Mike Zimmer

Eight Seasons in Minnesota

The Vikings hired Zimmer in January 2014 after 20 seasons as an NFL assistant, the last six as defensive coordinator in Cincinnati. He coached 129 regular-season games in Minnesota and finished with a winning record in four of eight years. He reached the postseason three times and won two playoff games.

Regular season

72–56–1.562 across eight seasons

Postseason

2–3Three playoff appearances

Division titles

2NFC North, 2015 and 2017

Best season

13–32017 regular season

Bars show each season's winning percentage. The 2018 record includes one tie, a 29–29 game against Green Bay. Seasons through 2020 were 16 games; 2021 was the first 17-game season.

The end, January 2022

Minnesota finished 8–9 in 2021 and missed the playoffs for the second consecutive year. On January 10, 2022, the Vikings dismissed Zimmer and general manager Rick Spielman on the same day. He has held no role with the organisation since.

13–3, the Miracle, and No Super Bowl

The 2017 Vikings went 13–3, won the NFC North and earned a first-round bye as the conference's second seed. The defence finished the season as the league's stingiest by points and yards allowed, and Case Keenum started most of the year after Sam Bradford's knee gave out.

On January 14, 2018, Minnesota beat the New Orleans Saints 29–24 in the Divisional Round at U.S. Bank Stadium on a 61-yard touchdown from Keenum to Stefon Diggs as time expired — the first playoff game in NFL history to end on a touchdown with no time remaining. It is now known as the Minneapolis Miracle.

The other two playoff trips

• 2015: 11–5 and an NFC North title, then a 10–9 Wild Card loss to Seattle at TCF Bank Stadium on a missed short field goal in one of the coldest games in NFL history.
• 2019: 10–6 as a wild card, a 26–20 overtime win at New Orleans in the Wild Card Round, then a 27–10 loss at San Francisco in the Divisional Round.

Double-A Gap, and Why Everyone Copied It

Zimmer spent his entire NFL career on defence before Minnesota hired him — defensive backs and then coordinator in Dallas, a season in Atlanta, six years in Cincinnati. The look most closely associated with him is double-A gap pressure: both inside linebackers walk up to the line of scrimmage and stand in the two A gaps, immediately either side of the centre, usually on an obvious passing down.

The point is ambiguity rather than the blitz itself. Any of the crowding defenders may rush and any may drop into coverage, which forces the offensive line to declare a protection before it knows who is actually coming. The Vikings' own account of the scheme describes Eric Kendricks and Anthony Barr crowding the centre with safety Harrison Smith and a nickel corner on the edges, where “each player could blitz and each could drop into coverage, which usually leads to mass confusion for an opposing quarterback and his offensive line.”

By 2018 Zimmer was publicly complaining that the rest of the league had caught up, telling reporters that other teams had “been stealing our blitzes for a long time” and that roughly 10 or 12 clubs were by then running a version of Minnesota's base coverage. The defence's results bear out the reputation: his 2017 unit led the NFL in both points and yards allowed.

The Right Eye

During the 2016 season Zimmer suffered a detached retina in his right eye. The problem began as a scratch to the eye during Minnesota's Monday night game against Chicago on October 31, 2016, and worsened over the following month. He underwent emergency surgery on November 30, 2016, and as a result missed the Vikings' game at Dallas the next night, December 1 — the only game he missed as head coach.

Further operations followed; contemporary reporting put the total at eight procedures on the eye over roughly two years. Speaking to the club a year after the emergency surgery, Zimmer said his vision had settled and was unlikely to change either way: “I don't think it will get any better. I don't think it will get any worse.” He described blind spots and acuity that varied day to day. He continued to coach with the impairment for the rest of his Vikings tenure.

Injury

Detached retina, right eye

Emergency surgery

November 30, 2016

Games missed

One — at Dallas, December 1, 2016

Outcome

Permanent vision loss in the eye; he returned to the sideline and coached five more seasons

Forty-Six Years on a Sideline

Zimmer began coaching in 1979 as an assistant at Missouri and did not run an NFL defence until 2000, or a team until 2014. The Minnesota job is the only head coaching position he has held at any level.

1. 1979–1980 Assistant coachMissouri
2. 1981–1982 Assistant coachWeber State
3. 1983–1988 Defensive coordinatorWeber State
4. 1989–1993 Defensive coordinatorWashington State
5. 1994 Assistant coachDallas Cowboys
6. 1995–1999 Defensive backs coachDallas Cowboys
7. 2000–2006 Defensive coordinatorDallas Cowboys
8. 2007 Defensive coordinatorAtlanta Falcons
9. 2008–2013 Defensive coordinatorCincinnati Bengals
10. 2014–2021 Head coachMinnesota Vikings
11. 2022 Defensive analyst / consultantJackson State
12. 2023 Defensive analyst / consultantColorado
13. 2024 Defensive coordinatorDallas Cowboys

Zimmer did not coach in 2025. His son, Adam Zimmer, worked on his Vikings staff throughout the tenure — linebackers coach from 2014, then co-defensive coordinator alongside Andre Patterson in 2020 and 2021. Adam Zimmer died in 2022, aged 38.

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