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.
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