Zimmer Blames Florio for his Firing

Unless your name is Mike Florio and you are the creator/curator of a very popular sports website called ProFootballTalk.com, apparently. Because then — as Florio told Stephen Strom on a MUST-LISTEN episode of “The Sports Talkers Podcast” this week — Mike Zimmer blames you for starting the groundswell that led to his firing (transcribed below).

Holy shit @ProFootballTalk told @SStrom_ that Mike Zimmer started angry texting him the night Kirk Cousins was extended, blaming Florio for why he was fired as #Vikings head coach… pic.twitter.com/f3zYdtvy5A

— Minnesota Sports Fan (@realmnsportsfan) November 10, 2022

Strom: “What’s the most upset a player or coach has been at you?”

Florio: “The night that the Vikings extended Kirk Cousins again… …That night, in March of this year, right around the start of free agency; [Zimmer] started sending me some texts and they were not nice. And look, he thought that I was responsible for getting him fired, thinks that I started the groundswell. And at a certain point, you can only take so much before you push back. So, it was spirited, to say the least. We both said what he had to say.”

Mike Florio (PFT) – The Sports Talkers Podcast w/Stephen Strom)

This was a great interview, all around. Both Strom and Florio are Minnesota Vikings fans so they talk about the team’s past and where it’s heading, along with the rise of PFT, among other things. Florio opened up quite a bit in the 23-minute appearance. He even throws out some of the less-egregious cuss words available in the english dictionary.

Let’s break this down…

Of course, Florio lamented the unenviable position Mike Zimmer is in right now, with the passing of Adam Zimmer last week. You see it in the video above but I cut it out of the transcript. Losing a child is something we can all agree no parent should ever have to go through.

Florio was hard on Mike Zimmer late in his Vikings tenure and you’d be surprised at how much pull Mr. PFT has in the NFL community. It’s been documented. The timing of these text messages may be the most interesting part of this story, though. Zimmer didn’t start texting Florio right after he was fired. He waited months, until news broke that the Vikings were extending Kirk Cousins.

Did he realize, at that moment, the Vikings organization had decided to run it back without him. That they were keeping everyone outside of Rick Spielman and himself? Is that what sent him over the edge? Maybe it was just Zim’s dislike for Cousins that sparked his unrest and subsequent text messages that night…

We may never know, but this sure is an interesting new wrinkle to Zimmer’s demise, as Minnesota Vikings head coach, that we had yet to hear about.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

We’re (pretty much) in the NFL offseason at this point so draft and trade rumors are naturally flying high already. Let’s be honest, we’re heading into the most hopeful time of year for many franchises, the Minnesota Vikings included this offseason.

But Rick Spielman and the Vikings helped prove last offseason that the right trade can change everything about your franchise. Yes, trading for Stefon Diggs changed everything about what the Buffalo Bills were and he vaulted them into the position they sit in now.

For the Minnesota Vikings this year, it’s about climbing back into the deep playoff conversation in the NFC. But in order to do that, many fans and voices around the NFL believe this organization will have to move on from its QB, Kirk Cousins.

Goodbye Kirk?

This blog isn’t an opinion piece on Kirk Cousins. I have plenty of those, if you want to read them. Frankly, I don’t see Cousins being dealt this offseason. It would be a franchise altering move that the Vikings have shown absolutely zero interest in making.

But hell, maybe a Kirk trade is more plausible than I give credit for. Mike Florio, of ProFootballTalk.com, certainly seems to think so. (What a great quote find by SKOR North.)

"I think that's something the 49ers definitely explore…" ????????????

– @ProFootballTalk believes the 49ers should explore trading for Kirk Cousins pic.twitter.com/RXgDdKyafQ

— SKOR North (@SKORNorth) January 19, 2021

Florio is a Vikings fan and knows a lot more about the NFL than I do. Plus, if there’s one team that would make a deal for Kirk Cousins, it’d be the San Francisco 49ers. Kyle Shanahan loves Cousins and has pretty much gone on the record with that sentiment multiple times. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time those two have been linked.

