Spielman Extended!

Somebody in NJ is gonna need a hug 

@"PurplePotato" said: The Vikes and Spielman are finalizing a multi-year contract extension.

Vikings, general manager Rick Spielman finalizing contract extensionThe move keeps GM, coach Mike Zimmer partnered.

The Vikings are finalizing a new deal with Rick Spielman that will extend the general manager’s partnership with coach Mike Zimmer.
A league source confirmed the deal, which comes just over a week after the Vikings finalized a new deal with Zimmer through the 2023 season. Spielman and Zimmer both had contracts set to expire after 2020; Spielman’s deal is believed to again put him in sync with Zimmer.
The partnership between the general manager and coach enters its seventh season as the Vikings look to remake a defense that will have at least four new starters in 2020. Spielman presided over a 15-player draft class — the largest in the NFL’s modern draft era — this spring, after the Vikings parted ways with Linval Joseph, Trae Waynes, Xavier Rhodes and Everson Griffen following the 2019 season.
Spielman joined the Vikings as the vice president of player personnel in 2006, got full control of the roster when he became the GM in 2012 and hired Zimmer in 2014 after the team fired Leslie Frazier following the 2013 season. In his eight seasons as Vikings GM, the team has gone to the playoffs four times, posting a 2-4 postseason record in that time. The Vikings are 3-6 in six playoff trips since Spielman joined the team in 2006.
Among current NFL GMs, only five — the Cowboys’ Jerry Jones, the Bengals’ Mike Brown, the Patriots’ Bill Belichick, the Steelers’ Kevin Colbert and the Saints’ Mickey Loomis — have been with their teams longer than Spielman has been with the Vikings. Three others — the Falcons’ Thomas Dimitroff, the Seahawks’ John Schneider and the Eagles’ Howie Roseman — have held the GM title longer than Spielman has.
NFL.com first reported the news of Spielman’s contract extension Sunday. The Vikings had deals with both Zimmer and Spielman that expired after the 2019 season, before the team gave both the coach and GM one-year extensions before 2019. In the midst of rumors about the tandem’s job security before the team’s wild-card playoff game against the Saints, Vikings ownership released a statement saying the team had “every intent” of keeping the duo together for the foreseeable future.
Sources told the Star Tribune throughout the offseason that progress had been quiet on new deals for both Zimmer and Spielman, but when the team worked out a deal with the coach just before the start of training camp, a new deal for Spielman seemed imminent. With the general manager set to speak to reporters for the first time in training camp on Monday, the Vikings finalized the deal over the weekend, in a widely expected move that hardly registered as a surprise given the way the team has prized continuity at many of its high-profile spots this offseason.
The next act of Spielman’s partnership with Zimmer will hinge on their ability to identify and develop young talent for a defense that’s been one of the NFL’s best and has helped form the Vikings’ identity for the past six years. First-round pick Jeff Gladney was the fifth cornerback and sixth defensive back Spielman has selected in the first two rounds since 2012. The Vikings will also trust their homegrown talent to contribute along the defensive line, with Griffen still on the free-agent market and nose tackle Michael Pierce — the team’s most significant free-agent addition of the offseason — having opted out of playing in 2020
https://www.startribune.com/vikings-gm-spielman-finalizing-contract-extension/571989072/

Excellent news.  Was hoping this was going to follow Zimmer's extension.

@"JimmyinSD" said: Somebody in NJ is gonna need a hug 

@"PurpleCrush" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said: Somebody in NJ is gonna need a hug 

Can we PLEASE let him out of the cage, for maybe like a week or so? Just for some shits & giggles.

@"PurpleCrush" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said: Somebody in NJ is gonna need a hug 

Can we PLEASE let him out of the cage, for maybe like a week or so? Just for some shits & giggles.

@"wiviking" said:

@"PurpleCrush" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said: Somebody in NJ is gonna need a hug 

Can we PLEASE let him out of the cage, for maybe like a week or so? Just for some shits & giggles.

That's like saying, I haven't had explosive diarrhea for awhile. Maybe its not that bad...

@"JimmyinSD" said: Somebody in NJ is gonna need a hug 

@"JimmyinSD" said: Somebody in NJ is gonna need a hug 

If police find a body floating in the Delaware River pretty safe to assume we can identify the body and the cause for suicide.

