Spent a chunk of my evening watching old Zimmer press conferences and interviews from his Vikings years, as well as comments from non-Cowboys media about the guy.
Takeaway number one was how that Vikings media on his way out the door were just mercilessly popping him for a "toxic culture." But you kinda expect that that would be the case for any head coach whose welcome seems to have reached its endpoint and who seemed best known for how derisive/demeaning he could be when a player got on his shitlist.
Takeaway number two was that he continues to command super respect from his greatest players... not so much his lesser players.
Takeaway number three was that Zimmer and Belichick are not much different from each other in terms of persona. They both are very bland people, with very uninteresting things to ever say when talking about their teams to the media. And get this... on the sense of humor scale, I say Belichick has a slight edge even
. Not just saying that.
Takeaway number four was that DAL defensive players are about to experience a whole other experience, it would seem.
How will they react? This isn't Bill Parcells or Jimmy Johnson who could simultaneously be an asschewer to their players, and at the same time, command a room with their animation, wisdom, and clever way with words. With Zimmer, you mostly get asschewer in public, and wisdom is restricted to one-on-one conversations. That's it.
Takeaway number five is that I sure hope all these people... and there are a lot, and they're virtually all people whose football careers demand regard... will be proven right about Zimmer's genius as a defensive architect.
That's key, really. He made the claim to Tom Pelissero that, in so many words, he's basically taken his time off to replicate what Mike McCarthy did in his time off (as DQ, of course, also claimed to have done)... study video and do a lot of self-critique in order to emerge from that process with some novel approaches for next NFL job he would get.
This is coming from someone who initially loved the hire.
I still like the hire. But I've argued with myself to a larger degree, and "like" is a more balanced descriptor. And being fair to Zimmer, critical thought applied to every candidate named almost certainly would render "like" as a leg-up on the other options. Every candidate, if we're sober-minded, has a package of desirable and less than desirable traits/experiences.
In baseball terms, I've heard today this should be considered a "home run."
Not from me.
It's a double to deep right, and the runner has a chance over the next little bit to prove he can stretch it into a triple. That is, if we see substantiated reason to believe Zimmer's overcome any of the downsides I've discussed, and accentuated any of the upsides to some degree... he's got a shot at third base.
(The home run tier, from where I sit, is reserved for a very special class of hires, where there's practically all upside, no downside.)
