Since the January hiring of Mike Zimmer, I've spent a lot of time, too much time, reflecting on the head coaching history of the Minnesota Vikings. For a team that has never won it all the Vikings haven't had many coaches in their 54-year history. Zimmer is the ninth head coach. A big reason for the small number is that Bud Grant coached the team for 18 years. He might have coached the Vikings even longer if he had accepted the job the first time that it was offered to him. He was offered the job to coach the expansion Vikings in 1961. He decided to stay with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Canadian Football League. Grant was actually offered the head coaching job three times. He accepted it twice. In 1967 and again in 1985. He had retired following the 1983 season. Les Steckel was hired to replace him. The 1984 season was an absolute disaster. Grant came back in 1985 to get the team and the franchise back on track. He then handed the team over to long-time offensive coordinator Jerry Burns in 1986. About a decade ago, then owner Red McCombs reached out to Grant to see if he had any interest in returning as the Vikings head coach. Grant has remained as a consultant since his coaching days and has an office at Winter Park so McCombs didn't have to reach far. So, the coach may or may not have been offered the job for a fourth time.
One of the things that has always struck me as interesting about the Vikings nine head coaches is that not one of them had any NFL head coaching experience when they were initially hired. Bud Grant had been a head coach in the CFL. Jerry Burns had been the head coach at the University of Iowa. Dennis Green had been the head coach at Northwestern and Stanford. Leslie Frazier had been the head coach at Trinity International University. He was actually the first head coach at the small school. So, he had the added task of actually jump-starting the entire program. Les Steckel had been an assistant coach in college and the NFL. Mike Tice had been an assistant coach with the Vikings. Brad Childress had been an assistant coach in the college ranks and the NFL for nearly 30 years before the Vikings finally gave him a shot. Mike Zimmer beat that wait. He had been working as an assistant in college and the NFL for 35 years. It's simply stunning that no NFL team had the smarts to hire Zimmer before this. Just because the Vikings hired him this time doesn't mean that they are free from blame. The team has had only nine coaches in their history but five have coached since 2000. There was ample opportunity to hire Mike Zimmer prior to 2014. Despite all those coaches in recent years this most recent coaching search was the first real coaching search. I think that they finally got this one right. I'm a big Zim fan! The Vikings first coach was Norm Van Brocklin in 1961. He had absolutely zero coaching experience. In fact, he was the MVP of the league as the quarterback of the NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles in 1960. He stepped right off the field and into the head coaching job of the Minnesota Vikings. He was as new to the job as the team was to the game.
Of the nine head coaches in Vikings history, four were hired from within. In 54 years the Vikings have only performed five coaching searches. Of those five, two barely count. Bud Grant was already a target in 1967 since he was offered the job in 1961. In 2006, the Vikings hired Brad Childress after really no search at all. I can't even recall another coach being interviewed. Norm Van Brocklin, Dennis Green, and Mike Zimmer are the only coaches that were hired after some time was invested in looking for a coach.
Every team in the NFL has their coaching curiosities. These are just a few of the Vikings.
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