Mike Zimmer To Miss OTAs Following Eighth Eye Surgery

Minnesota Vikings’ head coach Mike Zimmer continues to have surgeries on his right eye, and the most recent one is going to cause him to be away from the team for part of their offseason program.

Ben Goessling of ESPN (among others) is reporting that Zimmer is going to miss the Vikings’ Organized Team Activities, which start this week, following the eight surgery he’s had on his eye since November. This surgery, which was performed this past Wednesday, removed an oil bubble from his eye and replaced it with a gas bubble in hopes of helping it heal.

The Vikings won’t have an “acting” head coach while Zimmer is gone, though according to Goessling defensive line coach Andre Patterson will be in charge of “making sure Zimmer’s message continues to get across to the team.”

Zimmer won’t be totally out of the loop while he’s away. He will be receiving practice video and will be giving feedback to the coaching staff every day.

It sounds like Zimmer is pretty much doing this under doctor’s orders, which might be the only way to get him to actually stay away from the team and let himself heal.

"The doctors all got together, and we had a long meeting about what's the best recuperation of this eye, and they said that I need to try to spend the next couple of weeks just working on my recovery," Zimmer said in the interview with KFAN.

"I just left the doctor's office, got really good news. The retina looks great and the pressure in my eye is really good. At this point now we just need to take it easy and make sure it continues to heal the right away."

Hopefully, this surgery will be the last one that Zimmer has to worry about on his eye, and he’ll be back to normal in plenty of time for the 2017 season.