Sunday’s season finale between the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears could be the last for head coach Mike Zimmer after eight years leading the franchise.
Zimmer said earlier this week that he has yet to hear anything regarding his job status with the team beyond this season.
In an interview with team broadcaster Paul Allen, Zimmer said that if it’s his last time coaching the Vikings he’ll leave the job with his head up.
“Regardless of anything that goes on after the season, I can stand proud,’’ Zimmer said, via Chris Tomasson of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “When I walk into a stadium like Lambeau (Field) or I walk into U.S. Bank Stadium and I say to myself, ‘A billion people would love to be sitting here right now and doing this job.”’
Zimmer’s teams in Minnesota have been competent and competitive, if mostly unspectacular. They’ve never won fewer than seven games in a season and have made the playoffs three times with two NFC North crowns over that span. But the Vikings haven’t made it to the Super Bowl and have just one playoff appearance in the last four seasons.
Zimmer is a defensive coach and those units have ranked in the bottom third of the league in yards and points in each of the last two seasons. They’ve never had a true top-tier quarterback over that span either despite stretches of solid play from Kirk Cousins and Case Keenum.
It might be time for a change in Minnesota. And if it is, Zimmer will push forward.
“I do think it’s different that people can talk about your job and being let go and things like that and not understanding the effects of all your coaches, effects of all the players, effects of their families and they say it after you lose every week,’’ Zimmer said. “So they don’t go around saying they should fire that doctor or fire that landscape guy or anything like that. So it’s just part of the business, I guess.”