Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Should Mike Zimmer be given time to rebuild or have pressure to win now?

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

Dave Campbell of the Associated Press joins Matthew Coller to talk about the funniest offseason storylines that we covered like crazy and turned out not to matter at all and then they dive deep into whether Mike Zimmer should be feeling like he has to win in 2021. How might that impact the way Zimmer and GM Rick Spielman approach the offseason? Should ownership give the Vikings' brass more time? When is it time to make a change? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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from SodaStick. So remember, SodaStick.com also to check out all of their Minnesota sports inspired goods. Let's get to the show. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Scout Logistics. Matthew Collar here along with Dave Campbell of the Associated Press, the guy that I consider to be the OG of the beat. What is up, Dave? How's that feel? Yeah, that's a lot to live up to for this next segment, but it's going well. Always good

to be on the pod. Not much is going on. Just another day in paradise. Well, we have a lot of time to speculate and ponder is the way that I think about it, Dave. We don't have a lot of time to go out and do stuff or, you know, have things in our lives, but we't have a lot of time to go out and do stuff or, you know, have things in our lives, but we do have a lot of time to ponder the Minnesota Vikings. So I have a few things I want to talk with you about. I actually want to start with the silliest part of this podcast and then get into the curious part, if that's okay. Yeah. Because I sent you two topics and the one topic that I sent is about Mike Zimmer, and I really want your perspective on this.

And I joke about you being the OG, but you've seen a lot of different coach rises and falls here in Minnesota, and I really want to get your feeling and your opinions on the timeline with Mike Zimmer and kind of where we've come and where we're going to go. We'll get to that in a minute. But the other thing was I want you to tell me what the funniest thing, now that we are officially in the off season, the funniest thing that we spent entire off seasons covering, writing about, talking about, interviewing people about that just meant absolutely nothing to the regular season.

Because I'm always excited about this. I'm always excited about like, what topic will it be that I write a ton of words on that will make no difference toward next year? Yes. And I want to know what you thought of. Yeah, there's so many possibilities. You know, the first one that came to mind was Dalvin Cook's sort of logging off from virtual workouts last spring as if there was going to be some irreparable rift between player and team

and as if there was going to be a steering contest and they weren't going to give him that extension. I mean, it was so obvious. He was on the – they had him on, like, promotional materials, you know, for – I feel like – I can't remember the timing, but it was like, you know, looking at the schedule release. That's what it was. You know, and the way they set up the offense, you know,

the head coach basically two years prior saying, you know, firing an offensive coordinator because they didn't run the ball enough. So, you know, obviously they could have still kept him without giving him the extension, but sort of a strategy that would have been fraught with risk if they were truly serious about this type of offense. So that was one. But maybe that's the most recent example because, I mean, there was nothing, you know. It's part of covering the NFL.

It's not like you couldn't, you know, it's not like you could just ignore the fact that the deal wasn't done yet. And within the context of, you know, NFL running back contracts and how so few teams these days do ante up for that. But, you know, that was a little bit of a silly one, largely driven by his agent, I think. Another one that came to mind of the recent elk was sort of Mike Hughes' injury recovery.

He's a first-round draft pick, had a pick six once, and has a head coach who's been with a track record of developing corners, cornerbacks. And so we have just, we just sort of fell into the mindset that this is going to be a real key development for this season. Well, he might not even play for the team ever again. We don't even know.

You got to feel bad for a guy that has that many injury setbacks, especially with a neck. I'm not talking to hamstring here. So can't blame the guy for not being available, especially for those types of injuries. The ACL first, you know, it's just fluke stuff. But at this point, you know, we've spent a lot of words, both in print and over the air, on Mike Hughes.

