Mike Zimmer, back in the NFL, has a lot to say about his Vikings exit: 'Unfortunately, I hold grudges'

OXNARD, CALIF. – Mike Zimmer is wearing something strange as he turns toward the Dallas Cowboys practice field and spots a familiar face from Minnesota.

It's not the blue-and-white outfit, nor the star on his cap. It's the smile. Corri, his daughter, says the now-68-year-old grandfather finally is happy again. Finally allowing himself joy after being fired as Vikings coach, mourning the death of his son Adam and spending two seasons not coaching for the first time since 1978.

"She's right; I am having fun again," the new Cowboys defensive coordinator tells the Minnesota Star Tribune during a training camp visit last month.

After practice, Zimmer laughs and reaches into a pouch of Red Man chewing tobacco he has pulled from a desk in the corner of a makeshift coaches office at the team's Residence Inn facility. This second Cowboys stint suits him. It's the ideal career rebirth — a much-appreciated resurrection driven in no small part by how miserable Zimmer's final act in Minnesota played out from the start of the injury-riddled 2020 season to Jan. 10, 2022, when owners Zygi and Mark Wilf delivered the official time of death on the Vikings careers of Zimmer and General Manager Rick Spielman.

Zimmer was crushed. Angry. Sleep-deprived. The rare coaching lifer who had never been fired.

"They asked me if I wanted to address the team," he says. "And I said, 'Hell, no. They got me fired!'

"I didn't know I was supposed to go to HR and sign out or whatever. No one told me. I just got all my stuff, got in my truck, and left."

And …

"I can tell you I've not watched one Minnesota game since."

No-brainer reunion

Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy is sitting on the couch in his Residence Inn hotel suite. Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman is to his left.

Zimmer had said he is back in Dallas working under his former NFC North rival "to prove to myself and other people I can still coach. Because when you get fired, you think you're the worst in the world." McCarthy is asked what attracted him to Zimmer as the guy to replace Dan Quinn, now head coach in Washington.

"Why Zim?" McCarthy says. "Shoot. Why not Zim? Frankly, it was a no-brainer."

Aikman nods.

McCarthy dismisses reports that this was owner Jerry Jones hiring an old friend and Cowboys assistant from 1994 to 2006. That Jones overruled McCarthy, who wanted to promote 46-year-old Joe Whitt Jr., now Quinn's defensive coordinator.

McCarthy says Zimmer's more-disciplined scheme will improve the Cowboys run defense. Dallas ranked fifth in yards and points against but was 16th in run defense in 2023. The Cowboys also gave up 143 yards and three touchdowns on 33 carries in a 48-32 first-round home playoff loss to the seventh-seeded Packers.

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As for Zimmer's old-school coaching style, which some Vikings players complained about at the end in Minnesota, McCarthy calls that a strength.

"Zim's a straight-shooter, not a lot of fluff," McCarthy says, adding, "This generation needs more of it."

Aikman nods.

'Fear-based' discussion

The Cowboys and Rams are having a spirited practice. Former Vikings linebacker Eric Kendricks reads a run play perfectly, slices through the A gap and sends a Rams running back to his backside with the loudest pop and most animated celebration of the day.

It's fitting that a redemption year for Zimmer includes Kendricks literally in the middle of his defense. For it was Kendricks who delivered one of the most damning blows to Zimmer's regime in its final days. When asked what the Vikings needed after Zimmer's firing, Kendricks, one of the coach's best and most loyal defenders, said, "I don't think a fear-based organization is the way to go."

This offseason, Kendricks was committed to sign with San Francisco in free agency when he changed course at the last minute so he could reunite with Zimmer in a scheme that's pretty much the same as the Vikings one that ranked no lower than ninth in points allowed from 2015 to '19, when Kendricks was first-team All-Pro.

"Zim and I talked about that quote before I signed here," Kendricks says. "Look, it was the climate at the time. Things weren't going well. Emotions, pressures were high. People say things and do things that are not to their true character. We both said things back then that we shouldn't have said in the heat of the moment."

Zimmer admits now that his tough-as-nails, Bill Parcells-protégé personality led to one particular team meeting he regrets.

"I was always demanding of my players, and losing didn't make me happy," Zimmer says. "Was I too hard? One meeting. Toward the end of '21, when everyone was saying I was going to get fired. I pulled everyone together and said, 'Let's talk about the elephant in the room, fellas.' "

What followed was Zimmer defending his record, all the adversity he had dealt with from Adrian Peterson's indictment five days after Zimmer's victorious head coaching debut to Teddy Bridgewater's knee exploding in a noncontact practice to Zimmer's multiple eye surgeries and more. The speech left players dumbfounded.

