Mike Zimmer: 'I haven't heard anything about my job status'
The Mike Zimmer era isn't officially over, but the tone the 65-year-old Minnesota Vikings head coach carried during his postgame press conference following Sunday's 31-17 victory over the Chicago Bears appeared to match reports that he will be fired after eight seasons in Minnesota.
Zimmer was asked about his job status by Chris Tomasson of the Pioneer Press.
"No, I haven't heard anything about my job status," Zimmer said, pointing at Tomasson and saying "I haven't heard anything about yours, either."
Zimmer added: "Not my choice. Not my decision."
Zimmer deflected questions about his future with the team, Asked to reflect on his eight years in Minnesota, Zimmer said: Let's not go there today. You want to talk about it tomorrow, then let's talk about ti tomorrow. This isn't the time to recollect for eight years."
Quarterback Kirk Cousins, whose future with the team is also up in the air as he carries a $45 million cap hit into his final season under contract with the Vikings, didn't go into many details when asked about his time with Zimmer.
"It's been four years, a real privilege to work with him. I'll leave it at that and we'll see what happens," said Cousins during the Vikings Radio Network postgame show.
Zimmer ranks third in Vikings coaching history in games (129), wins (72) and winning percentage (.560), trailing Bud Grant and Dennis Green in all of the major coaching categories.
But in eight years under Zimmer, the Vikings reached the playoffs just three times (2015, 2017, 2019), for a total of five playoff games and only two wins, both coming against the Saints: The "Minneapolis Miracle" in 2017-18 and the overtime win at New Orleans in 2019-20.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.