MINNEAPOLIS – Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer has accepted the terms for a multi-year contract extension, sources told ESPN.
Zimmer’s contract expired after the 2020 season. News of the new deal was first reported by the Star Tribune.
The extension is slated to keep Zimmer in Minnesota a year later when quarterback Kirk Cousins’ deal runs out after the 2022 season. The Vikings and cousins agreed to a two-year, $ 66 million extension in March.
Zimmer’s contract talks were in the closing stages of this week, before the Vikings rookies showed up at the TCO Performance Center in Eagan, Minnesota, for their first round of COVID-19 testing before the start of the training. Zimmer, 64, is entering his seventh season with the Vikings after being hired as the ninth head coach of the franchise in 2014.
Zimmer is the third-most winning head coach in the team’s history, with a record of 57-38-1 (.599), and has led the Vikings to the postseason in three of the past six years (2015, 2017 and 2019). Minnesota enters the 2020 season after an overtime victory in the NFC wild card round in New Orleans and the loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the divisional playoffs.
Before the start of the playoffs, Vikings owners Zygi and Mark Wilf issued a 32-word statement, 48 hours before the start in New Orleans, endorsing Zimmer and GM Rick Spielman amid rumors about the job security of both men.
“We appreciate the leadership of Mike and Rick and we intend for Mike to continue as head coach of the Minnesota Vikings and Rick leading our soccer operations, next year and beyond,” the statement read.
Throughout their tenure in Minnesota, Zimmer’s teams have ranked no less than ninth in defensive defense, achieving top-5 results in 2015 and 2019, along with a first-place mark in 2017.
.
