5 most disappointing Vikings from their Week 1 loss to the Packers

Mike Zimmer – Head Coach

Mike Zimmer deserves much of the blame for his team’s loss on Sunday and the lackluster performance from his defense was extremely disappointing.

The Packers offense came back basically the same way it looked in 2019. They didn’t really have any new offensive weapons and one would think that Zimmer and his staff would’ve sat down this offseason and constructed a better way to attack Green Bay’s offense this year. But apparently they didn’t.

Minnesota’s biggest problem was that they couldn’t generate any sort of pass rush. Yannick Ngakoue couldn’t get around David Bakhtiari and Zimmer couldn’t conjure up any creative ways to get a linebacker, safety, or corner to come blitzing through and hit Aaron Rodgers.

Not having Danielle Hunter was definitely a problem for the Vikings on Sunday. But a good coach finds ways to overcome these types of obstacles and Zimmer didn’t do it in Week 1.

He failed to make adjustments at the half that could’ve helped his team get back into the game, he didn’t take out Holton Hill when he was struggling, and he couldn’t shuffle his defensive line around enough to figure out how to take advantage of Packers backup right tackle Rick Wagner, who was starting on Sunday.

This was about the worst defensive performance the Vikings have ever had in the Zimmer era and it was a true embarrassment to a coach whose specialty is on that side of the football.

Like many of his players, Zimmer needs to bounce back from this beatdown and show up in Indianapolis in Week 2 hungry and eager to dominate the Colts.