How and when would it happen?

For the sake of this exercise, let’s assume the Vikings want to trade Kirk Cousins or an offer has hit their phone that they cannot turn down. If that were the case, both sides would prefer the trade to happen sooner, rather than later.

Unfortunately, nothing can be finalized until the start of the 2021 league year, March 17. That doesn’t mean trades won’t be consummated. Teams will still tentatively make deals and those tentative trades will be reported to us.. but nothing gets put on legal paper until March 17.

Contract

The hard(ish) deadline for trading Kirk Cousins is June 1. If Spielman deals Kirk before then, his dead cap hit for 2021 is $20 million, saving the Vikings $11 million of his $31 million salary.

Kirk’s 2022 salary becomes fully guaranteed on March 20 (3rd day of league year) so it’s quite possible that a deal would be agreed to before the start of the league year, on March 17, and then completed in that 3-day window between 3/17-3/20, as to avoid that trigger pre-trade.

June 1 is the “hard deadline” to complete a deal involving Cousins because his dead cap hit soars to $45 million on that day (which would cost them an additional $14 million in 2021 and another $10 million in dead cap for 2022).

Kirk Cousins Dead Cap if Traded (League Year starts March 17)

Insiders around town would tell you that the Minnesota Vikings trading Kirk Cousins is a long shot, but that doesn’t make it impossible. If Spielman does shock the Minnesota Sports world, it would be made official sometime between March 17 and June 1.

We’d likely hear about it before then, however.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

The NFL restricts its YouTube videos (of course they do) from being embedded into an article or blog like we normally do here, so you can go to their youtube page HERE to watch for yourself. The Vikings start at the 1:03 mark.

According to Adam, the Vikings are going to finish at 5-11 and the disappointment will start immediately. Looking at the schedule from a wide angle (we need to mostly throw last season for each team out the window but it’s difficult), games look to get tough early. But the Vikings open the season at home vs the Atlanta Falcons, who ESPN has picked to win 7 games this year, so hopefully we can get off to a good start, right?

via GIPHY

Here were Mr. Rank’s final results for the 2019 Minnesota Vikings:

1. Falcons – L
2. @ Packers – L
3. Raiders – W
4. @ Bears – L
5. @ Giants – W
6. Eagles – L
7. @ Lions – L
8. Redskins – W
9. @ Chiefs – L
10. @ Cowboys – L
11. Broncos – W
12. BYE
13. @ Seahawks – W
14. Lions – L
15. @ Chargers – L
16. Packers – L
17. Bears – L

Good thing we have Adam Rank so I don’t have to watch the Vikings and be heartbroken this season. What a blessing. It’s going to be terrible when we go 0-6 vs. the Division… just when you thought the Lions were back on the downfall… And, so much for US Bank Stadium being a homefield advantage… Although 3 of our 4 wins come at home, they come against the Raiders, Redskins, and Broncos. We’d might as well bring the Rutgers Football team to town for a Sunday night, amirite?

At least we get that one road upset in week 13, coming out of a bye (when nobody ever wins), on the road vs. the Seahawks (where nobody ever wins)… that’s a glimmer of future hope, right?

via GIPHY

There is no light at the end of the tunnel, Vikings fans. Here is our friend (and admitted Vikings fan himself) Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com, telling his audience on the NBC Sports Network about how much Kyle Shanahan might rather have Kirk Cousins as his quarterback, opposed to Jimmy Garoppolo, should the Vikings flop in 2019 and want to make a change going forward.

Roll that tape:

Oh, and quickly back to Adam Rank, before we finish up. He also predicted the Bears to go 16-0 and the Packers to finish 12-4… That’s easy to do when you have a shit team like the Vikings on your schedule…

Adam Rank… thank you…. for being a complete fucking moron.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan