4 reasons why Mike Zimmer is close to being done in Minnesota

Zimmer’s mismanagement of his staff

Earlier, we discussed the drop in performance of the Vikings’ defense during the last two seasons, and we mentioned the changes on the roster and the staff being somewhat to blame.

When comparing Minnesota’s current defensive coaching staff to the one they had in 2019, the only two assistants who have remained are Andre Patterson and Adam Zimmer. Longtime members of the Vikings’ defensive staff like George Edwards, Jerry Gray, and Jeff Howard have all moved on to new positions with other teams.

Zimmer clearly didn’t think these departures would have a large effect on his defense, but they definitely did judging by the poor performance of the unit since 2020.

Zimmer has also struggled to hire the right coaches on the offensive side of the ball during his time with Minnesota.

While two of his selections to be the Vikings offensive coordinator left to become head coaches (Kevin Stefanski and Pat Shurmur), two others parted with the team midway through a season (Norv Turner and John DeFilippo), and another one retired after just a year of calling plays (Gary Kubiak).

Then before the current season, Zimmer thought it would be a great idea to make Klint Kubiak the team’s new offensive coordinator, despite him having no play-calling experience.

Stefanski didn’t have any play-calling experience either when he was promoted to be Minnesota’s offensive coordinator in 2019, but what he learned from being on the team’s staff for more than a decade helped make up for that.

Kubiak had only been on the Vikings’ staff for a total of three seasons before Zimmer made him their offensive coordinator this year.

Part of being a good head coach in the NFL is hiring a solid staff of assistant coaches. Zimmer has just had too many failures during the last few years to believe that he’s still capable of hiring a good coaching staff.