The Vikings finalized their 2020 coaching staff on Monday, splitting defensive coordinator duties between Mike Zimmer's son and one of his closest colleagues.
The team announced defensive line coach Andre Patterson and linebackers coach Adam Zimmer will be co-defensive coordinators in 2020. They replace former defensive coordinator George Edwards, who left to join the Dallas Cowboys' staff.
Patterson, 59, and Adam Zimmer, 36, will continue to work with their position groups.
It remains to be seen how much significance the promotions of Patterson and Adam Zimmer carry, given Mike Zimmer's hands-on role as defensive architect and play-caller. But sources inside and outside the team expected the Vikings would either give the younger Zimmer the job or split it between him and Patterson, the only defensive coaches who remain from Zimmer's original staff in Minnesota.
In the end, the Vikings chose an arrangement that kept them from shuffling more position coach responsibilities on a defensive staff that will see substantive changes for the first time since Mike Zimmer replaced Leslie Frazier as head coach six years ago.
Adam Zimmer, linebackers coach since 2014, had his first player receive All-Pro honors after the 2019 season when Eric Kendricks made the first team. Patterson, whose relationship with Zimmer dates to their time together at Weber State in the late 1980s, has coached second-team All-Pro defensive ends Danielle Hunter and Everson Griffen.
The team officially confirmed Gary Kubiak as its new offensive coordinator, and moved assistant offensive line coach Andrew Janocko to wide receivers coach.
The Vikings also hired former Broncos and Redskins coach Phil Rauscher — who had worked with Kubiak in Denver — to be assistant offensive line coach, and made former Dolphins and Bengals coach Daronte Jones their new defensive backs coach.
