The Vikings have turned their offensive coaching staff over, and Mike Zimmer seems excited about it.
While they’re only a season removed from a playoff run (and a missed field goal away from advancing), the Vikings shuffled the deck.
After Norv Turner resigned midseason, they made Pat Shurmur the interim and then gave him the job full time, got rid of Norv’s son Scott turner the quarterbacks coach, and brought in two new assistants, tight ends coach Clancy Barone and running backs coach Kennedy Polamalu and moved Kevin Stefanski to quarterbacks.
“I think Pat did a great job coming in under difficult circumstances,” Zimmer said, via Andrew Krammer of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “Pat and I have a good relationship; we’re able to communicate very easily. Pat is very open to suggestions to ideas, you know, he’s not one of those guys who kind of knows everything. It’s been good and obviously the relationship with Sam [Bradford] and Pat has been good as well. . . .
“We’ve been doing a lot of things with the offense, sitting and going through the cutups in the mornings and I sit and go through the cutups with the defense in the afternoons. And so we’re just starting at the beginning process, but you know it’s kind of refreshing to be with almost a new system now.”
Of course, they’ve ranked 27th, 29th and 28th in total offense during his three seasons in charge, so some degree of change was warranted.
And considering the possibility of further personnel upheaval this offseason (specifically the uncertainty about running back Adrian Peterson), the theme of change figures to continue for the Vikings.