Vikings Complete Coaching Staff

The Minnesota Vikings have finally completed their coaching staff. They hired Brent Salazar as their new strength and conditioning coach. While it might not grab the headlines like other coaching positions the strength and conditioning coach is important to a team's on the field success. Just ask the line of  Vikings players that have suffered pectoral muscle injuries in the last couple of seasons. Phil Loadholt, Brandon Fusco, Brian Robison, Carter Bykowski, and Josh Robinson have missed as much as entire seasons with pectoral issues. Jerick McKinnon and John Sullivan suffered injuries or setbacks while lifting weights. It's tough to win games in the NFL when a team is missing players for reasons that could be avoided. Something had to change in the manner in which the Vikings players worked with weights. Former strength and conditioning coach Evan Marcus was let go and Salazar was hired. Hopefully he can keep the players on the field while also getting them stronger and improving their conditioning.

This will be Brent Salazar's first opportunity as head strength and conditioning coach. While it's his first shot at the top strength and conditioning job he's hardly lacking in NFL experience. His first taste of the league came as an intern with the Denver Broncos in 2005. He was hired as assistant strength and conditioning coach by the Kansas City Chiefs in 2007. He's been there ever since. As an apparent testament to his coaching abilities he survived three coaching changes in Kansas City. He was hired by Herm Edwards, retained by Todd Haley, retained by Romeo Crenell, and retained by Andy Reid. Now, Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer has hired him for his first shot at the top spot.

The Vikings added three coaches since the 2015 season ended. Two of the changes were voluntary. They were forced to make the third. Mike Zimmer decided not to renew the contract of offensive line coach Jeff Davidson. Tony Sparano was hired to replace Davidson. Then there was the decision to make the change with the strength and conditioning coach. When Kirby Wilson was hired by the Cleveland Browns for their cleverly manufactured Running Game Coordinator position the Vikings were forced to find a new running backs coach. They filled the position by hiring Pat Schurmur to coach tight ends and moving previous tight ends coach Kevin Stefanski to running backs. And that completed the coaching staff of the Minnesota Vikings. Here it is.

Head Coach: Mike Zimmer
Offensive Coordinator: Norv Turner
Defensive Coordinator: George Edwards
Special Teams Coordinator: Mike Priefer
Quarterbacks: Scott Turner
Running backs: Kevin Stefanski
Receivers: George Stewart
Assistant receivers: Drew Petzing
Tight ends: Pat Schurmur
Offensive line: Tony Sparano
Assistant offensive line: Hank Fraley
Quality control-offense: Andrew Janocko
Defensive line: Andre Patterson
Assistant defensive line: Robert Rodriguez
Linebackers: Adam Zimmer
Defensive backs: Jerry Gray
Assistant defensive backs: Jonathan Gannon
Defensive assistant: Jeff Howard
Special teams assistant: Ryan Ficken
Strength and conditioning: Brent Salazar
Assistant strength and conditioning: Jeff Hurd
Assistant strength and conditioning: Chaz Mahle

This is a very experienced and interesting coaching staff. The additions of Pat Schumur and Tony Sparano bring in a lot of experience and new ideas. Zimmer strikes me as a coach that listens to his coaches without ever feeling threatened by them. He wants strong opinions and it looks like he probably has a room full of them. There's a lot of reasons to optimistic about the Vikings moving forward and the above coaching staff is one of them.