where it doesn't come in the form of ridicule, or I am trying to make an example of you. That's kind of how some things came across. And I just think that that's not the right way you lead people. You don't get people to buy in because people are going to be like, no, screw that. Like it's going to end up being more of the, we're going to go against this then. Oh yeah, let's buy in. Like we want to all get embarrassed and made fun of and made to feel like we're small. Like nobody wants that.

These are football men. They're volatile. They have a lot of emotions. They've all been the best at their position, the best at what they do for so long that you don't want to get brought in somewhere and be made to feel like you're not a part of something and alienated. And Jeremiah told the story about Zimmer putting up on the video board in front of the whole team,

like the worst play of the week after games and practices. And it was always the same guy in 2015 and 2016, certain left tackle. And they were all like, dude, come on, stop, like stop hammering this guy.

It's not helping. And I know it's hard because he's looking at that, like stop making the same mistakes. Right. But it's just like, there's sometimes that's you got to know your personnel. That's that's half the battle. You got to know who can handle that stuff and who can't. This is where I've seen a couple of people in my just my brain shuts down when I see it.

It's like, well, Belichick's like this. Like, no, he's not. No, he's not. No, he's not. No, he's not. Like if you, if you were making repeated mistakes, he will cut you before he'll embarrass you in front of the rest of the team. Right. I don't see Bill Belichick as somebody from, and I know people who have played for him. Donald Jones has come on the show. He played for Bill Belichick. He said it's, it's a very like disconnected type of relationship. Bill Belichick is not coming up and giving you a wet kiss on the mouth, but he is very straightforward professional about what he wants

and what he wants to be done. He's not bullying people. There's a difference between being kind of a hard coach and bullying people. The thing about Belichick is some of his press conferences, there's four times that you've seen Belichick do the on to Cincinnati or I'm not talking about that or whatever else. And there's hundreds of other from talking to New England beat reporters where he's been super insightful, really thoughtful. Dan Reeves passed away and he had incredible comments about Dan Reeves and how he should be in the Hall of Fame. And there have been other times where we asked Zimmer about stuff like that.

And he'd be like, I don't know. Like, why are you guys asking me about this? We're playing the bears. And you just be like, that was always missing from covering him is like, have show something that you're not a football bot. Like give us some humanity is exactly right.

And to it, you know, we, we do know that there were moments like when, when Tony Sperano passed, like Zimmer was incredibly emotional about that. Rick cried all the time. Like Rick was, you know, Rick was a very emotional person.

And I like that about him. I was like, OK, he can be the football guy who makes up words. And he's still a very human person. Like you talk to people in the building. That's one thing I'll always respect about him. He hated us. Rick, that is. Rick Spielman.

People in the building, there are a lot of people who loved him and like would fight for him and say you know just how good he was to them in their careers and i'm like okay at least it's if it's being done somewhere i get it we're the enemy we suck we're not national media that he wants to feed everything to that's cool but at least he was that person with a lot of people i've spoken to the last couple days who have checked in on him and just kind of reached out and said like how thankful they are about him in his career with Zimmer, you know, we did see the very honest side of him and just the frustration and things like that. And there were times where it would have kind of been like, you know, I mean, I, I think about the Everson Griffin press conference from two months ago and that

was, he was shook that day. Like he had no idea. And it's like, kind of like he was put in some tough spots, I think by owner, by, by the front office of having to field some very difficult questions that he probably wasn't even prepared for. Like, you know, but like, you know, the idea that like, you know, the Corey Stringer thing, like, I'll say say it like, I mean, that was a day that the quarterback room got wiped out by COVID. And it was approaching, if not the day, like close to the day of Corey Stringer's death. And the answer to paraphrase was, well, you know, I didn't really know the guy. Those types of things kind of stand out.

Like, I'm not faulting him. Like, if you don't know somebody, don't be a grief thief or whatever they call them. Be out there crying about somebody you didn't know. But tact. Tact was something that I just didn't think he really excelled in. At moments, it was perfect. At moments, it really was the right approach to be like, no, they messed up. This thing stunk.

But it just didn't always – there's time and a place for it. He didn't always nail that part. The only time he was ever really thoughtful and it seemed like the Grinch's heart growing three sizes too big was about Teddy Bridgewater. He loved him. Yeah. You would get the most honest responses from him about Teddy and

seeing him come back. But that's the one thing, like, you know, sometimes you want to ask him about something and it's like, God, I've talked about this 10 times already. Really.

And truly, anytime you would talk about Teddy, even if he was like, I wouldn't say annoyed, but like, Oh God, I've already answered this. He would give you something good.

And he would, he would at least answer the question because he loved teddy and he always wanted the best for him that's one thing i'll always appreciate like if you were his guy you were in and and he would never the only thing though the teddy comments eventually now he really loved him and said he was like his son or whatever and And I think that he always missed them. The only, the only thing though was that eventually the Teddy comments started to sound like criticisms of cousins. And,

and I don't think that's reading between the lines. I think that he wanted someone like Teddy. He wanted someone who just played to win and that was it. And gave every part of his heart to the game, which, you know, Teddy's gotten hurt a bunch of times because he's trying too hard to get a first down or diving or whatever.