Is he going to play the slaughter outside? Because he's, you know, first-round pick, after they got rid of, you know, Rhodes, Waynes, and Alexander, it was just he's you know first round pick he just had this after they got rid of uh you know Rhodes, Waynes, and Alexander it was just sort of the default well he's the best cornerback they have and so thereby is the most important storyline in that position group but I think uh I think we see how that kind of played out and how you know they basically never Gladney and Dantzler like never left the. And, you know, for better or worse, that's obviously who he would be rolling with moving forward.

Another one, well, I'm going to nominate, and I guess I could easily be wrong in this, but I got to nominate Kirk Cousins' trade speculation this offseason. We'll see. Look at that. Look at that cap hit. Yeah. I'd be pretty safe in saying he's taking the first snap in the 2020 season opener now i get it it's it's cousins and it's quarterback stuff and there's other stuff going around in the league and it contributes to all the all the

chatter um i think it's fascinating to analyze and speculate about just because of how complicated quarterback contracts are and how unique it is. You know, sort of a phenomenon almost just started last offseason about franchise quarterbacks or, you know, top half, top 50 percentile quarterbacks don't ever change teams. But all of a sudden now it's like happening, or at least the possibility of it happening all over the league. So, you know, I get why we're talking about that but that one i think it's a little bit too much uh air time and print time at times um another one i thought of was uh cal rudolph's contract status

where like they might have to cut them um and then they ended up blinking and gave him the extension. But I think there was a little bit more alarm about having to move on from him or trading him, sort of like a changing of the guard at the position than maybe fit the actual impact on the offense. Now, there's the community side and obviously a longer tenured player. And, you know, still, I think, obviously, even at his age still provides a lot of value in the passing game when they actually throw him the ball yeah right on the other hand you know i think that one particularly since it was an off-season issue

and and he spoke out a little you know fairly bluntly about it i want to say after a mini camp you know basically he's not shy about voicing his belief in his value, unlike some players might just say, oh, that's from age, and they won't really touch that subject. So, you know, part of it was fueled by his willingness to speak about it. But that was another one, like, well, we didn't necessarily think he was going to go anywhere, but if he did, it wasn't going to be some seismic change

in the trajectory of the franchise. So I love all of these picks. And let me just touch on each one of them. My favorite moment of each, Kyle Rudolph at the media golf tournament, which is a yearly thing, holding his own little side press conference to basically say, I want to continue to be a Viking. And then I don't know if it was in that press conference or another one where he said, but like plenty of teams would totally trade for me. Like, okay, buddy, we know, you know, and then he did an interview and this is funny

because this went totally under the radar. He did an interview at an event, I think in like South Dakota that he was doing. And, you know, like you said, the community stuff is unparalleled and he does a terrific job with all of that. But someone asked him asked him like would you like to get traded to the patriots and he said you know something to the extent of like oh i'd love to be a patriot or whatever and it just it nobody picked up on it because it happened in south dakota but if somebody sent it to me i was just like i can't believe he said this i can't believe he said like sure i'd love to go play for the patriots. And then, like you said, every time the deals get worked out, we all move on.

The Mike Hughes issue is sort of tragic because I think he is a good player, but he just gets pretty hurt. But after his first game, Mike Zimmer dunked on everybody because there was all the conversation about like should he draft a lineman and everything else. And then after his first game, it's it's you see we drafted the right guy and then here we are a couple years later yeah he has not played as many snaps in three years as Jeff Gladney played last year and and you're right about the amount of space that's spent with like

what can Mike Hughes be and the answer so far is we still have no idea three years in and we may not ever find out the Delvin cook one is the funniest because it would be you know 10 o'clock on a sunday night in the summer and all of a sudden schefter pops up with something of like delvin cook's agent says he's not going to show up to training camp or says mike zimmer's lying about whether he told him he was going to show up to training camp and all he said and then he's there they signed the contract no big deal everybody moves on with their lives and it was just a lot of drama for nothing uh my my two favorites that came to mind for storylines we spent a lot of time on that meant nothing anthony bar comma pass rusher yeah that's a good one it's just i like every camp anthony you need to rush the pass or more. It's like, no.

