Coach Zimmer

For the first time in a long time, Mike Zimmer seemed excited to talk.

Possibly influenced by the combination of getting good news on his eye recently, having Minicamp come to an end and standing in a beautiful 80-degree, cloudless day, the Minnesota Vikings’ head coach opened up in a 19-minute press conference about his No. 1 goal this offseason: Become a better head coach.

“It takes awhile to learn how to do this job, it really does,” Zimmer said. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but there’s a guy in New England that’s doing pretty damn good now that might have had a rough start…so that’s kind of my mentality, to continue to grow as a head coach, to be involved with the defense, but to be a lot more involved with the overall game, team, offense, special teams than I have been before.”

Throughout his career, Zimmer, 61, has been one of the best cats out there. He has seen the league undergo a flip from back in his Dallas days when throwing for 4,000 yards was a major accomplishment to 2016 in which 13 quarterbacks went over 4,000 yards, and yet he his defenses have remained among the best in the NFL, ranking fifth and sixth in points allowed over the last two years.

But adapting to opponents’ tricks and an offensive-minded league is quite different from evolving as a head coach.

Think of it this way: Being a defensive coordinator is like being a chess master. You decide on a strategy, then execute the moves with the pieces you have. Being a head coach is overseeing 20 chess players playing 20 different matches at once.

“It’s more that I do a better job as a head coach in doing things, spreading myself out a little bit more,” Zimmer said. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but at the end of practice these last three days we’ve had a game-like situation where we just go play it out. I think, not only for players, but it’s good for me….it’s not necessarily two-minute drills, it’s about winning football games at the end. To me, that’s an area I need to continue to improve.”

It was surprising to hear Zimmer say on Thursday that he’s considered giving up some defensive play calling to DC George Edwards. In fact, at the Combine, Zimmer quickly shot down the same notion. Presumably that was before his offseason soul search. But it appears he’s considered that there’s only 100% to give and if he’s decided to put 50% to all the other aspects of the game, he will have to turn over some control to his staff.