Minnesota Vikings Head Coach Mike Zimmer has assembled his 2021 Coaching Staff. Every offseason brings some coaching staff juggles. This year’s juggles included the nearly annual decision on a new Offensive Coordinator. Gary Kubiak decided soon after the season that it was time to end his long NFL career. The Vikings needed a new offensive play-caller. Again. It wasn’t the only coaching need.
Coaches not returning in 2021:
Offensive Coordinator: Gary Kubiak
Special Teams Coordinator: Marwan Maalouf
Strength and Conditioning Coordinator: Mark Uyeyama
Defensive Back Coach: Daronte Jones
Assistant Linebackers/Defensive Quality Control: Nick Rallis
Senior Defensive Assistant: Dom Capers
Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach: Chaz Mahle
Gary Kubiak-retired
Marwan Maalouf-didn’t have his contract renewed
Mark Uyeyama-didn’t have his contract renewed
Daronte Jones-plucked by LSU to be defensive coordinator
Nick Rallis-plucked by Eagles to be linebackers coach
Dom Capers-didn’t have his contract renewed
Chaz Mahle-his name and profile just vanished from the team’s website
New Coaches/Coaches in New Places:
Offensive Coordinator: Klint Kubiak
Special Teams Coordinator: Ryan Ficken
Strength and Conditioning Coordinator: Josh Hingst
Quarterbacks Coach: Andrew Janocko
Receivers Coach: Keenan McCardell
Defensive Backs Coach: Karl Scott
Defensive Quality Control Coach: Sam Siefkes
Senior Defensive Assistant: Paul Guenther
Assistant Special Teams Coach: ?
Mike Zimmer has unfortunately grown accustomed to hiring a new offensive coordinator. This will be his eighth season in Minnesota. Klint Kubiak will be his sixth offensive coordinator. He follows Norv Turner, Pat Shurmur, John DeFilippo, Kevin Stefanski, and Gary Kubiak. Some slappies in the media have landed on the conclusion that Zimmer can’t get along with his offensive coordinators. In reality, Zimmer has gotten along famously with Shurmur, Stefanski, and the Kubiaks. His relationship with Turner was fine for two years. It went south during their third season together when deep drops behind a terrible offensive line put Sam Bradford’s life in danger. Zimmer seemed to have a problem with that. Turner didn’t. The DeFilippo experiment became a mistake when the play caller seemed more invested in his next job than the offense that he was hired to run. Anyway, none of that offensive coordinator history matters now. Zimmer is gambling that 33-year old Klint Kubiak is ready to direct an NFL offense. Seeing as he’s been around the NFL for all of his life he’s probably advanced for his 33 years. Football-wise. Maintaining Kubiak Senior’s offense was very important to Zimmer. He gets that with Junior. I’m looking forward to seeing a young coach’s spin on the old offense.
As with offensive coordinator, Zimmer promoted from within to find his new special teams coordinator. When Stefanski left last offseason to be the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, Ryan Ficken became the Vikings’ most tenured coach. Brad Childress brought him to Minnesota. Leslie Frazier kept him. As did Zimmer. Ficken has done his NFL-coaching time. He’s earned the opportunity to run the team’s special teams. He probably should’ve been given the opportunity two years ago. He gets it now.
Zimmer went outside the building to find a new strength and conditioning coordinator. Josh Hingst comes from Doug Pederson’s coaching staff in Philadelphia. Hingst became available when Peterson was fired. The strength and conditioning coaching is so behind-the-scenes that it’s tough to judge the changes/impact. Hingst has experience and comes from a team that recently won a Super Bowl.
Klint Kubiak’s promotion created rolling changes through the Vikings’ offensive coaching staff. 2020 receivers coach Andrew Janocko replaced Kubiak as the quarterbacks coach. Since coming to Minnesota in 2015, Janocko has coached nearly every offensive position group. Most of his time with the Vikings has been with the offensive line. In his playing days he played quarterback. He was a backup at Pitt. He coached quarterbacks at Division II Mercyhurst during the 2014 season. He got his NFL coaching start on Greg Schiano’s Tampa Bay staff during the 2012-13 seasons. Keenan McCardell was hired to replace Janocko as the receivers coach. This is an outstanding coaching addition. McCardell was one of the league’s best receivers in the 1990s. He first appeared on my coaching radar while coaching receivers at Maryland. There he coached Stefon Diggs. McCardell has had NFL coaching stints with Washington and Jacksonville. Everywhere he’s been as a coach, his receivers got better. I look forward to the impact he’ll have on Adam Thielen, Justin Jefferson, and the rest of the Vikings’ receivers.