And then there's the one training camp practice where you actually line up at defensive end. Maybe Griffin was getting a break or something a couple years ago. Oh, we lost our minds. A full week's worth of stories there. Yes, exactly. And it turns out that, I mean, he's just better doing a lot of things than he is one thing.

And beating running backs and tight ends on blitzes is different than beating 320-pound tackles. And Mike Zimmer, as much as they had a rough year on defense last year and, quote, miscalculated some things, I tend to believe Mike Zimmer. If he tells me this player is better at that than he is at something else, I think you're probably right. That Anthony Barr is better and more valuable in his current role than he would be as a pure pass rusher. But, you know, he had good blitzing numbers. And then he fed into it because he kept saying to us,

oh, yeah, I want to rush that passer more. I want to rush. I'm better at going straight than backward or whatever. Like he had all sorts of quotes that just kept pushing this and pushing this. And we were like, okay, yeah, all right, let's go. Maybe my all-time favorite is in terms of offseason things that were super dramatic and then meant nothing is Michael Floyd. Michael Floyd is –

Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's like in the hall of fame of this. Yeah, the kombucha tea incident. And then he goes to training camp and just they put him on the second team because he can't play right away. And he destroys fools. He's out there every day like shredding apart these undrafted free agent second teamers. We're like, wow, Michael Floyd looks great. He's going to be the pure deep threat they've always dreamed of having.

And then just you know he had like nine catches or something it's like well you know it is um that that is how it goes so i don't know 10 for 78 i just looked oh 10 for 78 a very memorable first catch in chicago if i recall in that win over the bears that sort of turned the 2017 season he made that diving catcher like, another weapon. And then, you know, nothing from Michael Floyd the rest of the way and no other kombucha-related incidents. And the famous quote from Mike Zimmer where he said,

if I find out he's lying, I'll cut him. And you're like, Mike, I don't know how to tell you this, but I might not be telling you the truth. Anyway. tell you this but he might not be telling you the truth anyway yeah i've never i watched him play as a sophomore in a playoff game for creighton durham hall uh and i've never seen a high school player that good i mean he still squeezed out seven or eight years in the nfl you know obviously he had some off the field stuff but that's that's pretty good. It's longer than the average bear. So I don't want to say he peaked in high school, but, man, I've never seen a guy that talented at that young of an age.

He was something. He had a good NFL career. It was just always the question of whether it should have been a better NFL career, and I would make the case that it should have been. Maybe if he was in a better position in his life, he would have been in a better position for the Vikings that year. Not that they needed a ton of help that particular season. So those are, those are some of my favorites.

Now I was going to ask the followup of like, what's it going to be this year, but you've already answered that. Yeah. Cousins trade rumors. And let me just say that I agree with you. Like you don't hire Clintint kubiak and then trade your quarterback like you hire clint kubiak because you want kirk cousins offense for kirk cousins to run it and it would be totally shocking if they decided to trade him

i think it's two different conversations of whether they should consider it and whether they should pick up the phone if Carolina were to call with that eighth overall pick or something like that like there there are two different ways of looking at it so I think it's worth talking about philosophically as other teams kind of look for ways out of these contracts with quarterbacks who are 10th to 12th to 15th in the league I think that is an interesting angle of it. But there is no actual legitimate even fire or smoke to look at when it comes to a Kirk Cousins trade. It's just people saying, remember Kyle Shanahan loves Kirk Cousins? Like, okay.

Right? Like that's not – And there was a Bay Area reporter who leaked or who reported unsourced that the 49ers would have interest or something, you know. So, but, you know, what does that mean? Right. What does that mean? Exactly. And clearly, like, they're trying to move on from Jimmy Garoppolo.

