The Rick Spielman “Scorched Earth” tour continues…but what’s the play?
AJ Mansour
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Getting let go from a job is almost always an awkward, uncomfortable experience. But there’s a few different paths that you can take when you’re ready to handle it and deal with the reality.
Option 1 – You go about your merry way and fall out of the limelight to live a life of anonymity from the world you once occupied space.
Option 2 – You use it as a turning point, a source of motivation if you will. You might be disappointed with the decision to move on but instead fading away, you opt to use the situation as a slingshot propelling you on to bigger and better opportunities.
Option 3 – You go full on scorched earth, throwing others under the bus, pointing fingers and blame away from yourself in hopes to clear your name via disparaging others.
For one reason or another, former Minnesota Vikings General Manager Rick Spielman seems to have chosen option number three and his “scorched earth” tour continued on Tuesday afternoon.
Now, this isn’t the first stop on the tour for Spielman who after just over a week of silence following his dismissal surfaced on the “Move The Sticks” podcast last week. Speaking with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks Spielman mostly spoke in subtleties without using any specific names, but clearly referencing specific situations that would point towards former head coach Mike Zimmer.
For instance, on said podcast Spielman explained how hard it was for him to succeed at his job, specifically the responsibilities of drafting players based on specific schemes, only to have coaching changes each season, keeping the schemes as a moving target year-to-year.
“I think we went through maybe six different [offensive coordinators] during coach Zimmer’s era…It was constantly like a moving target all the time. You try to do your best to adapt and the guys that we do have, can you do some things from your scheme to adjust to their skill set? But when you have the coaching turnover that it is and you’re always trying to marry up the personnel to the scheme, are there ways that some of these coaches that say, ‘Hey, I have to adjust my scheme to what the players can do as well.’ Some coaches are saying ‘This is what we run and this is what we have to have and if they don’t fit this then I don’t want them.”
Then on Tuesday of this week, Spielman joined The Herd with Colin Cowherd and had another set of disparaging remarks towards the situation in Minnesota at the end.
“I think the No. 1 thing you’re looking for is that head coach has to have a relationship with that quarterback,” Spielman said. “And can a defensive head coach connect with that quarterback? Now, you know an offensive coach is probably going to be able to because that’s his job. But can a defensive coach do the same thing?”
Now this response could simply be interpreted as an opinion on the future makeup for the Minnesota Vikings or any other team in the league, but given the history and what’s happened of late, it’s clear that it’s a reference the lack of relationship that Kirk Cousins and Mike Zimmer had here in Minnesota.
This isn’t the first that we’ve heard about the lack of relationship between Zimmer and Cousins.
Remember it was only this year that we first heard Kirk Cousins making a big deal of a new meeting that he and Zimmer had on the regular to talk over the scheme and upcoming opponents. One might thing that this would have been something that existed prior to the fourth season of a coach/QB relationship. Then there’s the remarks on social media from Everson Griffen one year ago which eluded to the idea that Zimmer never wanted Kirk in Minnesota.
There’s a few things to take out of Spielman’s recent comments. It’s clear that he’s trying to direct the narrative a little bit. These interviews and comments about the difficulty to work with Zimmer are in a sense Spielman’s version of the reported PowerPoint presentation that Zimmer held during the end of the season showcasing why all the struggles weren’t necessarily his fault.
But what’s the play? Why go through the effort of dragging someone else through the mud? It’s not exactly a recommended move for someone who wants to get involved with another front office to highlight how dysfunctional your previous stop actually was. But it is exactly the kind of thing that would work well for someone who has interest in working as an analyst. Whether it be T.V. or radio, this sort of diagnosis could be precisely the kind of thing that a broadcast would be looking to get from a contributor.
Either way, it’s an interesting play and it doesn’t appear that Rick is ready to slow down or pull back any time soon. I’m not sure where his next interview will be, but I’m intrigued by what he might say whenever the opportunity presents itself!
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Aj Mansour is a member of The Power Trip Morning Show on KFAN and works for iHeartMedia and the Vikings Radio Network. He’s also a senior writer for VikingsTerritory.com. Be sure to follow him on social media for the latest Vikings news and big opinions – @AjKFAN
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