Mike Zimmer Offers Little Explanation for Taylor Mays Release

Why did the Minnesota Vikings release recent free agent signee Taylor Mays? Your guess is as good as anyone’s.

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When asked for an explanation of the move, which came just as the Vikings were about to begin mandatory minicamp, head coach Mike Zimmer kept it short, sweet and totally vague.

“It just didn’t work out,” was all Mike Zimmer would say when asked by the media during his Tuesday minicamp press conference (per the Star-Trib‘s Matt Vensel).

All right then.

Truthfully, the move to sign Mays back in March was a very minor one at best, given that it was only a one-year deal for less than $800,000.

The move to release him is equally minor, though it does give the Vikings $770,000 in cap space.

Point being, the release of Taylor Mays is far from an earth-shattering development.

At best, Mays figured to be a special teams contributor and possible utility player in nickel packages. At no point was he really in the mix to be a starter or even a primary backup at safety.

It looks like the Vikings only brought Mays in because Zimmer knew his athletic prowess from the Bengals and wanted to give him what amounted to an extended work out in OTAs.

That the Vikings decided to move on from Mays so quickly probably just means that Zimmer didn’t see what he wanted, though Zimmer’s curt remarks do lead one to wonder if Mays might not have done something to tick the coach off during his short stint at Winter Park.

Anyway, Taylor Mays failed to even make it to minicamp with the Vikings. That should close the door once and for all on the notion that Mays has unrealized potential.

Clearly, this guy is not going to ever be anything.

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