Five week ticker...

[purplefaithful]

Mike Zimmer's five-week fight for his Vikings head coaching life begins Thursday vs. SteelersAnother difficult ownership decision looms over coach Mike Zimmer and possibly general manager Rick Spielman with the Vikings 5-7 and still alive in the playoff race.

Brad Childress chuckled when asked when he first sensed his time as Vikings head coach was coming to an end.
"When Mark and Zygi were standing in my doorway at Winter Park at 7:45 in the morning on a Monday," Childress said.
It was Nov. 23, 2010. The Vikings were 3-7 after losing to the Packers 31-3 at home the day before. The Wilf brothers were not there to chit-chat. The team owners were there to fire the first head coach they hired 10 months after he took them to the NFC Championship game.
What's that like?
"It's hard," Childress said. "But there were emotions on both sides. Mark and Zygi, it was hard for them. As hard, I think, as it was for me to pick up and walk out."
Eleven years later, every sense of how the NFL works strongly suggests another difficult ownership decision looming over coach Mike Zimmer and possibly general manager Rick Spielman as the team enters the season's final five weeks still alive in the soft NFC playoff race.
The Vikings are 5-7. They're coming off a humiliating loss to the winless Lions. And they're staring at the possibility of a hostile prime-time home crowd as the Steelers (6-5-1) visit U.S. Bank Stadium for "Thursday Night Football."
Zimmer has stiff-armed the NFL's impatient hiring cycle into his eighth season in Minnesota. Only six coaches have been with their teams longer. All six — Bill Belichick, Sean Payton, Mike Tomlin, John Harbaugh, Pete Carroll and Andy Reid — have won at least one Super Bowl while Zimmer has two playoff victories, a 12-16 record since his last postseason game, and needs a late-season surge to avoid missing the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time with the Vikings.
"I feel pressure every year," Zimmer told the Star Tribune in August. "So I don't look at it like I'm coaching for my job. I've always felt like I'm going to put my resume out there on the field just like the players. And if people don't think I'm good enough to do it, so be it. Somebody does … so I don't really worry about all that stuff."
https://www.startribune.com/vikings-stee...600125324/

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Zimmer was asked this week for his thoughts on the Steelers hiring only three head coaches — and firing none of them – in the last 52 years.
"That's the way it should be," he said with a laugh.
The reality is quite different. The rest of the league has had to hire 314 head coaches and use 49 more as interim head coaches since the Steelers hired Noll. Cleveland leads the way with 20, including four interim coaches.
"It kind of makes your mouth hang open when you hear those numbers," Childress said. "People usually get tired of their new toys in a hurry. It's a steady churn year after year for most teams."
Zimmer is fully aware. He's also savvy enough to know Thursday night most likely kicks off a five-week fight for his head coaching life.

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After the Vikings (5-7) were upset 29-27 by previously winless Detroit last Sunday, former Vikings coach Mike Tice tweeted, “Even my sorry (butt) NEVER lost to Detroit.” The tweet since has been deleted. Tice went 8-0 against the Lions while Minnesota’s coach from 2002-05. Asked this week how difficult Sunday’s loss must be on Zimmer, former Vikings coach Brad Childress said, “Nothing fun about it, believe me.” Childress, who coached the Vikings from 2006-10, was asked about Zimmer, who has been Minnesota’s coach since 2014, being on the hot seat. 

“It goes with the territory,” he said. “Nobody works harder at it than Mike … and his staff. Injuries, it’s a war of attrition in this league. You might say if they didn’t have the quarterback they have right now, they’d be further behind than they are.” 
The Vikings’ seven losses have come by a combined total of 28 points. Cousins said Zimmer has been holding up well despite so many gut-wrenching defeats. 
“Coach Zimmer is tough-minded, he is resilient,” Cousins said. “He’s been through a lot in his life. He’s been through a lot in his football career. That’s a guy that you’re not going to knock down easily, and you can’t count him out. I think we feed off that and it makes us a resilient group.  … Every time you lose, it hurts. It really hurts. It hurts him, too. But as the leader, he knows he’s got to get back up on the horse each day and keep fighting.”