1. Zimmer's defense hits historic two-year low in points allowed
Five extra points: Defense hits historic two-year low, penalties a problem all year
If Mike Zimmer is fired, the performance of his defense in the past two seasons will be noted on his pink slip.
January 10, 2022 at 1:21PM
If Mike Zimmer is fired on Monday, here's a sentence you wouldn't have expected to see on the head coaching tombstone of this noted defensive guru: For the first time in 61 seasons of Vikings football, a defense has now surrendered at least 400 points in back-to-back seasons. And, no, it didn't take Sunday's 17th game — a 31-17 win over the Bears — for the Vikings to reach 426 points allowed. A year after giving up 475 points, third-worst in team history, the Vikings allowed the fourth-most points in their history. When Zimmer arrived in 2014, he said he'd "fix" the league's worst scoring defense, which had just allowed 480 points. He did. After ranking 11th in 2014, the Vikings spent five years in the top nine, including first in 2017. And then everything — good health included — fell apart. "It's frustrating," linebacker Anthony Barr said. "I'm accustomed to being on defenses that are top of the ranks in scoring. It wasn't the case. We had a lot of young guys on the outside with Pat P[eterson]. It was learning experiences for those guys. You could point to a lot of different things. You could point the finger at a lot of different people. But at the end of the day, we just didn't get the job done."
2. Penalties were a problem even before the season's first snap
Remember when the Bengals were supposed to be bad, the Vikings good, and how Zimmer was favored to beat his former team in Cincinnati in Week 1? Well, the season-long issues with ill-timed penalties began BEFORE the season's first snap when fullback C.J. Ham false-started. There would be three false starts before the fifth snap, two by Ham, as the Vikings lost in overtime in large part because of 12 penalties for 116 yards. Ironically, Ham didn't commit another penalty the entire season. But the Vikings finished with 111 penalties for 1,043 yards and had a league-worst penalty yardage differential of minus-257 yards, the worst under Zimmer and the worst by a Vikings team since 2003 (minus-309 yards). Included in Sunday's four penalties for 47 yards was right guard Oli Udoh's league-high 16th penalty and his 14th for holding. Naturally, it came in the red zone.
3. Did the Vikings find a kicker while losing a coach?
Zimmer's love-hate relationship with kickers has been a recurring storyline in Minnesota. If he keeps his job, he seems to have found a kicker he can co-exist with long term. But that doesn't mean the kicker didn't play a role in Zimmer's shaky job status. Yes, Greg Joseph made his only field goal attempt on Sunday to finish 33 of 38, an .868 percentage that's better than three of the past four years of Purple kickers. However, Zimmer still got burned by Joseph. The Vikings would have been in the playoff picture Sunday had Joseph not missed a 37-yard field goal as time expired in the Week 2 matchup at Arizona. Typical of poor Zim's rotten luck with kickers, Joseph's 37-yard miss remains his only career blemish inside 40 yards. He's 30 of 31 from inside 40 yards, including 19 of 20 this year.
4. Zimmer should have been better in the NFC North
Zimmer's performance within the NFC North has been streaky the past eight years. He lost his first five division games before rebounding to win seven of the next eight. Then he lost his next four before winning four straight. Sunday's win raised his division record to 26-21-1. Not great, considering he held his own against the QB-blessed bullies from Green Bay (7-8-1). Zimmer is 9-7 against the Bears, but 3-5 against soon-to-be-fired Matt Nagy. Zimmer was 5-1 against former Bears coach John Fox and 6-0 against former Lions coach Matt Patricia. Zimmer is 10-6 against the Lions but started 3-5 against them when they had Jim Caldwell, an underrated coach who could be getting another shot somewhere in 2022. Zimmer's overall record is 72-56-1 (.562). He's third in wins and winning percentage in team history behind Bud Grant and Denny Green. But missing the playoffs five times in eight years will make it tough for him to survive Black Monday '22.
5. Did players didn't quit on Zimmer? No.
A TV camera captured Zimmer pumping his fist when Barr's second sack of the game stopped the Bears on fourth-and-goal from the 1. The Vikings definitely started slow on Sunday, but the second half proved that no matter what happens Monday, Zimmer's players never did quit on him. They won two blowouts, lost one blowout without Kirk Cousins and went 6-8 in one-score games. "Obviously these last two years with COVID and protocols and guys not getting vaccinated and missing games and everything, it's been really difficult," Zimmer said. "But I appreciate the way this team goes about its business, the way they work, the way they represent the team, the way they represent the organization. … We don't have a lot of guys who are just cashing checks." For the record, only one of Zimmer's defensive starters – safety Xavier Woods – played every game this season. On the defensive line alone, Danielle Hunter missed his 10th game, Michael Pierce missed his ninth and Everson Griffen missed his eighth. Eric Kendricks missed his second game. Barr missed six games earlier while Peterson missed four and Harrison Smith two. "You have your down years," Barr said. "Last year, we were decimated by injuries. This year, kind of again, guys in and out of the lineup. It is what it is."
Mike Conley was in Minneapolis, where he sounded the Gjallarhorn at the Vikings game, on Sunday during the robbery.
