What if it really was all Zimmer's fault?

It's a great question Jor-El , and we'll have a much clearer picture of the answer of how much "blame" to lay at the feet of Zimmer, and the Wilfs, by the end of the 2022 season as we see how O'Connell and the new staff utilize a significant number of Zimmer-era players.

A few things to keep in mind:

1) We're pretty much at that lull period between OTA's/June minicamp and the start of Training Camp/preseason at the end of July/early August, and it's this time of the offseason in which you see a whole host of "puff" pieces come out on fan forums, fan-driven sites like Daily Norseman and even the beat writers themselves. This is the time of the year in which Matt Kalil would give his infamous offseason interviews that he's completely healed and ready to thrive in the coming season...or the new OC is really praising the offense and how great it is...and when the Dustin Baker's of the Viking online fandom start to bang the incessant drumbeat of pro-Viking strawman analytics that prove nothing ("...did you know that Cousins is the one of the top QB's in the NFL to throw the ball away when pressured in 2nd and long situations since 2020?").

So that bigtime pro-Viking "narrative" that's being pumped is more of less the result of the June/early July offseason "lull" period when there's nothing else to write about.

2) I could be very wrong about this, but I'm under the opinion that the Wilfs didn't really immerse themselves in the day-to-day "on-field" operations of the football team and relied more on Spielman to "run the show" in the Twin Cities while they may have stayed elsewhere for the majority of the year and flew in for gamedays, free agent signing photo ops, the Draft and a few other occasions, and perhaps Rick deserves a significant portion of the blame as Zimmer.

Heading into the 2022 offseason before the 2021 regular season finale, I believe the general thought amongst most fans and beat writers was that Zimmer was clearly gone, but Rick would probably stay and just be "kicked upstairs" to a cushy front office job while a new GM and Head Coach were hired. But given that the Wilfs canned Rick on Black Monday and the general surprise that Rick had when it was announced, I'm hoping that the underachieving post-2017 Vikings was the result of Rick's failures as a General Manager at assessing the overall team functionality (or lack thereof) vs the Wilfs failures at not knowing Zimmer was such a problem post-2017. We could put the lion's share of the blame on the Wilfs - afterall, they did entrust Spielman to run the operations in Minnesota - I'm hoping that the Wilfs recognizing that it wasn't just Zimmer is a sign that they are now finally paying a bit more attention to the overall operation of the team to ensure it's running smoothly and cohesively. Cohesiveness (and "collaboration") alone don't win Super Bowls or create Patriot-like dynasties...but we know all too well that leaving crusty old coaches and overconfident GM's in opposite corners of the room certainly doesn't, either.

We'll certainly see, but I don't think that "all we needed to do was dump Mike Zimmer" is the only solution to get the team back on the winning path.

3) The Zimmer/Spielman Viking era, especially after the 2015 season, basically lived off of the success of the 2015 Draft Class and the development of Griffin, Rhodes & Harry from the Frazier era. But since that great 2015 class, it's been well documented (through fan forum posts, or PFF WAR analytics that have been posted here this offseason) that the post-2015 Vikings Draft classes have produced "mixed" results at best, and probably below average return, truth-be-told. While pro-Zimmer fans could point to the development of Griffin, Rhodes & Harry under Zimmer as evidence of his "developmental prowess" (and his defensive staff), the team failed to really develop at that same level after the 2015 class.

Whether it was poor player-development, poor scouting by the Scouting/Front Office or just overall bad Drafts by Spielman, you could make the argument that the post-2015 Draft Classes carry a significant portion of the blame, too.

The bare bones of this are quite simple. The Wilfs, Spielman and Zimmer didn't get it done between 2014/2021.

1st no I won't blame Zimmer alone but he didn't help himself much either. It could be said he lost his team in 2018. Then got his pass because of turnover and covid restrictions 2020. Didn't turn anything around so I blame him for wasting last year. Well he gets no pass from me for 2020 so both really. Hard to see where one ended and the other started. Both dug holes early that couldn't be overcome and never got above .500 so they blurred together.

