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https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/09/13/mike-zimmer-minnesota-vikings-coach-eye-surgery
To listen to the men who have worked with Zimmer is to believe that this country music fan with one good eye (and “no ass,” according to Vikings cornerback Terence Newman, who says, “I don’t know how his jeans stay up”) has a better rapport with his largely twentysomething, mostly African-American roster than any coach in the league.
“I’m not gonna say he’s a players’ coach, because he hates that,” says Minnesota safety Harrison Smith. “Other coaches, the way they talk to players, it’s just not ... real. Nothing about [Zimmer] is fabricated, nothing’s fake.”“I didn’t know Mike when I went to Dallas,” says Bill Parcells, who took over the Cowboys five years after Switzer resigned. But Parcells soon saw that his new defensive coordinator “was passionate, committed. He was a tireless worker. Cared about players. I inherited some people who weren’t like that. But Mike was a guy I gravitated to.”
“It’s like he grew up in the inner city, man,” says Sanders. “He relates to everyone. And he’s intelligent. What Zim said was going to happen in a game, it happened. When your best players see that and start buying in, then everybody follows.”
That was the path the Vikings were on one year ago. Coming off a 2015 season in which quarterback Teddy Bridgewater emerged as a budding star and the Vikes snapped the Packers’ string of four division titles, expectations were high. They had but one flaw. “I can still remember talking to [Minnesota GM] Rick [Spielman] before last season and saying, ‘Man, if Teddy goes down, we’re in trouble,’” Zimmer says. “ ‘We can’t lose Teddy.’”
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