The Minnesota Vikings have ended the Mike Zimmer era: The long-time head coach of the Vikings, like GM Rick Spielman, was sacked on Monday.
Rumors of a possible restart in Minnesota had recently intensified following it became clear that the Vikings would miss the playoffs for the second year in a row.
On “Black Monday”, the Monday following the end of the regular season, Minnesota cleared the table: Both Zimmer, who took over the Vikings as Head Coach in 2014, and GM Rick Spielman, General Manager in Minnesota since 2012, have to leave.
Zimmer’s tenure in Minnesota ends with 72 wins, 56 losses and one draw, as well as three trips to the playoffs over eight years. In 2017 the Vikings got to the NFC Championship Game, where they lost significantly to the eventual Super Bowl winner Philadelphia, and in 2019 San Francisco was the last stop in the divisional round following Minnesota had surprisingly eliminated the Saints.
This season, Minnesota had gone with the ambition to attack once more, and had signed several veterans on the defensive side of the ball. Last but not least, the lack of depth in the squad became clearly noticeable in the course of the season.
The most critical personnel that the new top of the team then has to answer is Kirk Cousins - and with it the question of how radical the upheaval should be for this team. Cousins would go into the final year of his contract in 2022.
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