{"id":25413,"date":"2014-05-03T09:37:41","date_gmt":"2014-05-03T14:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=25413"},"modified":"2014-05-04T11:34:10","modified_gmt":"2014-05-04T16:34:10","slug":"mike-zimmers-first-vikings-mini-camp-has-even-veterans-nervous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/05\/03\/mike-zimmers-first-vikings-mini-camp-has-even-veterans-nervous\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Zimmer’s first Vikings mini-camp has even veterans nervous"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"As a brand-new head coach, Mike Zimmer is allowed to have a few more early team practices and training sessions than established coaches under the NFL’s bargaining agreement. The first mini-camp was held this week, from Tuesday to Thursday, and even the veteran players were approaching it like the first day on the job<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Matt Cassel has been around the NFL block a few times in his 10 seasons as a quarterback. Not much surprises him anymore, and yet he found himself unable to sleep the night before the Vikings minicamp this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was excited, jittery,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Chad Greenway felt those same butterflies. The veteran linebacker compared it to being a rookie or college freshman again.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was straight-up nerves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Captain Munnerlyn arrived in town as a key offseason acquisition who\u2019s supposed to help fix a shipwrecked defense, and even he felt a weird uneasiness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a new coach, it\u2019s a clean slate for everybody,\u201d he said. \u201cThat means every position is open. Except for the running back position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good call. We\u2019ll go out on a limb and suggest that Adrian Peterson probably didn\u2019t need to impress the new coaching staff in order to keep his job. But everyone else convened at Winter Park this week with an overarching sense of anxiety not normally evident at a routine offseason workout.<\/p>\n

Imagine your first day with a new boss, one who\u2019s known for his no-nonsense personality and brutal honesty. And salty language.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re on edge and trying to make a good first impression,\u201d Greenway said. \u201cYou know the draft is coming in a week. They\u2019ll probably make some decisions based off of this camp.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Mike Zimmer\u2019s first on-field introduction made players nervous and uncomfortable, that\u2019s a good thing. This organization had become too lethargic under the previous regime. The atmosphere at Winter Park became stale as losses piled up last season.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a brand-new head coach, Mike Zimmer is allowed to have a few more early team practices and training sessions than established coaches under the NFL’s bargaining agreement. The first mini-camp was held this week, from Tuesday to Thursday, and even the veteran players were approaching it like the first day on the job: Matt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[892,944,126,179],"class_list":["post-25413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","tag-mattcassel","tag-mikezimmer","tag-minnesotavikings","tag-nfl"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6BT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25414,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25413\/revisions\/25414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}