Former Cowboys DC wants to return to coaching in 2024
A longtime Cowboys assistant who’s been out of the league for the past two seasons will likely be back on a sideline soon, although which team’s colors he’ll be wearing remains to be seen.
Mike Zimmer worked in Dallas from 1994 through 2006 and was promoted from assistant nickel coach to defensive back coach and then finally, to defensive coordinator along the way. He won a ring with the team for Super Bowl XXX and went on to have DC stints with two other NFL teams before being hired as the Vikings head coach in 2014.
After going 72-46-1 in Minnesota and winning two NFC North crowns, Zimmer was fired in early 2022, bringing an end to his eight-year tenure.
Now 67, Zimmer says he wants to get back into coaching.
“I just think it’s something that’s in your blood. My dad was a high school coach for a long, long time. I love being around the players. I love the challenge of trying to make an organization better,” Zimmer said in a recent interview with NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.
“The biggest thing is I love to teach, I love to coach,” he added. “When I was a head coach, I was always trying to teach players, try to get them better.”
Zimmer will be doing just that next month when he serves as one of the head coaches of the Polynesian Bowl, the collegiate all-star game to be played in Honolulu on Jan. 19. Zimmer will coach Team Mauka (Mountain); his former Cincinnati Bengals boss Marvin Lewis will coach Team Makai (Ocean).
Where Zimmer goes after that game has become a topic of some debate in football circles. He’ll certainly get good, long looks as a head coach, but for the purposes of this exercise, we’ll look at three intriguing possibilities should he be interested in a defensive coordinator job in 2024.
An offer for Cowboys fans
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Colorado Buffaloes
Green Bay Packers
Zimmer’s name has popped up on the radar of Packers fans who are ready for the team to move on from current DC Joe Barry. Green Bay, currently 7-8, has just a 26% chance of making the postseason. They rank in the league’s bottom 10 in yards allowed per game and the bottom half in points allowed per game.
Zimmer is, of course, familiar to the Packers faithful after his eight seasons as a rival in Minnesota. He even joked with Pelissero that he “waited for Aaron Rogers to get out” of the division before making his own return to coaching.
Apart from his consulting for Colorado, Zimmer has apparently found time to keep himself abreast of current trends in the pro game, according to what he told Pelissero.
“Well, I’ve got about 270 acres in Kentucky, so that keeps me a little bit busy,” Zimmer said. “But I built a little office building; I go over there, watch a tape, and study analytics, and all the different things that you’ve got to do. So just staying on top of the game. … I get a lot of the game tapes. I go through a lot of the third- and fourth-down situations, a lot of the red zone. All the little game management things you try to do.”
Dallas Cowboys
Pure speculation, of course, but it’s not unreasonable to assume that a big change or two might be coming to the Cowboys’ defensive coaching staff. Current DC Dan Quinn has turned down head coaching positions after interviewing the past two offseasons; sooner or later, an opportunity is going to come along that he won’t be able to say no to.
If Quinn leaves Dallas, he might be able to convince some of his very qualified assistants- like passing game coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. or defensive backs coach Al Harris- to go with him. But both could also get coordinator interviews in Dallas- or Green Bay, for that matter, given both men’s history there- if the position were to come open.
Zimmer and Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy have plenty of familiarity after both coached in the NFC North. With McCarthy’s current workload in Dallas also including offensive play-calling, it’s reasonable to think he would prefer a defensive coordinator who- like Quinn- has previous head coaching experience to more fully handle things on that side of the locker room.
Zimmer’s Vikings had a 5-4-1 head-to-head record against McCarthy’s Packers. He’s got skins on the wall, and McCarthy known him. Bringing a piece of the dynasty days back to Dallas as McCarthy tries to push an almost-there 2024 team over the hump wouldn’t be the craziest idea ever.