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"PurpleCrush" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said: Somebody in NJ is gonna need a hug 

Can we PLEASE let him out of the cage, for maybe like a week or so? Just for some shits & giggles.

probably could just as well.... I mean I have my doubts that we have a season and with the political climate and the virus  shit getting as bad as it is,  I also have my doubts about a football based board surviving without the actual distraction of football.... might as well go out with a BANG!

@"wiviking" said:

@"PurpleCrush" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said: Somebody in NJ is gonna need a hug 

Can we PLEASE let him out of the cage, for maybe like a week or so? Just for some shits & giggles.

That's like saying, I haven't had explosive diarrhea for awhile. Maybe its not that bad...

Vikings keep Zimmer and Spielman together, for better or worseEntering their seventh season, Zimmer and Spielman keep tracking toward longevity mark.Asked on Monday to assess a working relationship now in its second decade, Vikings coach Mike Zimmer touched on long-familiar themes shared between himself and General Manager Rick Spielman: their perfervid personalities, their Rust Belt upbringings as the sons of no-nonsense high school coaches.

“Most importantly, we really love football,” Zimmer said. “We love the process of all this. We love trying to put together a championship-caliber football team. We love the discipline we have to have within this building of trying to make sure that guys are doing the right things, they’re studying the right ways.
“All the way along we’ve had a really good relationship, and obviously it’s grown. We can tease each other a little bit more now. I understand his bad jokes probably better than anybody.”
The relationship between Spielman, the studious executive who’s paired his reverence for the scouting process with a fondness for analytics, and Zimmer, the cantankerous coach who trusts his gut more than a spreadsheet and punctuates practices with fiery calls for precision, has a chance to become the longest GM-
The two are entering their seventh season together, each with new contracts that give them a chance to match Mike Lynn’s 10 seasons with Bud Grant as the longest run in team history. Zimmer’s extension keeps him with the team through the 2023 season, and it’s believed Spielman’s deal does the same, though the Vikings have only called it a multiyear extension publicly.
“It’s a really good positive that we’ve worked together this long,” Zimmer said. “Sometimes people would call it a negative, but Rick and I have a great relationship. We see things really through the same eyes 99 percent of the time. Very, very rarely do we ever argue or get in a situation like that. He can be hardheaded. I can be hardheaded. But at the end of the day, we know that we both have to work extremely well together, and we certainly do.”
At the end of this season, Spielman and Zimmer will have worked together for as long as Jeff Diamond and Dennis Green did in the 1990s. They will have matched Grant and Jim Finks’ eight seasons together if they stay in their current jobs through 2021.
Their shared vision for the Vikings — centered around a stout defense and a commitment to running the ball in an era with more passing than ever — has meant stability for an ownership group that fired three coaches in its first nine seasons in Minnesota.
“Rick has been outstanding in his role as Vikings general manager,” Vikings President Mark Wilf said in a statement announcing Spielman’s extension on Monday. “We are excited and honored to have him continue to lead our efforts to build a championship roster and first-class organization. With Rick’s and Coach Zimmer’s leadership in place, we are in a great position to continue to compete for a Super Bowl.”
After a 27-10 loss to the 49ers ended the Vikings’ third playoff trip in Zimmer’s six seasons, he spent an hour on the phone with his mentor Bill Parcells to discuss how the team could get over the hump and go from regular playoff entrant to Super Bowl qualifier for the first time since the 1976 season.
That might be what it takes for the 64-year-old coach and 57-year-old GM to finish their careers together in Minnesota.
Spielman, who replaced Fran Foley as the Vikings vice president of player personnel in 2006, was given full control of the roster when the team named him general manager in 2012. Of the five general managers who have been with their teams longer than Spielman, two (the Cowboys’ Jerry Jones and the Bengals’ Mike Brown) own their teams, while a third (the Patriots’ Bill Belichick) is a de facto GM.
The other two — Pittsburgh’s Kevin Colbert and New Orleans’ Mickey Loomis — have led their teams to championships. Three other men — Atlanta’s Thomas Dimitroff, Seattle’s John Schneider and Philadelphia’s Howie Roseman — have held the GM title longer than Spielman, even though they have spent less time with their respective teams. All three have reached the Super Bowl in their current roles; Schneider (who defers final say on the Seahawks roster to coach Pete Carroll) and Roseman have won Super Bowls.
“Sometimes you can’t control if there’s a bad call on the field or a missed field goal or this or that — hopefully a lot of that falls your way as well — but I think everybody is just so driven and determined to try to get that Super Bowl win here,” Spielman said Monday. “We’re always trying to, what I call AARs, after-action reviews, which is a military term, on what we did good, but what we need to improve on and how we’re going to improve moving forward.”
The GM and coach were each headed into the final years of their contracts in 2020 but begin the season with ownership’s imprimatur as they oversee what Spielman has frequently called an evolution of the roster. It’s an evolution that might determine how Spielman and Zimmer’s time together concludes.
“If you stay the same and you don’t change, you’re going to get stuck,” Spielman said. “Putting the right people in the front office, just like you build that team in the locker room, you have to have that same type of chemistry and that same type of culture through the front office.”
https://www.startribune.com/vikings-keep-zimmer-and-spielman-together-for-better-or-worse/571996282/

