Imagine this:
It was a beautiful morning on the Jackson State University campus. Mike Zimmer was beginning his first day as an analyst on Deion Sanders‘ staff. He wasn’t on an NFL salary, but when Zimmer’s prized pupil offered to pay him in Red Man, who was he to refuse?
But this morning, Zimmer saw something he didn’t like. Peering through his $20 Amazon sunglasses, he saw his latest subject, No. 1-overall recruit Travis Hunter, using poor technique on a practice rep. Frustrated, Zimmer walked over to the young cornerback and invited him to his office to watch film.
The two walked down the Tigers’ new practice facility hallway, and Zimmer put his arm over Hunter to give him some advice.
“You know Deion was a lot like you,” Zimmer began. “But so was Cameron Dantzler, Mackensie Alexander, and Jayron Kearse!”
When Zimmer opened the door, Hunter couldn’t believe what he saw. Kellen Mond, Wyatt Davis, and Ihmir Smith-Marsette were huddled over a cell phone, trying to call home. They shielded their eyes from the first glimpse of daylight they had seen in two months as Zimmer threw Hunter into the closet.
“That will teach you to use the wrong footwork!” Zimmer screamed as he slammed the door.
Obviously, that won’t happen. But the idea of Zimmer coaching at a college program seems like a mismatch. He was unable to develop talent in his final years in Minnesota. As a result, he found himself on the unemployment line.
But was Zimmer really as bad as developing talent as people believe? To answer, we have to go back in time.
Zimmer inherited a mess when he first arrived in Minnesota. The Vikings went 5-10-1 in 2013 and had the league’s worst defense in points allowed and total yardage. Minnesota needed a rebuild, and Zimmer turned many young players on that roster into franchise cornerstones.
A young safety named Harrison Smith was entering his third season in the league. He showed plenty of promise, intercepting three passes – including two for touchdowns – in his rookie season. However, he missed eight games the following year due to a left foot injury.
Under Zimmer’s tutelage, Smith took off with five interceptions during the 2014 season. That served as a springboard for his career. He has made six Pro Bowl appearances and earned an All-Pro selection in 2017. He continues to be one of the locker-room leaders on this year’s team.
Zimmer also inherited Xavier Rhodes, a second-year cornerback. Rhodes had a promising rookie season. PFF ranked him 60th among 117 cornerbacks with at least 20% of the league lead in snaps. But Zimmer demanded more, and Rhodes responded. After two years under Zimmer, Rhodes had his breakout party, clowning Odell Beckham Jr. on Monday Night Football. Suddenly, Rhodes became one of the NFL’s best shutdown corners. He made three Pro Bowls and had an All-Pro appearance in 2017.
Those two players didn’t completely round out the defense, of course. But Zimmer at least had a start. His next step came during his first offseason when he signed Linval Joseph, a little-known tackle.
Joseph wasn’t a household name, notching nine sacks in four years with the New York Giants. When he signed with Minnesota, people wondered why the Vikings would give a large free-agent contract to a relative unknown. But Joseph made his mark quickly.
The 329-pounder became a force under Zimmer, transforming into one of the league’s top run-stuffers. The pass-rushing ability came later when Joseph collected a career-high four sacks to earn his first Pro Bowl appearance in 2016. He made another Pro Bowl in 2017 and left after the 2019 season.
With a young nucleus established, Zimmer needed another player to tie it together. Fans screamed for him to take a quarterback with Minnesota’s first-round pick in the 2014 draft, but Zimmer took UCLA linebacker Anthony Barr ninth overall instead.
Barr was a risky pick. He was a running back two years before the Vikings drafted him. Draft experts thought he would be a better fit in a 3-4, but Zimmer saw something that his defense needed.
Vikings fans (and even Zimmer) would go on to lament his lack of big plays and even his tendency to coast, but he became one of the league’s best coverage linebackers. He was a four-time Pro Bowler under Zimmer, and Minnesota felt his absence when he tore his pectoral muscle two games into the 2020 season. There’s a chance he may even wind up in the Ring of Honor someday, but it’s too soon to be sure.
If you’re counting at home, that’s four players that Zimmer has developed into Pro Bowlers. We haven’t even talked about Teddy Bridgewater, who was on his way to being a stable solution at quarterback before a gruesome knee injury in 2016.
If you’re still not convinced, I present to you the 2015 draft class.
The Vikings could give a spot in the Ring of Honor to the 2015 class as a whole. Trae Waynes never became a superstar, but he was a starting cornerback for four seasons in Minnesota. Eric Kendricks became one of the league’s best linebackers, and Danielle Hunter was on a Hall of Fame trajectory before back-to-back season-ending injuries.
Many of these guys are defensive players, but there were several young talents on offense too. One year after an undrafted free agent named Adam Thielen made his mark on special teams, the Vikings selected former five-star recruit Stefon Diggs in the fifth round.
A pessimist would point out that Thielen and Diggs didn’t play right away. Zimmer never played rookies, after all. While some rookies eventually saw the field, others never saw the light of day because they weren’t that good.
The Vikings drafted Laquon Treadwell in the first round of the 2016 draft, but Zimmer believed that Thielen and Diggs gave him a better chance to win. Fans also screamed for Dru Samia, Wyatt Davis, and other young players to get on the field. However, they were not ready yet, so Zimmer kept them on the sideline.
The same went for the 2021 draft class. While Zimmer’s stable of hand-picked veterans was failing on the field, he refused to put in the rookies who were struggling. Zimmer got buried for this, but Kwesi Adofo-Mensah wiped that class off the team this year.
Even in Justin Jefferson‘s case, Zimmer may have had the right idea. The COVID-19 pandemic clouded Jefferson’s rookie season, and he didn’t get preseason games to get his feet wet. He also contracted the virus at the beginning of camp, depriving him of reps to get up to speed with the rest of the team.
Jefferson played behind Bisi Johnson for the first two weeks of the season before becoming the superstar he is today. But fans remain focused on Zimmer keeping him on the sidelines.
I’m not saying that Zimmer was always right. There were moments when Zimmer’s old-school ways didn’t put players in the best environment to succeed. Maybe Ihmir Smith-Marsette and Armon Watts will find success in Chicago. Perhaps Kellen Mond will be a different quarterback in Cleveland.
Both of these things can be true. But it’s not like Zimmer trapped all his young players in the closet.