So how many people would they, quote, have interest in? Yeah. 20 guys, maybe. So anyway. Well, let's also consider, which might help you segue into the next segment. Let's also consider like with a head coach and a general manager with, you know, no time or interest in doing any reset or any step back whatsoever. You know, you could almost eliminate the possibility right there. And this is why I did want to talk to you about the timeline, because I wrote an article about it. And I like to get other people's viewpoints and just tell them mine and see if you see it the same way or differently.

Because I see it this year as for the general manager and head coach that they have a lot of pressure to be in the playoffs again and be competitive in the playoffs to put together a team that looks like it's on the rise and is instantly serious in the NFC. I also think there's an argument to be made that the more patience you have with this thing and trying to build it out, the better. But these two people are not really in a position to feel that way. And yet, here's what I struggle with a little, Dave, is we just never hear from ownership. In fact, these days, we never hear from the coach or the general manager. I mean, aside from the in-season stuff.

But you hire an offensive coordinator, and the coach is not on the press conference. And the general manager is not on the press conference and the general manager is not in the press conference I found both of those things unusual and the only time that Rick Spielman spoke with us was when George Payton left and he declined to answer any other questions about this season about the roster and so forth so we hear so little from these people now that it does leave a lot to be sort of filled in with the gaps. It does. And it also, to me, makes it seem like it's another sign of the pressure, I think, that exists to try to not just turn it around, but, you know, do it quickly and meaningfully given sort of the ticking, you know, sort of clock on their tenures, even though they both did get extensions a year ago.

So maybe that's not fair to say ticking clocks, but they've both been here a long time. Yeah, it's certainly an ownership group that, you know, exerts as little public pressure as any ownership group does in the league. They certainly have stated at times their admiration for the stable franchises like the Steelers and like the Giants who were, they grew up Giants fans. It's pretty obvious that they do value that over the alternative of like the Lions firing coaches every couple of years.

It was, I would say, a conspicuous absence by Zimmer on the Clint Kubiak call. You would think it would be something he'd want to not get out in front of, but sort of say, hey, nothing's going to change with this offense. That was a top five or top eight or whatever, however you want to measure it. Offense in the league last year, I believe in in this guy yada yada yada especially you know a young you know trusting it to a it's unproven clint even said that pretty uh didn't back back away from that at all i had a lot to prove um so turning your offense over to a 34 year old who has not called plays before raises its own questions yeah it'll be really interesting i guess whenever he does do his next media appearance what uh what he has to say about it you might

you might also read that as he's got as much he's got more work to do on the defense than he had since he took over so could very well be sort of thinking about it like that, like this is not my problem. Assume that things will run as smoothly as they did on that side of the ball. We're not changing anything. Hopefully Rick will bring in a few new starting linemen, and I'm just going to focus on my pet project on the other side of the ball here. And also, too, you know, we talked about his persona and arc here in Minnesota. Many, many head coaches in the league are far more polished from a PR standpoint and get behind the company line or see themselves as the face of one of the most popular sports franchises in the world

based on being in the NFL. He's never done that. He never will do that. There are a few exceptions, like guys who maybe are more in that category, like Bill Belichick or something. But these days, more coaches around the league are more likely to be there to talk about it and say the things, you know, and that's just not him. Hey, everyone who listens to this show knows that I am an old-school gamer. So if you're still playing the games from the 90s, trust me,

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I think I really would have wanted to know his response to just how much freedom Clint Kubiak is going to have to change things. I mean, that's the biggest question. And when we get that answered, how Mike Zimmer answers it, whether he chooses to answer it or not, it's more like, yeah, I think September, October, November are when we're going to get our answers to that. And the other thing, too, is, though, Zimmer's history with offensive coordinators has been that he sort of wants to say, I'm the defensive guy, I'm in charge of the defense, and you go do whatever you want on offense.