'For better or worse'....lmao at fucking sportswriters. The Vikings are going to cut bait on the best coach they've had since Denny Green and a successful GM? 

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"PurpleCrush" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said: Somebody in NJ is gonna need a hug 

Can we PLEASE let him out of the cage, for maybe like a week or so? Just for some shits & giggles.

probably could just as well.... I mean I have my doubts that we have a season and with the political climate and the virus  shit getting as bad as it is,  I also have my doubts about a football based board surviving without the actual distraction of football.... might as well go out with a BANG!

@"comet52" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"PurpleCrush" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said: Somebody in NJ is gonna need a hug 

Can we PLEASE let him out of the cage, for maybe like a week or so? Just for some shits & giggles.

probably could just as well.... I mean I have my doubts that we have a season and with the political climate and the virus  shit getting as bad as it is,  I also have my doubts about a football based board surviving without the actual distraction of football.... might as well go out with a BANG!

If anyone is really Jonesin for a fix, he already posted the usual "Dicky" rant over at Vikings Armegeddon under his new handle ncvike ( I think they banned njvike but he snuck back in).  But he didn't attack anyone personally--maybe this news sucked the air out of his tank lol.

The Rick Spielman-Mike Zimmer longevity secret: Avoid disasterThe biggest key to the Spielman-Zimmer partnership lasting as long as it has and projecting to last deeper into the future is that the Vikings have never hit bottom.

General manager Rick Spielman and head coach Mike Zimmer are heading toward their seventh season working together with the Vikings, both fresh off signing contract extensions that could extend their partnership to an even decade if they make it to the end of their reported new deals.
Spielman has two more years on his resume as general manager, having started in that role in 2012 and hiring Zimmer in 2014.
It has been a successful partnership — one during which the Vikings have won 6 of every 10 games, made three trips to the playoffs and advanced in the postseason twice.
Ben Goessling outlined several key points of their relationship and journey in a strong piece this week, and we talked more about it on the Access Vikings podcast along with Andrew Krammer.
While having a certain amount of success is clearly a primary driver of longevity for Spielman and Zimmer, I would also argue that they have also astutely recognized that avoiding disaster is also a huge key when it comes to self-preservation. Indeed, it might be the biggest key to the Spielman-Zimmer partnership lasting as long as it has and projecting to last deeper into the future.
They have never bottomed out. The worst record they’ve had as a tandem is 7-9, in Zimmer’s first season. That followed a 5-10-1 season under the Spielman-Leslie Frazier tandem, after which Frazier was fired.
Their disappointments — primarily 2016 and 2018 — still had moments of promise that finished 8-8 and 8-7-1, respectively, and playoff hopes that flickered late into the year. Most importantly, they’ve followed every mediocre year with a playoff season in 2015, 2017 and 2019 — giving the impression that a trip to the Super Bowl was within reach at any given time if things went their way.
When you can do that as a general manager, as Spielman has done, you can remain in your position even without the Super Bowl titles or appearances of NFL GM peers who are similarly long-tenured.
And if the coach and general manager are linked up in both their decisions and their contract statuses, they more or less become a package deal.
If you’re the Wilf family, do you want to disrupt something good — particularly right now, in 2020, when there is so much chaos — by chasing something that might be better but might be much worse?
Or would you rather maintain the status quo, knowing that as a baseline you will probably be in the hunt to make the playoffs?
The Wilfs have made their choice: Avoid disaster. It happens to be something Spielman and Zimmer are quite good at
https://www.startribune.com/the-rick-spielman-mike-zimmer-longevity-secret-avoid-disaster/572017192/