Who will become the 10th head coach in 62 seasons of Vikings football?
Who'll be the next Vikings coach? A guide to figuring out who it won't be
On the NFL: Teams looking for a new coach tend to avoid the traits of the last one. There are a number of names you're hearing who won't come close to getting the job. What traits will the new coach have?
January 12, 2022 at 4:25PM
Don't know.
But …
We can safely assume who he won't be like.
He won't be older or old-school. Candidates 55 and older with a bag of Red Man in their top drawer need not apply.
He will come from the offensive side of the ball. His version of the Lord's Prayer will begin … "Our McVay, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be the 9 Route …"
He won't run a "fear-based organization." He will be player-friendly but not too player-friendly because then he'll be Leslie Frazier, whose first-ballot Hall of Fame friendliness and inability to win consistently begot Mike Zimmer's blunt-force interpersonal skills and inability to win consistently.
And, finally, he will be media friendly. So media friendly that we'll need showers to hose the butter off the questions he still probably won't answer.
The tendency to flip-flop between this firing and the next hiring is not just a Zim thing. It's pretty much that way anytime a team is forced to look for a new voice.
Denny Green feuded with the media. Mike Tice was a media rock star. Brad Childress was an offensive tactician. Frazier a defensive guy.
Zimmer was hired to fix Frazier's supposedly outdated schemes. Eight years later, all Zimmer's fixes became unfixed while Frazier is getting ready for more head coaching interviews after leading the Bills' defense to No. 1 in fewest points, yards and third downs allowed.
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So, using the Flip-Flop Method to narrow the field of guesstimated candidates, eliminate the older guys. Sorry, Jim Caldwell. Sorry, Vikings co-defensive coordinator and too-close-to-Zimmer-friend Andre Patterson.
We also should eliminate the defensive guys. Sorry, Dan Quinn, Todd Bowles, Matt Eberflus and Brian Flores.
That leaves a lot of offensive-minded guys with extraordinary résumés (hello, 46-year-old Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll); incredibly successful coaching trees (hello, 52-year-old Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy); and cutting-edge young guns who seem destined for early success (hello, 33-year-old Cowboys offensive coordinator Kellen Moore).
Moore is the most intriguing. If a team hits on him, it's a Steelers-like hire. Hire a guy in his early 30s, let him coach a couple of decades, win multiple Super Bowls, retire, then repeat.
Moore has been an NFL coach for only four seasons. He's been a coordinator for only three years. But he's already survived a coaching change, kept his play-calling duties under an offensive-minded head coach and now led the NFL in scoring and yards with one of the league's most balanced attacks.
This, however, is not fantasy football for coaching hires. The guy you pick has to want you back.
Moore, like a number of candidates, has options. The Bears, Broncos, Dolphins, Jaguars, Raiders and Giants have openings. And the Bears and the Giants, like the Vikings, are also hiring a new general manager.
So even if the Vikings do like Moore – the complete and utter opposite of Zimmer – Moore has to say, "Ditto." And, usually, any coach with options has an interest level that's equal to his assessment of a team's quarterback position.
Jacksonville has Trevor Lawrence, cheap and last year's No. 1 overall pick. Chicago has Justin Fields, a cheap rookie who has more upside than he showed this season. The Dolphins have Tua Tagovailoa, young, cheap and probably on the rise, even though Flores lost his job after a seven-game winning streak. Vegas has a playoff QB in Derek Carr. And Denver has essentially a clean slate to work with.
The Vikings have the $45 million Kirk Cousins conundrum. He is neither as bad as his haters say he is, nor as good as his supporters think he is. He is the ultimate upper-middle-of-the-road talent, but still a .500 quarterback who just played a role in the Vikings cleaning house.
Does he make the Vikings job more attractive or less? The person who says the former and can win with either a more affordable Cousins or by unloading him for a better option is perfect man for the job.
Scratch that. He'll be the perfect young, new-school, offensive-minded, media-friendly guy for the job.
Mike Conley was in Minneapolis, where he sounded the Gjallarhorn at the Vikings game, on Sunday during the robbery.
