C'Mon Man!

Several in the media were up to their ridiculous selves when they grabbed hold of a comment from Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer, took it out of context, and tried to create some drama. After wrapping up his team's Mini Camp this week, Zimmer was chatting with KFAN's Paul Allen:

"Everybody keeps coming up to me and saying 'Hey coach do you want to have some team-building? Are we going to have a team building day?' I said, No, we're going to work. I said we've got a lot of work to do. We need to get better. We're not into the team-building thing. In my opinion you don't get better by playing ping pong, you get better by winning. And that's how were gonna team-build. We're gonna win."

Mike Zimmer said that on the radio. A lot of people heard it. He was talking about his team. And only his team. Several in the media heard that, grabbed the ping pong comment, and skipped to the Green Bay Packers with it. They took it as a Zim-shot at the Vikings division rival. To borrow from ESPN, "C'Mon Man!" Are you serious? I wish that I could use the NFL offseason as an excuse for this nonsense but the media does this sort of shit all of the time. And the fans follow. Packers fans weren't too thrilled with Zimmer because the media clowns led them down that path. ESPN, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and USA Today put up articles about Zimmer poking the reigning division kings. The media clowns even asked Packers head coach Mike McCarthy about the comments. He laughed about it and said that it doesn't bug him. Why would it? McCarthy probably wanted to say, "C'Mon Man!" He's been around long enough to understand the idiotic motives of the media. 

The Packers did cancel Wednesday's practice so that they could all shoot some sporting clays together. No ping pong. They even have a tradition dating to before McCarthy of canceling a June practice to take part in a non-football activity. A team-building activity. Activities that have included skeet-shooting, bowling, dodge ball, and a home derby. Fun! But they have never canceled a practice for ping pong. Maybe when Curly Lambeau was calling the shots. Why anyone would think that Zimmer's ping pong comment had anything to do with the Green Bay Packers is an absolute mystery. If anything, Zimmer was taking a shot at his own team for trying to get out of some football work.

If this is the sort of nonsense that the media is going to use to fill their time, and ours, over the weeks before training camp it's going to be long five weeks.