Whereas he didn't see those leadership qualities with cousins. And I think they were kindred spirits that way that it was just winning above everything. And that's not cousins. And I, and I think that cousins was sort of everything he doesn't like about certain types of players. And that was the only thing.

They're cut from completely different cloths. I think Zimmer sees a lot more of himself in a Teddy than he does in Kirk Cousins. Yes, that we could get him to get going on Teddy in part because I think he wanted to be like, guys, these are the things that are wrong with Kirk that I don't like. Last thing, This is a, it's been a really fun conversation. I know that people were looking forward to your thoughts on this one. So I appreciate it. I just want to know like your favorites,

either back and forth with him or ridiculous quotes. I mean, there's a lot we've been through, but Oh my God. Or maybe. Okay. I can, I can start off we laughed about this one time last year where we were like crying laughing about the austin cutting the the long snapper would come from the air force and it seemed that mike was under the

impression that he was trained for war and said something about like i'm sure they train him to land planes on aircraft carriers. And it was like, Mike, I don't think that every person in the Air Force is Top Gun. I just, his knowledge of anything outside of football was hilarious. It was like one time they were playing music at practice and it was like hardcore rap. And I said, Mike, is that on your iPod or whatever? And he goes, oh, that's not my music. As if I was seriously asking. And then I was like, well, what do you have playing in the car or whatever? And he was and he dropped some country song that we looked up. We're like, well, like cornball bro country. Like what? Like what is that? Like you just pick some terrible song it's like oh he has no idea yeah he's he doesn't know he's got his country artists and some of them he's gotten to meet through his foundation or whatever else that he likes but he doesn't he doesn't know music

he doesn't like know movies or video games or anything else he knows football and that was it and and there were so many sort of funny like, oh, yes, Mike has no idea how the world operates. Oh, man. The first one that comes to mind was like back in training camp 2020 when we would literally leave the practice field and go into the visitors or the stadium press box at TCO Stadium where they do the night practice to like do our zoom interviews and it was the day that like is 10 days removed from when Daniil Hunter sustained a tweak and so I asked him for an update at the end of that I was like Mike like what's going on with Daniil like you said it was a tweak he's like yeah it's tweak and I kind of like said for 10 days like my Teresa Giudice moment I don't know if anybody's watched Real Housewives like one of the first seasons when she's yelling at Danielle Staub and slams her hand on the table being like you were engaged 19 times like that was my version of that when I was like a tweak

for 10 days it's a tweak and I was like just I I thought that was hilarious uh looking back on it obviously not the guy had a herniated disc in his neck and had to have surgery but that was probably you know those little exchanges and I remember there's one from like my rookie year in 2017 when these assignments that we have to do at ESPN called 32 for 32 like they're one each team has to you, everybody gives an answer on a topic. And there was one about like a pregame meal or what do you have after a game, all this stuff. And I was like, this is still like, when I was young doing this job five years ago, I'm like,

I don't want to ask him this. I don't, I don't know how to like do this. Like, I don't want him to yell at me. I think you apologized first or something. I did what I said, I said, do this like i don't want him to yell at me like i think you apologized first or something i did what i said sorry for asking this i said i i got this idea from my colleague rob domofsky about like how to preface it so like set not setting myself up for failure to get a no answer so like i said like you know like sometimes they're you know players you know you call a play and the players don't necessarily want to execute it but like they kind of have to well that's the situation i'm in right now having to ask this question what do you like

to have after a game like what foods do you like to eat and he like thought about he's like red wine so it's all i needed to know with that so like he actually handled it like a champ because i was so nervous about asking that question um and i guess that the other like personal interaction like when i went down to the ranch he taught me how to skeet shoot, which is like the clay discs, like the clay pigeon things. And, you know, that was really cool. Like I got to actually get coached, even though that's not football, like he can't turn the coach mode off. Cause like, you know, I had the gun and like, I mean, it's not a gun.

It's like got like the chambers, but if you shoot that at somebody it's gonna hurt like very seriously injury like I was like so excited after the first one that I nailed like I kind of like turned back to like kind of get some like positive like reinforcements oh my god be careful with the gun like because I like was like yeah like I turned back around and there's video of it somewhere but I really did appreciate that interaction getting to like see him down at the ranch and see him in off-season mode because he's a completely different person when he's not on no sleep um you know in the middle of like a grind of the season where he's exhausted and not being you know none of these coaches are healthy individuals in the middle of the year so

i will appreciate those things about him and i know that i could come up with countless countless other examples of interactions that we've had that have just like made me laugh myself sick but um those are those are the ones that like stand out to me where i was just like had to tweak that one i'll never even he made it. Also, don't you remember when I was starting to like, this is probably a little inside baseball for people. There was a press conference I missed because I was coming back. I was either flying in or coming. It was during training camp.

