At least Vikings coach Mike Zimmer is keeping his sense of humor -- we think.
At a press conference on Wednesday, he brought up a question he received earlier in the week from reporters in Arizona.
"They asked me on the Arizona conference call how I keep the team mentally stable," Zimmer said, via The St. Paul Pioneer Press. "Well, I have to worry about myself."
Our own Marc Sessler chronicled Zimmer's mental style back in October when the team was 5-0 and shredding opponents with the aid of a world-beating defense. The Vikings have not won a game since, but the wonderful anecdotes in the piece hold up well and should provide hope for Vikings fans in the future.
Like Bruce Arians, Zimmer was picked over hundreds of times before his opportunity came to become a head coach. In those years as an assistant or coordinator, he's seen just about everything -- even something potentially comparable to the disastrous string of events that have soured the Vikings' season to this point. The fact that he's still joking about his situation shows that, despite his tough exterior, he's a balanced and measured coach behind the scenes.
This weekend's matchup is interesting in that it pits two of these coaches against one another. Both could use this win as a vaulting point for a season that could still very much go either way. Zimmer is hoping for his own sake that he finally catches a break or two.
