Theilen says the air is fresher

The more I hear about the corrosive culture in the previous regime, the more I think the Vikings could've brought in a spider monkey to coach and win one or two more games. KOC was a good hire, but the key was removing Zimmer. 

Remember when a few here were clamoring that Zimmer should have been fired three years ago and were told they were crazy? I don't even care to look up the reasons they gave why we had to keep him. 

A lot of his comments seem to about the offensive system, which had been horrible for years, I don't necessarily make the assumption it is all about Zimmer.  I also do not put much weight into players comments about coaching styles, because in this age or spoiled, entitled players it may not be a good thing for them to favor a certain coaching style. 

One didnt need to be Hercule Poirot to know there were issues @ TCO.

We've been talking about it here pretty regularly for a while;

The W/L mediocrity
Diggs
OC turnstyle
HC throwing players under the bus publicly 
COVID Drama
Zimmers cryptic and cold personna turning more cryptic and cold

Not all of this is on Zimmer, but a lot of it is...If the offense wasn't as good as it was? This team would have been in top 7 drafting the last 2 seasons. Maybe it would have been for the better in retrospect vs sniffing .500?

What surprised me was how the relationship between Zimmer and RS had deteriorated as much as it did - and how that impacted everything in the org. 

Edit - one other surprise for me in all of this was Sugarman...How he had lost trust of the players, to the point where he was shown the door by the new regime.

@"mblack" said: Remember when a few here were clamoring that Zimmer should have been fired three years ago and were told they were crazy? I don't even care to look up the reasons they gave why we had to keep him. 

But we were called unreasonable fans who just don't understand football and coaching.  Most of the time, where there is smoke there is fire and the smoke started after the Eagles debacle and the fire was roaring the year after.  We still had a decent core of Zimmer defenders on here almost to midyear last year.   Now, most will only say that with all the new revelations of course he should be gone.  But they didn't want to see the smoke and really gave some of us a hard time over the last few years.

Oh well, I like the KOC hire but he is a rookie HC with no play calling experience so let's not just chalk up a few more wins just for finally getting rid of the guy who should never have been a HC.  

@"minny65" said:

@"mblack" said: Remember when a few here were clamoring that Zimmer should have been fired three years ago and were told they were crazy? I don't even care to look up the reasons they gave why we had to keep him. 

Sure do!

But we were called unreasonable fans who just don't understand football and coaching.  Most of the time, where there is smoke there is fire and the smoke started after the Eagles debacle and the fire was roaring the year after.  We still had a decent core of Zimmer defenders on here almost to midyear last year.   Now, most will only say that with all the new revelations of course he should be gone.  But they didn't want to see the smoke and really gave some of us a hard time over the last few years.

Oh well, I like the KOC hire but he is a rookie HC with no play calling experience so let's not just chalk up a few more wins just for finally getting rid of the guy who should never have been a HC.  

@"JR44" said: A lot of his comments seem to about the offensive system, which had been horrible for years, I don't necessarily make the assumption it is all about Zimmer.  I also do not put much weight into players comments about coaching styles, because in this age or spoiled, entitled players it may not be a good thing for them to favor a certain coaching style. 

@"JR44" said: A lot of his comments seem to about the offensive system, which had been horrible for years, I don't necessarily make the assumption it is all about Zimmer.  I also do not put much weight into players comments about coaching styles, because in this age or spoiled, entitled players it may not be a good thing for them to favor a certain coaching style. 

@"supafreak84" said:

@"JR44" said: A lot of his comments seem to about the offensive system, which had been horrible for years, I don't necessarily make the assumption it is all about Zimmer.  I also do not put much weight into players comments about coaching styles, because in this age or spoiled, entitled players it may not be a good thing for them to favor a certain coaching style. 

In Zimms defense I'm sure he would have loved to have kept Schurmer, Stefanski or one of the countless other offensive coordinators he lost during his tenure. Replacing coaches and offensive systems gets difficult every offseason. Zimmer didn't make things easy on himself, but that fact can't be overlooked either 

@"minny65" said:

@"supafreak84" said:

@"JR44" said: A lot of his comments seem to about the offensive system, which had been horrible for years, I don't necessarily make the assumption it is all about Zimmer.  I also do not put much weight into players comments about coaching styles, because in this age or spoiled, entitled players it may not be a good thing for them to favor a certain coaching style. 

In Zimms defense I'm sure he would have loved to have kept Schurmer, Stefanski or one of the countless other offensive coordinators he lost during his tenure. Replacing coaches and offensive systems gets difficult every offseason. Zimmer didn't make things easy on himself, but that fact can't be overlooked either 

Yea he really didn't manage the offensive side of the ball very well at all (players or coaches).   Again, he should have stayed at DC because he is the perfect example of the Peter Principle.  Just not HC material and the reason he was passed over for years.  

Lets put a string of wins together before we start fluffing KOC.

