Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer has held several notable positions around the NFL dating back to 1994 with the Dallas Cowboys, but he was only hired as a head coach once. That was with the Minnesota Vikings from 2014 to 2021. For the majority of that time, he worked with GM Rick Spielman. The beginning of the end of both of their tenures seems to have involved current Pittsburgh Steelers backup QB Justin Fields.
Fields was a highly sought-after prospect in the 2021 NFL Draft and Spielman, although he had QB Kirk Cousins under contract, was a big fan of Fields. So much so that he was willing to trade up from the 23rd overall pick to attempt to acquire him.
That apparently started the rift between Zimmer and Spielman, according to an article in The Minnesota Star Tribune by Mark Craig.
“The first round, Rick [Spielman] tried to trade up for Justin Fields, who hasn’t done anything,” Zimmer told the Star Tribune in an interview during training camp last month.
It was ultimately the Chicago Bears that ended up selecting Fields with the 11th overall pick in the first round. The Bears traded up from pick No. 20 nine spots to select Fields. Apparently Zimmer wasn’t a big fan of Fields, or what they would have to give up to get him.
Mike Tomlin spoke about acquiring Fields via Sirius XM Radio in March shortly after the trade. He seems to have liked Fields at the time, but called himself a “window shopper” because they didn’t lose enough games to be in the running for a prospect of his caliber.
In hindsight, Fields didn’t exactly pan out as a first-round quarterback. He was traded to the Steelers for just a conditional 2025 sixth-round pick. But it is puzzling for someone to say “hasn’t done anything” referring to his college production.
Fields was highly productive at Ohio State. In his final two seasons there, he had 5,373 passing yards, a completion percentage in the high sixties, and 63 touchdowns to just 9 interceptions. He also had another 867 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns on the ground. He was a highly sought-after prospect for a reason.
It wasn’t just Fields that they had disagreements on. Zimmer was also on record saying that he walked out of the room after Spielman spent third-round picks on Kellen Mond, Chazz Surratt, Wyatt Davis, and Patrick Jones II. They had four third-round picks, and Zimmer told the Star Tribune that he walked out of the room and didn’t want to speak to Spielman after he selected Mond at the beginning of the third round.
“You took four backups when we had guys there I thought were starters,” Zimmer said via Star Tribune.
The article details a bunch of drama between Zimmer and Spielman, so it is probably no surprise that they were both fired after going 8-9 in the 2021 season.
But in the drama, Fields caught some strays that are now airing publicly. Fields has been pretty consistent telling the media that he doesn’t pay attention to anything being said about him online, but it is sometimes impossible when your name is in the news cycle.
At the very least, this adds some extra motivation for Week 5 when the Steelers host the Cowboys on Sunday Night Football. I would be surprised if Russell Wilson is benched by then, but the Steelers have been pretty open recently about using specialized packages for Justin Fields.
I am sure he will privately want to stick it to Zimmer for needlessly involving him in this public airing of dirty laundry between himself and the Vikings organization at the time.
