Zimmer admits he could’ve done ‘a lot better’ when interviewing DeFilippo

During his season-ending press conference on Thursday, the Minnesota Vikings head coach reflected on his decision to hire John DeFilippo as the team’s offensive coordinator.

Every team makes mistakes each season. But in 2018, it seemed like the Minnesota Vikings made them more often than not and it ultimately led to them missing out on a spot in the playoffs.

One of the Vikings’ mistakes this time around was the decision to hire John DeFilippo as their offensive coordinator. Minnesota was hoping that DeFilippo would be able to build from the offense’s success in 2017 and that just didn’t end up happening.

His play-calling tended to lean heavily on the Vikings’ passing attack and that was not something head coach Mike Zimmer was comfortable with. Zimmer wants his offense to feature a run game that sets up the passing attack, not vice versa.

Well, the Minnesota head coach’s tolerance with DeFilippo only lasted 13 games as the team showed the offensive coordinator the door before the 2018 season even came to an end.

Now, the Vikings and Zimmer have to go through the same process they went through last offseason and hire someone new to run their offense. A process that the Minnesota head coach hopes to approach much differently this time around.

On Thursday, Zimmer discussed how his interviewing tactics could have been better when the team eventually decided on DeFilippo as their offensive coordinator.

"“I’ve learned a lot about the questions, the interview process, about things that I should probably do a lot better than I did. Hopefully I’ll do better this next time.I don’t think I asked enough questions as far as what we were trying to get done.”"

What it sounds like is that Zimmer fell victim to all the talk of DeFilippo being a hot head coaching candidate last offseason. The Vikings head coach probably felt this guy must be good at what he does if he’s being sought after by other teams around the NFL.

Zimmer quickly found out that DeFilippo’s hype didn’t translate to him being a good fit as the team’s offensive coordinator in 2018.

During Minnesota’s current search for the next person to lead their offense, one should expect Zimmer to take a little more time and dive a little deeper into the candidates that the team decides to interview. If not, it could result in him being the one who has to look for a new job.