But then as soon as it's not ticking perfectly, that changes. And I would also love to know about that relationship with Clint Kubiak, especially since it's someone so much younger than Zimmer who's been put into this limelight type of position. And the last time that happened, now it's not an ageism thing because it happened with Norv too, but it's like, you know, Kevin Stefanski was perfect at tap dancing around the wants of his head coach in terms of a philosophy with modernizing the offense in 2019. And they were one of the best offenses in the league in 2019. Last year, Gary Kubiak, he sort of saw as an equal or maybe even a little bit superior

in some ways because Kubiak has those rings and all the things that he's accomplished. And so that relationship seemed to really work with those two. But when it was Norv Turner and things went wrong a little bit, I mean, they were, what, five and two, and yet it was Norv saying, I can't work with this anymore, and with D.J. Lipo, they were in a decent spot as well early in 2018. Remember, Cousins throws for like 400-something yards in that game against the Packers that they should have won, and yet they sort of hit a hiccup. They have an ugly game in New York, and then all the things sort of come unraveled of, I need to run run the ball more and this offensive coordinator is not running an offense I want and and and so on and so forth and it's just like one of those things that

you could see off in the distance but there's no assurances because he wasn't there to tell us that's not going to be the case that he's going to have his control he's going to be able to change things so I'm sort of left to believe that this is going to be Mike Zimmer's offense first and then Rick Denison's and Brian Periani's and Keenan McArdle's and then also Clint Kubiak and you know I don't know of any other way to look at it that it'll just be a lot of like hey we had it right last year just stay with what you were doing yeah that's an interesting sort of way to look at it I mean could um maybe draw a parallel to what we kind of assumed in 2019 when it was the fancy was the offensive coordinator but they had brought in kubiak dennison etc and so it was kubiak's system but fancy's calling the plays so maybe even i mean they would trot out kubiak to do several media

sessions so it's and he's an interesting guy and obviously has the background and the accomplishment it was easy at times I think just for the public media to sort of minimize Stefanski's influence and responsibility and focus on Kubiak because he's a big name and the new guy and all that stuff there won't be that new guy big name on the offseason side I tend to think because of you know it's not just where it's not Stefanski I guess Kubiak is actually Gary's son and actually came with him and and the fact that Rick Dennison another coach of that who's an actual peer of Zimmer's as far as timing the league and his influence on the run side of it kind of think

maybe somewhere in the middle between what you are sort of wondering is the case about you know whether it's Zimmer's still like significantly micromanaging the process or versus hey you guys take care of this I got the defense to worry about right and I've always looked at it as he is only a defensive coach until he isn't and yeah decides until he sees something that he doesn't want and then even then he was sure to mention on a handful of occasions oh Gary asked me if we could run this play at this time and I said yes or something like that you know it was like okay I mean I know that's how it works with the headsets and everybody you know hey what do you want to do here and that kind of thing but there are times where he will sort of act like it's not his problem and then there

are other times where he'll act like i'm not happy with something and i'm going to make that very clear and a lot of times it's even very clear to us that he's making it i mean even when you talk about players like case keenum and so forth and you know taking risks and throwing interceptions and he's um towed the line a little bit with Cousins a few times of things that he was unhappy with that have always been interesting to study because I know Cousins is not a fan of that, being called out in the media and things like that. So I want to know what you think in terms of the trajectory of Zimmer and whether patience will be given if this season is not

massively better like let's say now that there's seven teams in the playoffs like let's say it's nine and seven let's say if it's eight and eight and they make some of the sort of typical status quo type of offseason moves they draft a pass rusher. They sign a three technique in free agency. They sign another guard that we're not celebrating in the streets, that kind of thing, right? What kind of patience? Because I think his win-loss record is very good, and mostly his defensive record is very, very good. But I started to think about every year, even when they've won, there has been tension around Zimmer, and a lot of it has been self-created. And I think that at some point it becomes like how much more of this do we have in us of the like Zimmer in 2016 with Anthony Barr and sort of alienating him in the way that he talked through

