Mike Zimmer has opened up about his son Adam’s death, revealing how difficult it was for him to get fired by the Vikings when the father and son were let go following the 2021 season.
Zimmer, who returned to the NFL this year as the Cowboys defensive coordinator, brought his son to Minnesota with him in 2014 as a linebackers coach and he was promoted to co-defensive coordinator in 2020.
Adam Zimmer joined the Bengals as an offensive assistant before he died at 38 from chronic alcohol abuse in November 2022, which was 13 years after Mike Zimmer’s wife Vikki died.
“He loved football so much and he was telling me his career was ruined because he got fired,” Zimmer told the Star Tribune. “It tore him up. I told him everybody gets fired in this job, but it was hard on him.”
After the firings, Adam spent a lot of time in 2022 at his father’s Kentucky ranch.
“Every Sunday, that first year until Adam passed, we went and played golf together at Triple Crown Country Club in Union, Kentucky, right by the ranch,” Zimmer told the paper. “He called me a couple days before he passed and said he was coming back to the ranch on Monday. He said, ‘I got one more thing to do.’ He never made it back.”
Zimmer wasn’t ready to coach last year in the wake of his son’s death, and he wishes he could be with him on his Cowboys staff.
“The shame is Adam would have loved being here helping us put this defense together in Dallas,” Zimmer told the Tribune. “[Long-time confidante] Paul Guenther is here with me. I kept thinking, ‘Man, I wish Adam was here with us.’ He was so smart. When I can’t remember something or get stuck, Adam could tell me exactly what I was thinking.
“So, it’s been tough. But it helps getting around the players again. We joke around. I tease them, they tease me. Like the old days.”
Zimmer, who was on the Cowboys’ staff from 1994-2006, was the Vikings’ head coach for eight years; he made the playoffs three times and reached the NFL Championship game during the 2017-18 season.
They went 8-9 in 2021.
Adam got his start as an assistant linebackers coach with the Saints in 2006 before joining the Chiefs in 2010 in the same role.
He was an assistant defensive backs coach for the Bengals in 2013 when his dad was the team’s defensive coordinator.