"I said I can take people shooting arrows at me, I'm a big boy," Zimmer says now. "If I get fired, I get fired, but you need to go out and play good and do what you're supposed to do."

Some of the negative player reactions after his firing hardly registered for Zimmer.

"Kris Boyd? He says something about me?" he says. "I'm like, 'Dude, you had more special teams penalties than anyone I can remember.' "

The criticism that hurt most of all wasn't from Kendricks, although that one certainly stung. It was from Terence Newman, who was an assistant coach at the time after playing cornerback for Zimmer in Dallas, Cincinnati and Minnesota.

Newman spoke with Tyler Dunne of Go Long and detailed what he called a "toxic" atmosphere in Zimmer's final days.

"That one hurt me bad," Zimmer says. "Terence was like my son. I called Parcells about that one. I called Terence. He said, 'Well, that's how I felt.' I said, 'Then, look, we're done.' "

Players weren't the only ones to feel Zimmer's sting. KFAN radio personality and Vikings play-by-play announcer Paul Allen used to co-own a racehorse with Zimmer. Zimmer bought him out after Allen said on air that Zimmer "snapped" during a famous sideline exchange with quarterback Kirk Cousins when Cousins punched Zimmer in the chest, grabbed him and screamed "You like that!?" following a last-second comeback to beat the Lions in 2021.

"Hey, I pushed Kirk back pretty hard, too," Zimmer says for the record. "But I just didn't like what PA said. We're supposed to be friends. Why you got to talk about me? Unfortunately, I hold grudges. That's just how I am."

Storming out on Spielman

Zimmer and Spielman barely spoke to each other in 2021 and haven't spoken since. Spielman has texted, but Zimmer hasn't responded. The fallout began on draft day 2021.

"I walk in before the draft and Rick is watching quarterback interviews from the combine," Zimmer says. "He hadn't told me anything. Normally, he always kept me abreast of everything. And he and I were always good."

Until they weren't. Zimmer was in predraft meetings that discussed the quarterback class. He just didn't like the direction the draft took considering the state of his defense at the time.

"The first round, Rick tried to trade up for Justin Fields, who hasn't done anything," Zimmer says.

With four third-round picks, Spielman selected, in order, quarterback Kellen Mond, linebacker Chazz Surratt, offensive lineman Wyatt Davis and defensive end Patrick Jones II. Zimmer was there for only the first pick.

"When he picked Mond, I walked out of the room," Zimmer says. "I left the building. I didn't even talk to him on the phone."

The two spoke the next morning.

"Rick said, 'You mad at me?' I said, 'Yeah, I think you took four backups when we had guys there I thought were starters,' " Zimmer says. "From that time on, it just kind of got worse between us. And I'm not saying nothing was my fault. I'm sure there were plenty of things that were my fault."

Only Jones, with four career starts, is still a Viking. Mond, Surratt and Davis have zero starts. Mond lasted one year in Minnesota and is out of football, having played three snaps in one game — the 37-10 loss at Green Bay on Jan. 2, 2022, that knocked the Vikings from playoff contention.

"People made a big deal out of me saying after that game I didn't need to see more of Mond," Zimmer says. "I saw him every day in practice. Maybe I was omniscient or something. He played three NFL snaps and two were bad."

Zimmer's two favorite achievements as Vikings coach are winning the NFC North at Green Bay in Week 17 in 2015 and posting the league's No. 1 defense in points and yards allowed in 2017. In the former, the defense scored and Bridgewater, Zimmer's favorite Vikings QB, completed 10 passes for 99 yards in a 20-13 victory. In the latter, Zimmer's defense helped third-team quarterback Case Keenum go 12-3 in 15 starts.

Zimmer was involved in the decision to sign Cousins to a then-record $84 million fully guaranteed deal in 2018 but never meshed with the quarterback he viewed as taking resources away from his defense.

"We're averaging 10 wins a year playing really good defense with some other quarterbacks who weren't as talented as Kirk," Zimmer says. "Then we paid Kirk a lot of money and ended up having to get rid of some guys on defense and weren't able to get ones we needed."

The 2019 team went to New Orleans for a wild-card playoff game as a 7½-point underdog. Zimmer thinks he might have been fired that season, even though the Wilfs issued a vote of confidence before the game. Rumors were circulating that Jones wanted to hire Zimmer as head coach to replace Jason Garrett.

"I had a year left on my contract and I screwed up and won the game," Zimmer jokes now. McCarthy got the Cowboys job two days later.

