Minnesota Vikings fired Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman, so what happens next?
By Josh Hill
It appears the Minnesota Vikings are about to embrace a full rebuild, firing both Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman on Monday morning.
Black Monday is truly a dark day for the NFL.
The annual death march for head coaches who spent the season on the hot seat comes to an end, which means the loss of employment and the upheaval of families. Sports might be the only industry in which someone losing their job isn’t met with condolences and Twitter-sized letters of recommendations from peers, rather it’s a celebration by fans of whichever team just removed someone from their post.
Suspension of disbelief is a hell of a drug.
That’s what happened on Monday in Minnesota as the Vikings fired both head coach Mike Zimmer and general manager Rick Spielman.
Whether Spielman and Zimmer deserved to be fired will be a topic of debate, but the most pressing question on the minds of Vikings fans everywhere is what happens next?
The smart move would be that Minnesota completely rebuilds itself out of the ashes of the Zimmer years, rather than repeat a vicious cycle that has been spinning since the late-90s. It seems that at every opportunity to rebuild the Vikings try to cut corners and apply a band-aid in an attempt to fix things.
Now is the time for the Vikings to take their medicine, as well as a deep breath.
Think about the landscape of the NFC and the timeline the Vikings can set themselves on by finally accepting that they need to rebuild. Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and the old guard of quarterbacks aren’t getting any younger and there hasn’t been a youth movement in the NFC the way we’ve seen in the AFC. Minnesota was barely competing with the roster it had, so there’s nothing wrong with throwing in the towel now and waiting out the clock.
If Minnesota finds an offensive-minded head coach and a general manager capable of putting the right foundational pieces in place, the development of young Vikings talent lines up with a power vacuum being created in the NFC. Brady only has so many years left, who knows what the Rams look like after Stafford leaves, and Rodgers isn’t going to last forever. Aside from Kyler Murray and Dak Prescott there isn’t an established up-and-coming quarterback who carries the same invincibility that the current guard has. There are no Patrick Mahomes’ or Joe Burrow’s in the NFC, no Belichick-ian figures looming large, or top-heavy parity. The conference is truly for the taking, with no successors in place to fill the inevitable void that will form when Brady and Rodgers leave.
The Vikings, for perhaps the first time in the franchise’s long-suffering history, have a chance to rebuild the right way and take the throne when it’s vacated — or become powerful enough to overthrow old kings.