Oct. 11—It isn’t easy for an NFL team to overshadow its own last-second victory on a 54-yard field goal, but let’s not put anything past the 2021 Minnesota Vikings. It had already been a weird season, and it got weirder on Sunday.
What happened in the immediate wake of the Vikings’ 19-17 victory over the Detroit Lions at U.S. Bank Stadium wasn’t necessarily more interesting than the game — the Vikings blew a 10-point lead in the final 3:17, then erased a one-point deficit in the final 37 seconds — but it was more curious.
First, quarterback Kirk Cousins got in the face of Mike Zimmer, grabbed him by the sweatshirt and shoved him so hard it seemed to take the head coach by surprise. Zimmer gave it right back.
Not much later, cornerback Bashaud Breeland used Twitter to tell Vikings fans they should shut the front door, a post that landed — according to screenshots — at 3:40 p.m., about 43 minutes after Greg Joseph drilled a 54-yard field goal to lift the Vikings past winless Detroit. The tweet was quickly deleted.
The video of the awkward exchange between Cousins and Zimmer circulating online was fascinating; the more one watched it, the odder it became. Why did Cousins punch his coach in the chest? Was Zimmer frowning? Why did that assistant pull Zimmer away?
Block or charge? Targeting or good, hard play?
Later, a different angle and closer shot seemed to reveal a smile on Zimmer’s face, and asked about it during Monday’s regular media session, the coach explained it was just Cousins “doing exactly what I want him to do.”
“He’s being a leader, he’s being vocal, he’s showing emotion,” Zimmer said. “I’ve been talking to him about it all year.”
He likened it to former quarterback Sam Bradford, who could make the often sedate Cousins seem ebullient, tackling him during an August 2017 preseason practice in Mankato.
“No different,” Zimmer said, “… because I was trying to get him to be the same thing. So you know, (Cousins) came over and said, ‘You like that?’ And kind of gave me a shove, and I shoved him back, and it was all good.”
So, no harm, no foul. Mystery solved. The Breeland incident isn’t so easily explained away. If you haven’t seen the since-deleted tweet, suffice to say that had you posted it, you would have been fired Monday morning.
Asked if Breeland would be disciplined, Zimmer said, “We’ll handle it.”
If the Vikings weren’t so thin at cornerback — Cameron Dantzler and Harrison Hand missed the Lions game while on the COVID-19 injured list — maybe they would release Breeland. A vulgar tweet insulting a team’s fans isn’t a good look for any team, but especially one trying to recover from a 1-3 start, and especially from a player who hasn’t been very good.
Breeland agreed to talk to reporters ahead of Sunday’s game last Friday and immediately was peppered with questions about his erratic play. At one point, he was asked bluntly whether he was embarrassed to be ranked the NFL’s worst cornerback by Pro Football Focus. He didn’t take it well and immediately indicated his displeasure with that question, and later with others.
“We need some better questions,” he said.
Zimmer said he thought Breeland played well on Sunday, and that the free agent acquisition’s unfortunate tweet was aimed at a specific reporter.
“I think if I was asked the question by that reporter that he was asked the other day, (about) being embarrassed and 103rd of PFF, I might go off on him too,” he said.
When it was suggested Breeland’s tweet was aimed at fans who booed the team on Sunday — he used the second-person plural — Zimmer disagreed.
“Yeah,” the coach said. “I don’t think it was.”
Unfortunately, many Vikings fans think it was. At any rate, can’t wait to see what’s next.