Mike Zimmer: The Last Honest Head Coach

With a semicircle of journalists standing around him, Mike Zimmer used a tissue to dab some goo out of the corner of his puffy eye. And then he dropped a brutally honest one-liner that sent waves through the locker room.

“He has a tendency to coast,” said the Vikings head coach of linebacker Anthony Barr following a Week 15 loss.

It was a 1980s style Parcellsian remark — possibly fueled by Zimmer’s frustration over his fading 2016 season and by a battle with multiple eye surgeries.

His comment toed the line between sending a message and taking a pot shot. One week later, the defense melted down against Green Bay and the defensive backs had a severe case of “miscommunication” as they went against their head coach’s orders to have Xavier Rhodes shadow Jordy Nelson.

Barr played well that day and ultimately had a bounce-back 2017 season. It’s very possible he signs a long-term contract with the Vikings this offseason. That doesn’t necessarily mean the message worked, but in the long run it didn’t… not work.

Terence Newman, who is returning to the Vikings this year at age 40 — having spent a large portion of his career under Zimmer — said there is a method behind the bluntness, even when it comes via comments to the media.

“If he did it in that route, maybe he wants him to hear about it and respond to it,” Newman told 1500ESPN in December 2016. “That’s the way that I take it. I’ve been with [Zimmer] for quite awhile. It’s no different for us in meetings, he’ll say the same thing, he wants you to understand, ‘hey, I’m putting a challenge on you.’ How will you respond?”

You would be hard pressed to find too many examples of head coaches being as straightforward as Zimmer was about Barr.

But that’s how Zimmer has always been. Zimmer’s blueprint for addressing things is the opposite of A Few Good Men. He assumes you can handle the truth and if you can’t, then it’s on you.

Back in 2007, the Vikings’ head coach worked as a defensive coordinator under Bobby Petrino when Petrino skipped out on the Atlanta Falcons after 13 games to take a head coaching job at Arkansas.

“[Petrino] is a coward,” Zimmer said at the time. “Put that in quotes. He ruined a bunch of people’s lives, a bunch of people’s families, kids, because he didn’t have enough nuts to stay there and finish the job. That’s the truth.”

The honest approach is a dying art. Press conferences around the league usually begin with “creating a culture” and end with “trusting the process.” With the state of media/social media, truthfulness at the podium has been significantly quelled. Teams want to avoid being at the center of controversy, so they try to keep the gap wide between what is being said behind closed doors and the message in public.

There’s no better example of how things have changed than Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott’s press conference following a five-interception performance by rookie quarterback Nathan Peterman.

“There were some plays I know we wants back. There’s also some plays where you say ‘That was pretty darn good.’ Hard to see on the surface — you know, the 10,000 foot view — hard to see that with the result being what it was. When you take it one play at a time, and when you really look at and say, ‘Hey, we were moving the ball.’”

The Bills lost that game by 30 points.

After a bad loss, Zimmer might be defiant. He might be angry. Terse. Frustrated. Short. Annoyed. But he’s incredibly unlikely to tell you a 30-point loss was actually good.

Of course, there’s a catch-22 to being authentic. On one hand, players know exactly where they stand. On the other, words can do damage.

On a recent episode of 1500ESPN’s Purple Podcast, wide receiver Adam Thielen said that the sincere approach made players better.

“I don’t think it rubs guys the wrong way,” he said. “Guys really appreciate honesty, especially in this profession, in this business. Obviously there’s times when he can’t be 100 percent honest, but I think guys respect when a coach is honest with them. Maybe they don’t think the same way, but at least they know that’s his honest opinion. I can work with that. I can try to do those things to help me become a better football player. Usually if guys take that honesty and use it to their advantage, it can be a pretty good thing.

“He doesn’t really care how you feel if he says something mean to you — I think it can push your team to the next level.”

Bill Parcells felt every player should see his coach’s honesty the way Thielen does. An old school NFL Films feature called Sensitivity Training dug deep into Parcells’ philosophy on player management.

“They have to know what you think,” Parcells said. “The worst thing for a player is to be sitting there and not know what the coach is thinking — not know what the leader on the team is thinking.”

One of the last of the straightforward coaches, Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians, who retired following the 2017 season, was largely lauded for his willingness to spit truth. He credited a good locker room culture with everyone’s ability to be candid.

“Coaches who tried to sugarcoat stuff, they’re basically lying to you,” Arians told AzCentral.com. “Other guys who say, ‘This is how I do it and this is how it’s going to be,’ I really respected that as a player and tried to take that into my coaching. I worked with one of the best in Coach Bryant, and he didn’t sugarcoat anything. He just told you how he felt and it was the truth all the time, so the truth never hurts. I think the players respect it and they can deal with it.”

“With me, there are no secrets. And our locker room is extremely close because we are honest with each other.”