Zimmer channels Belichick: 'We're just going to focus on Detroit now'

At the start of his afternoon press conference Wednesday, Vikings coach Mike Zimmer was peppered with questions about Monday's loss and about the psyche of his young team - but mostly elected to only look forward.

September 16, 2015 at 10:58PM
Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer
Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer (Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Two days after an ugly loss to the 49ers, Vikings coach Mike Zimmer today was sounding like Bill Belichick and (kind of) quoting Steve Jobs.

At the start of his afternoon press conference, Zimmer was peppered with a few questions about that game and about the psyche of his young team.

"We're good," Zimmer said. "We put it to bed and we're ready to roll."

And after a question about how left tackle Matt Kalil played against the 49ers, Zimmer decided to take a page out of the New England playbook.

"Fine," he said, answering the Kalil question. "You want to talk about Detroit? That's what we're going to talk about is Detroit. We're not going to talk any more about the game. We're just going to focus on Detroit now."

It wasn't A "We're on to Cincinnati," but it was the same kind of concept.

Still, a couple of reporters tried to cleverly craft 49ers-related queries. One of them asked Zimmer if he took a game like Monday night's personally.

"I don't know. I'm focused on Detroit and what we got to do to win that game. We can't do anything about that past," he said, getting philosophical. "As Bill Gates said, 'We can only connect the dots going forward.'"

That quote was actually from Steve Jobs, and the late Apple co-founder actually said during a commencement speech that "you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward."

OK, so Zimmer was close, but you get the drift: the Vikings are now looking forward to Sunday's game against the 0-1 Lions at TCF Bank Stadium.

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Matt Vensel

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