And it was like, I asked him something about the boots, like with Kirk or whatever. Terrific in the boots, yeah. And, or no, it was, no, it was not terrific in the boots. You don't have to get into that. Like I already started calling him Rick Denison Rico. So like I, I,

I used it in casual conversation. He's like Rico. Like it looked at me kind of like she's using this. And then there were a couple days later that I missed a press conference because I was coming, I was flying in and I came in late and he said the word Rico. And I remember watching the video. He like looked around for me. She's like, Oh, I thought she would be here. And she would laugh at that. Cause I was like, it seems Rick, Rico from. And then Chad Graff asked Rick Denison, why they called him Rico. And he was like, Oh,

it's a great story. Someone started calling me that years ago and it stuck. And you're like, that's not a great story. That's not a great story story at all um okay i have one that's my favorite from you and then my favorite for me for it for funny interactions um so my favorite for you is when um sheldon richardson signed oh my god i forgot about this zimmer zimmer is the happiest person i've ever seen like on on your wedding day whoever you're listening to this like that's how zimmer was signing sheldon richardson and so um mike goes to the podium and he gives his opening statement and he says something like yeah i was just watching three technique tape and then you know sheldon richardson just showed up in my norway and you went ha or is that like you you like laughed so loud i think i snored i think i snorted because the facebook live like this live stream that they

used to do it picked up on it so if anybody wants to go back and find that you'll hear like a like something like i just i thought it was the funniest thing in the world because like it was like his like genie like that he was like watching like oh my god there's a three technique and here's one it was it was just so funny of like yeah i was just watching three technique the tape because that's what i do and then one showed up at my door it was but your laugh being picked up on the stream was the absolute funniest i think that was just like the thing i loved about it because he's so serious about those things but like i just have a level i think you and i were bad influences on each other with this thing but also great influences at the

same time like he he always took that stuff so seriously but there was a way to kind of see like humor in it like you know he probably didn't think that was he probably was like yeah like wow can you believe it like he just showed up and it's just like those are the interactions i'll always like remember where it's like footbally football man until the very end so i i um wrote a piece about going for it on fourth down and I analyzed must have been the 2017 season or 2016 season. I analyzed every fourth down and compared it to the win probabilities. And so I asked them a question. That's where the video game answer came from, because I was not about like four verts or no, there was another one about.

Yeah, there was another about four verticals. But this one was about that was related to video games. But this one was just about like, I said, Mike, I never punt on video games. And then he was like, yeah, well, you, you know, you can't get fired on the video games. And so then the next day he said, I read your article. Why didn't you include all your video game stats or highlights or something? And I said, Mike, cause you couldn't look at my offense. Like my offense is so good. You couldn't stand it or something like that. And he thought, he thought that was

pretty funny. Um, and that's what, you know, COVID took away from us a lot is for sure. The interaction level. I missed that part of it. I think even, even he hated that part. Like I know it was a little tongue in cheek. Remember like right before OTAs ended and he's like, well, you know, the COVID, that was when he foreshadowed what was going to happen, how difficult the season is going to be for non-vaccinated players. And he's like, and I hate it too. I hate being behind the Zoom screen.

I was like, well, Mike, you have the power to like, you know, kind of like enforce that. And he's like, you know, Courtney, I will use that power for the good of my players. And then just like walked off the Zoom instead of like trying to help us. He was just like, yeah, like I hear you. I was like, okay. Yeah. There were a lot of, there were a lot of those. And you guys,

I think in particular would roll your eyes at me for how often I would add in some sort of little stupid comment to him. But I think that, I think that he did get a kick out of those. So, you know, I, I mean, as far as covering Mike Zimmer, he was a very fascinating, uh, head coach to cover. And I think that, uh, we've all grown a lot over the years. I mean, you and I were on our first years of covering NFL teams. We had had previous jobs and things like that. And we're just sort of learning the ropes around a lot of the other people here who have done it for a long time. So he was a, um, a very helpful in a lot of ways,

challenging in other ways, coach to cover. Um, but we are better for it. I agree. I don't like the way that, um, some things went in terms of like from a personal level to the way he treated some people. Um, um you know i think that happens a lot with with football coaches but i agree with you that you you know you wish you wish the guy the best to to find something that works for him whether it's you know defensive coordinator from here on out or if another team hires him or if he wants to retire and hang out although i feel like he's got one more job left in him. This is not somebody who I he's competitive as hell. I don't think he idols very well. So I think he'll be back.

If not the hot tub with Adam. Oh God. Watching Chicago, Chicago PD. Well, forever be scorched in my brain, him mentioning that. So thanks Courtney.

This was, I know a Epic, but a lot to discuss. So we will get together throughout the off season and you know, who is. She's coming. She's coming. I've talked to our, our draft.

Thanks Courtney.