Zimmer then lost his top three corners and replaced them with rookies in 2020. He lost three other defensive starters. Danielle Hunter missed 2020 and half of '21 because of injuries. Anthony Barr was lost for the 2020 season in Week 2. The injury bug kept biting as the Vikings gave up a whopping 29.7 points per game while finishing 7-9 in 2020 and 25.1 points a game while finishing 8-9 in 2021.

And at a time when Zimmer needed Cousins most, the quarterback missed that 37-10 loss to the Packers with COVID-19, something Zimmer warned Cousins could happen when he did not get vaccinated.

Before that game, Zimmer didn't want to believe the rumors were true that he would be fired. He wanted to believe that his .556 winning percentage (74-59-1) and extenuating circumstances would spare him.

"The morning after the Packers game, I have my usual conference call with the owners," Zimmer says. "Rick didn't want me to ask the question, but I did. I said, 'What about me? What's my status at the end of the season?' And Mark said, 'We're evaluating.' "

Zimmer rolls his eyes and says, "I knew it was over."

Losing Adam

Zimmer pulls out his phone and scrolls through some pictures while describing what can be a daily jolt for a man who has lost a son. Police found Adam dead in his Mendota Heights apartment while serving a welfare check request on Oct. 31, 2022. An autopsy by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office ruled the cause of death "chronic ethanol use disorder." Excessive drinking killed Adam. He was 38.

"Time helps and [coaching] keeping me busy helps," Zimmer says. "But, honestly, when pictures pop up on my phone and I see him and me together, it's devastating."

Adam, an assistant on Zimmer's staff, was working remotely as an offensive assistant with the Bengals at the time of his death.

"He loved football so much and he was telling me his career was ruined because he got fired," Zimmer says. "It tore him up. I told him everybody gets fired in this job, but it was hard on him."

The two were spending a lot of time together at Zimmer's ranch in Kentucky that year.

"Every Sunday, that first year until Adam passed, we went and played golf together at Triple Crown Country Club in Union, Kentucky, right by the ranch," Zimmer says. "He called me a couple days before he passed and said he was coming back to the ranch on Monday. He said, 'I got one more thing to do.' He never made it back."

Zimmer had opportunities to coach in 2022 but didn't want to "go backward" and be a defensive coordinator. He had more opportunities to coach in 2023, but was still too busted from Adam's death to accept an offer. In 2009, Zimmer's wife, Vikki, died unexpectedly at age 50. Zimmer, with the Bengals at the time, coached the following Sunday.

This time, Zimmer tried to stay busy on the ranch. He bought an excavator and dug a 6-acre lake. He shot some deer, shot some doves. He did some media work for the 33rd Team website. And, of course, he was still getting paid by the Vikings through 2023. He went back to Triple Crown to hit golf balls on the range, but rarely played since Adam was gone.

"The shame is Adam would have loved being here helping us put this defense together in Dallas," Zimmer says. "[Long-time confidante] Paul Guenther is here with me. I kept thinking, 'Man, I wish Adam was here with us.' He was so smart. When I can't remember something or get stuck, Adam could tell me exactly what I was thinking.

"So, it's been tough. But it helps getting around the players again. We joke around. I tease them, they tease me. Like the old days."

Recently, Zimmer added another one of his favorite former Vikings to the roster when 35-year-old nose tackle Linval Joseph said he was joining the Cowboys mainly to reunite with Zimmer.

Future in football

Zimmer doesn't think he will get another head coaching job. He is not even sure he wants one.

"Guys with worse records than me have gotten second chances, but I don't see it happening because of my age," Zimmer says. "And now teams also want whoever can coach the quarterback. It is what it is."

Zimmer says his focus is on the players and helping his young defensive assistants further their careers. Guys like defensive backs coach and former Packers cornerback Al Harris.

"Zim is genuine, so guys buy into him," Harris says. "If you don't know him, you'd think, 'Oh, man. Old grumpy guy.' But Zim's all right, bro. He has his way of saying things. He's direct. No filter. Just coaching ball."

Redemption year '24?

"I don't know," Zimmer says. "Part of the reason for coming back is I have to do this for me because I don't want people thinking I was a lousy coach. Somebody told me, 'You don't have anything to prove after Minnesota,' but I felt like I did."

Kendricks is asked if he thinks Zimmer could be a head coach again in the NFL considering how poorly things ended in Minnesota.

"He and I talked about the past and this year and the future," Kendricks says. "Forgiveness for the past is a big thing in my life now. I believe in second chances.

"As for the future, Zim and I are on the same page. We agreed to focus on this year. He goes and coaches his butt off, I go play my butt off, we put a smile on our faces and see where it takes us."

Mike Zimmer and Eric Kendricks, together again, both wearing smiles? Now that was a strange sight indeed for that familiar face from Minnesota.