There’s been plenty of talk in recent days about the fact that former Vikings coach Mike Zimmer didn’t like current Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins.
Earlier this week, the play-by-play voice of the Vikings, Paul Allen, offered some insight as to an October incident that resulted in coach and quarterback pushing and shoving each other during a moment of celebration after a come-from-behind (after blowing a late lead) win over the Lions.
“Back to like the middle of the season,” Allen said on his KFAN radio show, via SI.com. Home game and it’s a victory. Yeah, Zim snapped when Cousins pushed him. And looking back at it, the former head coach got that side eye and rage steaming from his nostrils. And he wanted to go. But then he didn’t want to go. Kirk sensed a free shot during the working relationship and he got one in.”
It was more than a push from Cousins. He grabbed the front of Zimmer’s shirt and twisted it. And there clearly was something more than celebration in the exchange.
At the time, both parties tried to downplay it. No one really believed it.
Former Vikings linebacker Ben Leber, who currently works on the team’s radio broadcasts and who previously made some waves by saying Zimmer didn’t like Cousins, believes that things got off the rails last year over Cousins’s refusal to get a COVID vaccination.
“I think it really came to a head during training camp when Kirk and others -- and that’s the thing, there were others on the team that decided not to get vaccinated,” Leber said on Colin Cowherd’s podcast, via USA Today. “But it was like Kirk was being singled out. You could see the disdain that Zimmer had towards the situation.”
Zimmer never really masked his disdain toward anyone. For any reason. It sort of worked for him as a head coach, until it didn’t.
That’s the biggest problem with the Parcells-style approach. If it works, you’re a winner. If it doesn’t, well, you’re just another asshole.