the media. And also the piece that Tyler Dunn wrote about the relationships that he's formed with some people and how, you know, their former assistant coaches that want to fight him and things like that. Like it just, it's just never an Andy Reid like sort of situation where everyone feels a calmness in doing their job, put it that way. And there's been so much turnover in these last couple of years. It's not his guys anymore like it was running it back year after year. And so I just, I wonder what you make of kind of all those factors to what kind of patience they'll have going forward here. You kind of covered exactly where it's at but that's the the question is the great mystery is sort of what touched on just a few minutes ago about ownership

being pretty close to the vest about how this is going and how they're feeling about it you know do you know the wolves pay um pretty close attention to you know every press conference let's say that the coach gives or the general manager gives along the way, even in a regular season week. So they know what's being said. I think they're not absentee-type owners in that they, I think, are pretty good communicators and spend a lot of time talking to people, what do you think about this and the other thing. But I guess if your your default like setting or

overarching philosophy is for for for stability you know it certainly begs the question you know would something happen or would not happen this coming season you know to trigger a change I think they they certainly you know maybe not within the past year, year and a half, but over his eight seasons, just about any time that they are publicly available, they will rave about how much they appreciate, you know, the job Coach Zimmer does. So they obviously like something there. And I think maybe a little bit scarred by the way the Childress tenure ended. You know, they had just given him an extension and then fired him halfway through that soap opera season of 2010.

But it's a great mystery. I mean, I think if you were saying what is fair or, like, what merits type of move, if they weren't get back to the playoffs in 2021, that would be time, right, to start over. There's obviously the situation's a little bit more complex given that the contract of the head coach is tied to the contract of the general manager as far as timing. General managers don't typically get, you know, three swings at hiring a head coach.

So, you know, would a move be made on one and not the other? There's no precedent for that in Vikings history. Around the league, when you see the way that it goes, probably unlikely. I don't know. I guess you can only, you can't get into Mark and Ziggy Wolf's head, so you can only just assess it from our own lens

and say like seven and nine, no progress by, or not enough progress by the defense, not competitive enough, or not beating enough good teams, that type of thing, you know, I think could definitely warrant a trigger change, you know, a year from now, be sort of the way I look at it. Hey, everyone. Want to remind you that if your business is in need of transportation of perishable,

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You want the most reliable and the ones who go the extra mile. That's Scout Logistics. Plus, hey, they support this podcast, support the people who support us. So if you have shipping needs, check out Scout Logistics today. It's, maybe there's a relationship comparison here of if you're in a relationship with someone where it is stable but it's also tense all the time like if and i don't mean that zimmer is fighting with ownership i mean that he's fighting with other people all the time and there's always there's just sort of always something every year like even this year justin jefferson totally kept the stefan digs

thing from becoming a thing but it sort of did when he made the AFC championship. And it sort of did when he came out and essentially said, yeah, my problem was with the head coach wouldn't talk to me about my issues. And that's, that was my problem. And that's why I'm here playing the AFC championship game. And so there, that look didn't really get as bad as it could have, but it's sort of like those two things shouldn't be connected. Jefferson's success really has nothing to do with that other situation.

And you even think about Kyle Rudolph coming out and making it public, his issues that were going on, which, you know, maybe not directly, directly calling out Mike Zimmer, but still another situation where you had players they tried to bring back who said, nope, not coming back there. Xavier Rhodes they tried to bring back. They tried to bring back Mackenzie Alexander. They tried to bring back Everson Griffin. And they all kind of went like, I don't think so. I'm just going to move along. And, you know, then you have those other things. Then you have the

other relationships with the coordinators and so forth. And you start to build up this sort of body of work of this is a tense place to work these days. And so if you're the ownership, you're thinking, yes, we know exactly how tense it will be with him. And we know when things go wrong, there will be press conferences that make national news. But at the same time, you have that other part. And this is what we deal with with cousins all the time, but who's replacing him? Because Zimmer is extremely good at his job in terms of coaching and defense and scheming and all those things, and player development and player evaluation most of the time.