I'm super excited to see what we do now with a fresh attitude even if most the same faces.
Cook with thrive if he doesn't wear down or get hurt. He always comes out of the gate fast. I expect this again.
JJ is the stud on offense now and no worries there. Adam is all Viking and players like that are important even if diminished by wear.
Hunter will be great if healthy and now has help. If both stay healthy getting the after the QB game could be as exciting as it was before 2018.
Think with Bradbury I would be grateful if he was a C. Grade not position. No expectations there.

O'C will hopefully bring an energy to the offense that's been missing. They were an efficient offense with Zimmer but they were never what I'd call exciting aside from some great individual efforts from JJ, Cook and Adam. The question is though...will Kirk ever step outside himself and get exciting? I mean he was a big reason for them being efficient but can he push that envelope?

Defense will be a question till we see it. We got an experienced guy running it. Difference now however we won't be trying to run the team through the defense hopefully.
The hope is. A good offensive mind an experienced defensive mind and a team excitement that has been missing since 2017 when we last had both working.

I blame the Wilf's sticking with Kirk on their deep-seated fear of being an irrelevant franchise. They have a paralyzing fear of being the Lions or Browns.

That makes them cling to Kirk, but somehow miss the fact that in 4 years he has won 8, 10, 7 and 8 games. They can't see that since 2010 the best season this franchise has had was with Case Keenum at the helm.

The very thing they fear is exactly what Kirk's giving them and they're paying him top 3 money for the pleasure.

Kirk can't change, the problem is in his head. It wasn't Zim, it wasn't Rick. The thing that holds Kirk back is that Kirk doesn't want to be the man. He's openly said multiple times he just comes to work and does what he's told. Any other position in the team can do this and it's no problem. As the QB, and one getting paid like he does you don't get that and don't deserve that. It's part of the equation and it's one Kirk keeps running from, it's also something that far too many routinely allow to happen.

Hopefully this will be the end of it, but I don't hold out too much hope. Big meanie Zimmer's gone. They loaded up as best they can and kept all of his weapons. They hired a coach who likes him. The only thing they didn't fix is Center. If we see the same crap from Kirk this year there shouldn't be any excuses, but we know it will happen. They'll blame Bradbury and the transition to a new coach and system.

Absolutely! He didn't help himself is an understatement. Zimmer wasn't the coach to bring this franchise its first Super Bowl. He had a few good seasons and a good D but he couldn't bring it all together as a HC for whatever reason. Many reasons I suppose.


A lot of really good players on this roster.


I personally wanted Kirk Cousins traded so we would start from scratch with the new regime but he just might be the perfect QB for O'Connell.


Shurmur and Zimmer had it going on in 2017.

well, it's hopium season at the moment, so it being Zimmer's fault is probably the best way to sell hope. We'll see once the season starts. I was on the fire Zim bandwagon and wanted him gone far more than Rick, but was willing to accept losing Rick if it meant Zim was gone... so if I was right, decent coaching (assuming KOC is a decent coach) will make a big difference.

I think the key failure was that the team was too thin because so few of the numerous late-round picks developed into good starters or even depth. That's why, every season, there was a litany of excuses around the players who missed games or a season. The team had 10 starters who were very good, 6 that were league average, and the rest were below league average.

Even those who did fill in as apparently decent subs, like Stephen Weatherly or Eric Wilson, were shown to be below league-average when they went to another team. And for every Weatherly that peaked as a semi-decent sub, there were 2 Jaleel Johnson / Jalyn Holmes / Scott Crichton types who never became more than scrubs. 

Did this happen because Spielman drafted so poorly, or because Zimmer (and coaches he hired) didn't develop players well? I think it's a bit of both but the two never worked out why they weren't achieving more development success. My guess would be that both pointed the finger at each other, maybe up to their firing (and after, in Spielman's case).