Zim Tzu Is A Big Game Hunter

ED NOTE: This has bad words. None of the other things we write on here do, but this one does. It seems to be a popular bit, so until the law catches up with me, I’m going to keep doing it. Thanks for understanding, and thanks for not reading and not letting your kids read it if bad language isn’t your thing. Hope you enjoy the rest of our stuff—Ted

Hunting is something that is as old as mankind itself. When you are the Apex Predator Warrior Poet wielding the Ultimate Weapon in your field, and you start to feel you’re truly superior, you need to find something to do to get your adrenaline pumping again. Maybe you go strap on a parachute and jump out of an airplane. Maybe you juggle running chainsaws. Maybe you take Lena Dunham out on a date. Maybe you go old School Minneapolis and walk to work in shorts and flip flops when it’s 15 below out and the snowplows haven’t gone down the streets yet, because Carhartt’s and warm boots are for the weak and the soft, and by God if you won’t show your new neighbor from Georgia just how goddamn tough you are.

But when you are a warrior poet, you must find something that keeps your killer instinct honed, something that keeps you on the path of True Enlightenment, and something that reminds you how final death truly is while simultaneously respecting the life of your fallen foe.

Because you are Zim Tzu, Slayer Of The Jungle King, Silencer Of The Lambs, Pillager Of Capitals, Conquerer of The Brown Islands, Murderer of Crows, Melter Of Cheese, Hunter Of Bears, He Who Makes Pirates Walk The Plank, Impaler Of The Fleur De Lis, First Of His Name, High Septon Of Mankato, Lord Commander Of The Iron Range And Twin Cities, and Warden Of The North.

And when The Hunt is successful, the people want to know about it. What weapons were used, how you stalked your prey, and how you made your kill. And when you come back with a zebra pelt ALONG with the original lion? Hoo boy, that’s news.

And that’s where we come in, this pre-eminent Vikings blog.* We take the sanitized, day after the game words of Mike Zimmer,** un-sanitize them,*** and give them to you, uncut and commercial free.****

*It’s a really good blog, my immature 12 year old stupidity aside.

**Look, you wouldn’t swear if you got fined for it, either. And yeah, those are his actual quotes.

***I don’t get fined for swearing. Since I really don’t get paid, it would be even more added bullshit.

****If you’re seeing ads, use AdBlocker if it bothers you that much.

As is usually the case, Zim Tzu had an opening statement, follwed by questions from the great unwashed:

What Zim Tzu said: After watching the tape, I thought offensively, Case [Keenum] played really well. He made some big plays not only with his feet but with some of the throws he made. We protected well, a couple of sacks, we kind of held the ball too long. Running game, I thought Latavius [Murray] ran the ball good, Jerick [McKinnon] at times did, we need to get him hitting the hole a little bit better now. I thought the offensive line played well, receivers made some great catches. Defensively, actually we played pretty darn good. They made a couple good catches on us. We played pretty well, we played the run game well. Rushed the quarterback good, pretty good on third downs, good in the red zone. In these last few ball games, both sides of the ball have been really effective in the red zone. That’s helped us score some points and keep them from getting some points. That and also, we didn’t play as well on special teams, we’ve got to shore that area up so that will be a point of emphasis for us this week.

What Zim Tzu meant: Case Keenum is making $2 million, Matt Stafford is making more than the GDP of half of the countries in the third world, and the World Bank has a better chance of getting loan money back from fucking South Sudan than the Lions do in getting a Super Bowl win from Stafford. Running game kinda sucked except for the first drive in the second half, defense wasn’t okay. Fuckin’ Kai Forbath, man. He’s got more blocks than Matt Kalil this year. He needs to clean that shit up or the only thing he’s going to be sweeping is a fucking broom down the hallways of the goddamn International Falls VFW.

Q: What do you credit the red zone success to?

What Zim Tzu said: We’ve been practicing it a lot more, spent a lot of time with it. I think guys are starting to have a lot more confidence. We’ve made a big emphasis on third downs. Those third down conversions in the red zone, those are big. We’ve really made a point of emphasis on that.

What Zim Tzu meant: Well after last year, I had a meeting with Pat Shurmur right when we got to Mankato. And I said ‘Pat, let’s quit running the ‘allergic to the fucking end zone and settle for a bullshit field goal which has a 50-50 shot of fucking missing’ plays. And he said ‘oh my bad that was the most worn out part of the playbook I got from Norv Turner and I just assumed that’s what you wanted.’ And then we laughed and started scoring some fucking touchdowns. True story.

Q: What does it say about that offense that it continues to succeed despite the injuries?

What Zim Tzu said: We’ve got a pretty resilient bunch. They play hard together, Pat [Shurmur] does a great job along with the other offensive coaches. They just like to go out and play. We do have some playmakers. [Kyle] Rudolph had a nice game yesterday, he did a good job blocking. David Morgan did a nice job blocking. [Adam] Thielen made some excellent catches, [Stefon] Diggs made some good catch and runs, Jarius Wright, I think we’ve got a lot of guys there that have some abilities, the quarterback is helping and they’re helping the quarterback as well.

