Minnesota Vikings lack identity under head coach Mike Zimmer

Watching the Minnesota Vikings over the past eight years under head coach Mike Zimmer, the team seems to lack a certain winning identity.

When your favorite team is scheduled to play the Kansas City Chiefs, you know what to expect. Speed, creative play-calling, and perhaps the best improviser to ever play the game in quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

When your favorite team is playing the Tennessee Titans or the Baltimore Ravens, you know they’re in for a hard-fought game that will feature a wide variety of rushing attempts.

There are cases such as these around the entire NFL. The most successful teams have a coaching staff that buys into their personnel to help create an identity that gives their team the best chance to win each week.

Minnesota Vikings lack a true identity under head coach Mike Zimmer

What do teams expect when they play the Vikings? They are a team that has played both up and down to the level of their competition. Having attempted game-winning field goals against both the 5-0 Arizona Cardinals and the 0-5 Detroit Lions. This style of play not only resembles a chameleon, it is also a tell tale sign of a poorly-coached football team.

Are the Vikings supposed to be a run-first/defensive minded team dependent on a heavy rushing attack? That would be difficult behind an offensive line that has struggled for years and a defense which has been average at best over the past few seasons. Mike Zimmer has been quoted expressing his desire to run the football, yet his team finished dead last in rushing in 2016, 30th out of 32 in 2018 and is currently 14th this season while having only one rushing touchdown.

How many draft picks have the Vikings wasted on cornerbacks over the years because their head coach was supposedly a defensive-back guru. All the while letting talent such as Lamar Jackson, Nick Chubb and Darius Leonard pass them by. Mike Hughes and Jeff Gladney are two first round picks that are no longer with the team, neither finishing their rookie deal and Gladney not even making it to year two. Cam Dantzler has struggled mightily and free-agent Bashaud Breeland is playing as if he is trying to get cut from the team.

Zimmer also seems to use his players as scapegoats. Critics love to bring up Kirk Cousins‘ record in prime time games, but the team is 11-13 in primetime games under Mike Zimmer. Plenty of those 13 losses coming long before Cousins was in purple. When was the last time the Vikings came out ready to play in a primetime game? It certainly was not in the NFC Championship and if it were not for the Minneapolis Miracle, coach Zimmer would have one single playoff win in 8-years as the Vikings head coach.

Last year’s defense was atrocious. So much so that Mike Zimmer stated it was the worst defense that he has ever had, taking zero accountability for the team’s struggles. What a leader.

Zimmer talks to the media with an undeserved arrogance and shows little composure that he wants his players to play with. He coaches with hubris, not confidence, and has not earned the right to either.

If the Vikings do have an identity under Mike Zimmer, it is that of being underachievers. GM Rick Spielman has done an excellent job rebuilding this roster from the ground up and has certainly put the team in position to have won more than 2 division titles and 2 playoff games in the past 8-years. Spielman has drafted not one but two top-10 receivers in Stefon Diggs and Justin Jefferson, drafted a top-five running back in Dalvin Cook, Eric Kendricks, Anthony Barr and Danielle Hunter on defense; there has been talent all over the Vikings roster for years and not much to show for it.

Arguably, Mike Zimmer could be considered the perfect coach for the Vikings, as a team that has historically come up short. If this team truly wants to take the next steps in its franchise’s history, it is going to have to develop a winning identity. Not just underachieve underneath an outdated defensive backs coach.