Most of the Vikings’ coaching churn took place on the offensive side. The defensive side also had a few changes. Last year, Zimmer brought in Dom Capers as a senior defensive assistant. I have no idea if he had an impact on the team, scheme, or players. Whether he did or not, he won’t be back. I wasn’t sure if Zimmer was going to hire another senior defensive assistant. That question was answered when Paul Guenther was hired for the role this week. It’s an intriguing hire but hardly surprising. Guenther was Zimmer’s top assistant while he was the defensive coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals. The two defensive coaches are close. Close enough that I thought that Guenther might come to Minnesota as the defensive coordinator when Zimmer was hired as the Vikings’ head coach in 2014. Instead, Zimmer didn’t rob Marvin Lewis of his coaches and Guenther was named the Bengals’ defensive coordinator. From there, Guenther became Jon Gruden’s defensive coordinator with the Oakland Raiders in 2018. His defense struggled last season and it cost him his job in December. Dom Capers brought some different defensive ideas last year. Zimmer and Guenther worked together for six years in Cincinnati. They share much of the same defensive ideas. Zimmer seems to like having additional eyes and opinions in the building and on the football field. While the impact of those additional eyes and opinions is tough to judge from a distance, it seems like a sound philosophy.
After an impressive first season in Minnesota, defensive backs coach Daronte Jones jumped to the college game to take the defensive coordinator job at LSU. Mike Zimmer went to the college ranks for his replacement. Karl Scott has been Alabama’s defensive backs coach since 2018. The Crimson Tide has had a strong tradition of sending defensive backs to the NFL. Scott’s been a big part of the recent tradition. After working for Nick Saban for a few seasons, he’ll be well prepared to work for Zimmer. Both are defensive-minded head coaches with a particularly hands-on approach to coaching defensive backs. Both favor man techniques within a zone defense. Scott appears to be a terrific addition to the Vikings’ defense. My biggest concern is that he might have a similar career path as Daronte Jones. A college team might soon come calling to hire him as their defensive coordinator. Scott received some interest this offseason from Mike Locksley to be his DC at Maryland. The other addition to the Vikings’ defensive coaching staff is interesting. Zimmer looked to the college game to find a replacement for Nick Rallis. The Vikings are hiring Wofford defensive coordinator Sam Siefkes as a defensive quality control coach. With a few years as a college defensive coordinator, even at an FCS school, Siefkes seems more experienced than most quality control coaches. He also coached inside linebackers at Wofford. Perhaps he’ll assist Adam Zimmer with the linebackers. I found a report from last week that LSU hired Siefkes to be part of Daronte Jones’ defensive coaching staff. If true, the Vikings plucked a coach from the coach that just left them.
I’ve yet to see any news of the Vikings hiring a coach to assist Ficken with the special teams. I doubt that he’ll be forced to coach the special teams alone.
Minnesota Vikings 2021 Coaches
Head Coach: Mike Zimmer
Offensive Coaches:
Offensive Coordinator: Klint Kubiak
Quarterbacks Coach: Andrew Janocko
Running Backs Coach: Kennedy Polamalu
Receivers Coach: Keenan McCardell
Tight Ends Coach: Brian Pariani
Offensive Line Coach/Run Game Coordinator: Rick Dennison
Assistant Offensive Line Coach: Phil Rauscher
Offensive Quality Control: Christian Jones
Offensive Quality Control: AC Patterson
Defensive Coaches:
Defensive Coordinator/Defensive Line Coach: Andre Patterson
Defensive Coordinator/ Linebackers Coach: Adam Zimmer
Assistant Defensive Line Coach: Imarjaye Albury
Defensive Backs Coach: Karl Scott
Assistant Defensive Backs Coach: Roy Anderson
Defensive Quality Control: Sam Siefkes
Senior Defensive Assistant: Paul Guenther
Special Teams Coaches:
Special Teams Coordinator: Ryan Ficken
Assistant Special Teams Coach:
Strength and Conditioning Coaches:
Strength and Conditioning Coordinator: Josh Hingst
Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach: Derik Keyes
No comments:
Post a Comment