So I think it's one of the hardest things in the world to decide, if you're in ownership, when is the right time to move on from someone, and when is the right time to truly, not like in public, but truly give them vote of confidence? Because I think this is actually, weirdly, a time to do it with Zimmer and say, look, if you go 8-8 next year, that's okay, because we know this roster is actually kind of far away. You know, you have got time to treat this as a long-term thing

rather than, hey hey let's trade for Yanni Ngakwe right because we're so desperate to get that extra pass rusher so you know I I think it's a very very uh hard position to be in not that I'm crying tons of tears for the Wilfs but you know you get what I'm saying I sort of empathize with how difficult that call is to make of when to have the coach on the hot seat when decide to make a change and all those things yeah for sure you have to be you have to be really well you have to be willing to take risks not be afraid to have a choice that turns out to be unsuccessful like not be afraid of of it blowing up badly like too much of that in the league and i get where it

comes from there's just so much pressure to win and that's a lot of that in the league. And I get where it comes from. There's just so much pressure to win. And that's a lot of that's innate with these people as much as it is publicly with fans and media and such. But I think you could even boil that down to, or channel that same phenomenon to NFL coaches during games and how there's so much outcry these days, or how could, how could he kick the field goal? You know, it's so obvious, you know, it's, it's a, there's so much outcry these days or how could how could he kick the field goal you know it's so obvious you know it's it's a there's a there's a fear whether people would admit it or not of the perceived riskier move not working out in it and then really badly whereas if you take the safe route and it doesn't work out it somehow doesn't seem quite as bad but yeah I agree

definitely on on that dilemma of I think you're right I think uh they'd almost be wise especially if you look at the quarterback situation with Cousins contract and how you know unless they're going to take a really drastic outside the box like aggressive move to go in the other direction and accept maybe a bigger stumble in the next year or two for the long-term vision if you if you look at that and the status of the head coach the general manager they would almost be most wise to double down and say this is our leadership we trust them this is not what we want last season it's not what they want but uh there's still pieces starting with Justin Jefferson Delvin Cook still young all these things

um still still reasons to think the way this league is set up, you know, with a little bit more time, we'll be NFC contenders again. But staying in the limbo land is, I don't think helps anybody. If it's already tense now, it's going to get more tense if, you know, there's maybe some ups and, you know, if it's not like some knock it out of the park season or especially even start to the season, right? Like if four and four and maybe there's a another uh last second loss like like say that Seattle game this past season that they should have won there's one of those and you know there's

maybe one bad game in there by by the quarterback and and the defense the past defense is just not improving drastically enough from last season then it's going to be the same type of tension, only more. The thing I think about with Zimmer a lot is you exactly hit on, you know, sort of who he is. He's just a really – an excellent defensive strategist and not just calling a game but last year maybe a side with the shortened season and so many rookies at one time. But, you know, he also can develop players, teach defensive backs particularly,

and then how to be successful NFL standouts. It's almost like you trace back to when he first got hired. This was about his eighth chance at being a head coach. He had sort of famously had a lot of interviews and was like the bridesmaid kind of candidate. And he was not shy about talking about that. He thought this might be his last swing. And he said he thought maybe at times he'd been too blunt with other teams, other ownership groups, general managers, in interviewing for those other jobs,

but pre-2014, and that maybe hurt him. Everybody's strengths are also their weaknesses, football coaches, any regular person. So one of his strengths is not being afraid of what people think of him, you know he's everybody's strengths are always are also their weaknesses football coaches any regular person so one of his strengths is not being afraid of what people think of him being candid you know and and not like necessarily uh you know telling a guy he's a great player and just to like prop him up and behind his back saying he's terrible yeah i think that also breeds sort of a toughness that you know know, the guy coaches with basically half blindness. You know, how many games did he coach?

