Mike Zimmer has been the head coach of the Vikings since 2014 and every day since he was hired he’s had a pure hatred for one thing and one thing only: Pro Football Focus.
That might be a stretch, but the old school football coach has advised everyone take Pro Football Focus statistics and grades with a grain of salt. Oh by the way, the NFL partners with Pro Football Focus.
So what did Zimmer do Monday after finding out that Vikings linebacker Eric Kendricks is rated by Pro Football Focus as the second-best linebacker in the NFL?
Here’s how the exchange with a reporter went.
Reporter: “You’re not a Pro Football Focus fan…”
Zimmer: “No I’m not.”
Reporter: “They have him ranked as the No. 2 linebacker in all the NFL.”
Zimmer: “Yes! I was excited about that.”
Mike Zimmer is pumped that Eric Kendricks is PFF's No. 2 LB in the entire #NFL this season! pic.twitter.com/VV8sKVBS91
— Adam Patrick (@adampatrickNFL) October 14, 2019
Good or bad, Zimmer doesn’t really care what Pro Football Focus says about his players.
“The last thing that I want to talk about before I let you guys go is this Pro Football Focus thing,” Zimmer said in 2014. “I know everybody wants to get the scoop on this, but quite honestly there’s not really anybody… I look at the grades and I can’t tell you what a 0.7 is or anything like that, but I know that the people that are grading our games and our defenses and our offenses, they don’t know if the tackle gets beat inside, if we weren’t sliding out to the nickel or who our guys are supposed to cover. I guarantee they don’t know who is in our blitz package and what they are supposed to do. I would just ask everybody to take that with a grain of salt, including our fans. We as coaches get paid a whole bunch of money to do the jobs that we do, evaluate the players that we evaluate and grade them how we grade them and not based on someone else.”
The good news is that Zimmer was in a good mood and able to have a little fun with reporters.
