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Former Minnesota Vikings linebacker Ben Leber has a pulse on the Vikings locker room as a sideline reporter and radio broadcaster, but even he’s certain he isn’t breaking any news by saying “Mike Zimmer didn’t like Kirk Cousins.”
And while the quarterback-head coach duo’s relationship is a moot topic with a new regime in Minnesota, it is important when considering what went wrong in the Cousins-Zimmer era and what expectations to place on Cousins with newly hired head coach and confidant Kevin O’Connell.
Leber recently offered his insight into the Zimmer fallout last January and what to expect moving forward.
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‘He Was Never Allowed to Earn the Trust of the Team’
Appearing on the Zach Gelb Show on CBS Sports Radio on July 15, Leber espoused the idea that Cousins’ lack of visible leadership and potential locker room tension was due to the fact Zimmer never truly gave the team to Cousins.
“I think he’s gonna finally thrive, really thrive, in a system and a coach that actually respects him,” Leber said, per CBS Sports Radio. “I mean, It’s not like I’m not breaking news here that Mike Zimmer did not like Kirk Cousins. And I think that showed in the way that Kirk behaved and the way that he carried himself. The team was never given to him, or he was never allowed to earn the trust of the team, because the head coach I think just didn’t like him.”
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It’s clear that there was growing tension in the Vikings locker room — from Stefon Diggs forcing his way out of the organization to Everson Griffen calling out Cousins on social media and tweeting “Ask ZIMMER if he wanted Kirk.”
However, in the months after Zimmer’s departure, Cousins has turned some heads with his leadership. Leber revealed that after a team meeting in March, Cousins “blew everybody away.”
“Apparently, he had been taking notes all season long and laid it all out,” Leber said on the “Unrestricted with Ben Leber” podcast in late March. “I guess the guys were like, ‘Damn, this is a guy that we can ride with that’s going to have our backs at all times…’ ”
‘We Couldn’t Win With the Crap Defense’
While Cousins’ contract is often a point of blame for Zimmer’s once top-ranked defense that was aging out, Zimmer couldn’t adapt and evolve in the following years. Despite spending over $46 million on the defense in free agency last season, the Vikings allowed the third-most points in the NFL, Zimmer’s worst ranking since he landed his first defensive coordinator job with the Dallas Cowboys in 2000.
“That was a top-10 offense last year, with a very green, first-time offensive coordinator [Klint Kubiak],” Leber added. “Where was their defense ranked last year? Thirty-first. The year before that, I think they were ranked 27th. So people can rail on Kirk and rail on this offense and say we can’t win with him or we can’t win with this offense. I say that’s total BS. We couldn’t win with the crap defense that we’ve had the last two years. We couldn’t stop the run, at all. Ever. And then in key moments of the games… we couldn’t stop any two-minute offense. So, to me, the biggest liability of this team has been defense. All this team has to do is play good team defense, finish in the mid-teens at the end of the season, and they’re playoff bound and they can make some noise.”
A playoff berth will be the hinge of whether Minnesota continues to try to see the Cousins experiment through.
Anything short of that would warrant a rebuild at many key positions groups and closing of Cousins’ stead with the Vikings, a decision the new regime under Kwesi Adofo-Mensah will have to come to terms with soon if they hope to draft the franchise’s next quarterback and have him ready for the 2024 season.
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