He missed one game and had 18 eye surgeries. You know, so all those things you can look at as traits, positive traits for his ability to do the job. But what that comes with is it can breed more stubbornness. It can breed a bluntness that is too much for many people to handle. And like with any situation in the league, if a team is losing or not performing up to expectations, any of the little tensions is magnified more than it would be if things are going great, things are winning. I personally tend to downplay most stories we've seen you know it's you've seen them since the beginning of time in

sports about locker room tension or tensions between players coaches I tend to downplay those by default in in my own mind because a you always get people talking about them or initiating these discussions who the disgruntled people start those conversations it's not that you don't get the the opposite like hey i just want to tell you how great relationship i have with this guy and it's just going so great right it's human nature it's it's media you know you always get the negative first and and also today's uh in today's media we um see a pretty much rampant use of anonymous sources so it's pretty easy to rip a guy much rampant use of anonymous sources. So it's pretty easy to rip a guy when your name's not attached.

Yeah. That's a whole other story. But also, just like what I said, when tension is higher and the team is losing or underperforming, it's just more likely for those stories to come out. It's also pro sports, super high intensity, alpha males in this kind of bubble of this is all you do all day long except going home to your family at night there's just a natural just natural like clashing that's going to happen because it's because it's human nature and so it doesn't always mean it's like some big crisis that said a guy's been there for eight years and so much turnover on the staff

some his fault some some not and and veteran players like these defensive guys he helped groom you know the bar smith um hunter all the all these guys that they drafted to help form that great defense well guys get older they find their voice more they're more likely to stand up to themselves or speak out rudolph and even though it's an offensive player, is another example. He's found his voice. He's not afraid of repercussions. So you get more people willing to speak up and sort of like not take it,

so to speak. I mean, I think that you make all great points just about how, you know, I think of it as the scar tissue builds up in football. And this is why we see very few coaches last a long time. And maybe, and this is why I say that maybe there is this option of saying, hey, look, your job is not on the line for 2021 because you're building this new young roster like you did before. It did not take one year to go from Zimmer takes over to their Superbowl contender. It took four years. And so it probably does take years and you want to see them have a 2015 season

where they're competitive and they play really well. And they give you a reason to think that they're going to be great. But if you put it all on this season and say, well, it's up to you either make a break. I mean, you might as well just move on and try something different anyway because you're just putting someone in a situation where they feel like they have to act for only this year which is not the smartest way to go in football where everyone is constantly rising and falling and um you know I do think that there's a good point there that when anyone is around, it is so tense. It is so high pressure for this long. You will alienate people.

But Zimmer does have a specific talent for it, I think, that it's like if some other coaches are a 5 out of 10, he's like an 8 out of 10 when it comes to doing this. So then it becomes more and more as the time goes on. So even when he has a good record, there's still a lot of pressure. Whereas someone like Marvin Lewis, I think think who was more mild-mannered maybe you would get a lot more patience and a lot less of a feeling of you better do it this year so anyway um Dave I always appreciate your perspective I'm glad that we could get together and I'm also glad that we started with

the ridiculous stuff first because that was fun um and yeah I I'm excited I'm also glad that we started with the ridiculous stuff first because that was fun. And I'm excited. I'm excited for whatever Kendall Wright signing there is that we all write big stories. You know I'm always on the lookout for the next Stephen Ridley. It's very exciting. We might have a long snapper competition in camp. There's certainly going to be kicking drama. There's so much stuff. So much to do.

Yeah. Yeah. I certainly wrote way too many words on Tajay Sharp. That really wasn't very many, but it was too many. Big target in the first game of the year, though. Went down. There was a target. There was definitely a target.

There was a target. It's always good to be on here, and if I'm going to come on, it's a must to have at least one sort of silly banter category to talk about because what are we doing if we're not having fun? Exactly. Well, Dave, you're the best. We'll do it again soon, man. Thanks for all your time.

You got it. Take care.