What Zim Tzu meant: Well after last season ended I had a meeting with Rick Spielman. Rick and I get along good, and he asked me what I needed. Now when he asks me questions like that I give him four things, three of which I know he’ll say no to because that’s just the way he is, Mr Fancy Pants GM and all. So I says to him ‘I want to make $50 million a year, free use of a private lear jet that has ‘BIG BALLS’ painted on the side of it, healthcare for the rest of my life, and some backup players that do more than stare at me blankly when I asked them if they tied their goddamn shoes this morning.’ He laughed at the first three and he said ‘lol like you’re ever gonna be NFL commissioner, so let me go get you some fucking players.’ And then we laughed and he went and got more depth on this roster than Meryl Streep had in Sophie’s Choice. True story.

Q: Does that resiliency come from the guys that have been here a few years and experienced some of the tough times?

What Zim Tzu said: Yeah, I was talking to somebody about that earlier today. Maybe it’s good we went through some of the issues that we had last year. I think a lot of it is the players themselves, they’re pretty tough minded guys.

What Zim Tzu meant: Yeah, we’re all sick and tired of the same old bullshit. Time to change the narrative.

Q: What stands out about Case Keenum’s ability to move around in the pocket?

What Zim Tzu said: I think he’s got good vision and he’s able to see things. He’s got some movement skills, he used his legs on one of the third downs. He’s moving well in the pocket, he moves side-to-side or where he needs to to get a chance to throw the football.

What Zim Tzu meant: Case has these unique things called feet, which are attached to legs that have knees that haven’t exploded in recent seasons. So he can use these ‘feet’, to ‘move around’, and not get ‘fucked up’ in the pocket.

Q: What happened on the two blocked kicks?

What Zim Tzu said: Well, the one we muffed the snap, we dropped the snap. The other one, they probably did something they shouldn’t have done.

What Zim Tzu meant: Self inflicted horsefuckery on the first. Pure horsefuckery on the second that was miraculously called.

Q: Are they allowed to have guys run through the long snapper?

What Zim Tzu said: Can’t hit him in the head or the neck, can’t hit him in the head or the neck.

What Zim Tzu meant: Are they supposed to? No. Did they. Well, it was one of about 307 things they did that weren’t called. Because of course they weren’t.

Q: The run game had some long runs but also some negative plays, what do you attribute that to?

What Zim Tzu said: Yeah, there was. Man, I’ve got to figure out how to say this without getting in trouble. They were really crowding the line of scrimmage. Really, really crowding the line of scrimmage. I’ll leave it at that.

What Zim Tzu meant: Fuckin’ refs sucked more than the first ten pages of a Pornhub oral search, man.

Q: How many plays do you end up sending in to the NFL from that game just with questions?

What Zim Tzu said: I don’t know yet. I can only send ten, but they told me I can send as many as I want. So we’ll see.

What Zim Tzu meant: We’ll send in everything between the opneing kickoff to the two Case kneel downs with a note that says WHAT THE FUCK WAS THIS COCKNOBBERY ROGER?

Q: Is there a frustration with the kicking right now?

What Zim Tzu said: We have to get better in that area. I don’t think it was really the kicker. He didn’t really get an opportunity. Like I said, the one we didn’t get the ball caught and put on the ground good enough and the other one got blocked. I don’t really think it was him. We had a couple poor punts. We had a couple good punts. We didn’t cover very well, well enough anyways. In general, we have to be better special teams.

What Zim Tzu meant: Shit’s fucked up, yo.

Q: Do you think Latavius Murray is finding a groove?

What Zim Tzu said: Yes, I thought he played well. He ran the ball efficiently this week. I think he continues to get better as we get going.

What Zim Tzu meant: LIKE STELLA IN JAMAICA BABY! (Obscure reference joke, I get it. I included a link)

Q: What stands out to you about Pat Shurmur’s plays from week-to-week?

What Zim Tzu said: I mean he’s done a good job. Some of it is the same plays, different formations. The thing I liked about it, we’ve done a lot of different things out of the same looks. You take the play on the goal line when we were in London and they handed the ball to Jerick [McKinnon] when we were on the goal line. The next week we have a boot off of the exact same look. We’re starting to do a lot of things off of the same look that defenses prepare for that look and they get something else.

What Zim Tzu meant: So Pat and I have come to pretty good understanding. We took out two chapters in the playbook, the ‘allergic to the fucking end zone and settle for a bullshit field goal which has a 50-50 shot of fucking missing’ chapter, which we talked about earlier. We also removed the ‘bullshit plays that suck from anywhere on the field and prevent us from scoring’ chapter, too, and we added ‘really cool explosive plays that score touchdowns and make our private parts fucking tingle’. Now if I can just get him to knock off that ‘let’s run a fucking wildcat double reverse oh lol what the fuck did I just watch play and ruin a drive’ thing he does, we will be golden, man. GOLDEN!

Q: How much is your involvement in the offensive side?

What Zim Tzu said: Little bit here. Pat and I have a good talk about things and things that I see. I just try and help him with as much as I can with thoughts and ideas that they do, but they’re doing a great job. I’m not going to mess with them much.

What Zim Tzu meant: LOL fuck outta here, man.

Q: With a three game lead in the division, what’s your message to the team?

What Zim Tzu said: It’s really the same as seven games ago. Figure out how to beat this team this week, go about our business the same way, make sure we stay who we are, understand who we are as a football team, and then go out and execute on Sundays. We’re not looking down the road or anything like that. The more wins we can stack up right now will help us in the end.

What Zim Tzu meant: Make it four games. When it’s four, make it five.