This is football, not a freshman mixer

It seems like Zimmers schemes were rigid at times, always talking about execution needed to be perfect.  There were even comments about how long it took for defensive players to learn the system.  There comes a time where you just need to tell the players to go play instinctively instead of being so wound up and afraid to make mistakes.  You could see it with Cousins after the first scripted plays were run he went into a shell, but 4th quarter when the Vikings were behind he just went out and played.

@"Vanguard83" said: Lets put a string of wins together before we start fluffing KOC.

This is football, not a freshman mixer

Nobody is more popular on a bad team than the backup QB.  And nobody is more popular after a regime change than the new guy everyone is sucking up to.

@"Vanguard83" said: Lets put a string of wins together before we start fluffing KOC.

This is football, not a freshman mixer

Time to pass this bottle around:

@"supafreak84" said:

@"minny65" said:

@"supafreak84" said:

@"JR44" said: A lot of his comments seem to about the offensive system, which had been horrible for years, I don't necessarily make the assumption it is all about Zimmer.  I also do not put much weight into players comments about coaching styles, because in this age or spoiled, entitled players it may not be a good thing for them to favor a certain coaching style. 

In Zimms defense I'm sure he would have loved to have kept Schurmer, Stefanski or one of the countless other offensive coordinators he lost during his tenure. Replacing coaches and offensive systems gets difficult every offseason. Zimmer didn't make things easy on himself, but that fact can't be overlooked either 

Yea he really didn't manage the offensive side of the ball very well at all (players or coaches).   Again, he should have stayed at DC because he is the perfect example of the Peter Principle.  Just not HC material and the reason he was passed over for years.  

The offense has always been at least respectable under Zimmer and he put his trust in his coordinators to be good on that side of the ball. The fall off defensively the last two years was by far the biggest issue and mystery. To me it had a lot to do with injury, arrests, and really having to rely on young players who weren't ready 

@"mblack" said: Remember when a few here were clamoring that Zimmer should have been fired three years ago and were told they were crazy? I don't even care to look up the reasons they gave why we had to keep him. 

In my mind, last year was the first season where he couldn't seem to coach his way out of a paper bag in close games. Also, the extent to which the culture had soured wasn't fully known until after he was gone. The Wilves made the right decision and I'm happy he's gone. 

I think the consensus was that the old regime was good enough to keep since they were good enough to win in most minds. 

It was frustrating to watch Z’s inability to improve as a game manager and adapt modern schemes and players. When Z’s defense went to shit there was no upside to retaining him. 

@"minny65" said:

@"mblack" said: Remember when a few here were clamoring that Zimmer should have been fired three years ago and were told they were crazy? I don't even care to look up the reasons they gave why we had to keep him. 

Sure do!

But we were called unreasonable fans who just don't understand football and coaching.  Most of the time, where there is smoke there is fire and the smoke started after the Eagles debacle and the fire was roaring the year after.  We still had a decent core of Zimmer defenders on here almost to midyear last year.   Now, most will only say that with all the new revelations of course he should be gone.  But they didn't want to see the smoke and really gave some of us a hard time over the last few years.

Oh well, I like the KOC hire but he is a rookie HC with no play calling experience so let's not just chalk up a few more wins just for finally getting rid of the guy who should never have been a HC.  

@"MaroonBells" said:

@"mblack" said: Remember when a few here were clamoring that Zimmer should have been fired three years ago and were told they were crazy? I don't even care to look up the reasons they gave why we had to keep him. 

I've had a problem with Zimmer's game prep for at least 5 years. But in my mind, his liabilities didn't obviously outweigh his assets until last year. I say "obviously" with intention. Sure, there were signs (Rhodes, Diggs), but many of those players shared some blame as well. And if every coach were fired when I number of fans think he's clueless, every one of them would be out of a job. 

In my mind, last year was the first season where he couldn't seem to coach his way out of a paper bag in close games. Also, the extent to which the culture had soured wasn't fully known until after he was gone. The Wilves made the right decision and I'm happy he's gone. 

I think if Spielman would have kept building a Zimmer style
roster, Zimmer probably could have kept churning out 8-10 win seasons every
year and it would have been less toxic (although not non-toxic).  I don’t think Zimmer has forgotten how to
coach defense, but I don’t think he’s well rounded enough to really take a team
to the SB unless he lucked into an elite QB as he’s not really balanced enough
as a HC and you can’t afford to lose your OC every year or two.

I like the Kwesi/KOC combo, but I can’t stand our fanbase
right now.  Odds are that Kwesi/KOC is
going to be somewhere in the worse than Spielman/Zimmer to about as good as
them range.  People that think any coach
is going to be better than Zimmer have no sense of perspective or are a little
spoiled and have forgotten history.  I
think people need to have some perspective that even in his worst years, Zimmer
churned out 7-9 seasons.  There’s a lot
of room for getting worse, but it was a necessary change that we had to make
and I think we’re going good things.