Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer to have emergency eye surgery

If things aren’t going badly enough for the Minnesota Vikings lately, now they may have to do without their head coach.

After a 5-0 start this season, the Minnesota Vikings have lost five of six games to leave themselves clinging to playoff hopes as the calendar moves to December. Thursday night’s game against the 10-1 Dallas Cowboys looks like a virtual must win, so Wednesday night’s news will not help that effort.

Surgery to repair a torn retina caused Zimmer to delay his media availability by a day around a month ago, after the Vikings’ Halloween night loss to the Chicago Bears. He had another procedure on Nov. 9, which caused him to miss Minnesota’s kicker tryouts when they were looking to replace Blair Walsh.

The Vikings have released a statement regarding Zimmer’s emergency eye surgery.

Zimmer’s status for Thursday night’s game against Dallas is obviously up in the air, at best, and if he were a player he may be optimistically listed as doubtful right now. Vikings general manager Rick Spielman is scheduled to be available on a conference call at 10 a.m. CT Thursday morning, at which point more about Zimmer’s status may be known.

Zimmer has two former NFL head coaches on his staff: offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur and offensive line coach Tony Sparano. Any contingency play for the head coach’s absence surely includes Shurmur and Sparano taking on broader responsibilities, as ESPN’s Adam Schefter has suggested.

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Injuries have hampered the Vikings all season, and the head coach has not been immune. But a missed game by Zimmer would be something new, and yet another setback for the team to overcome.