Rapoport: Vikings approached Mike Tice about Offensive Line coach job

Earlier today, the Minnesota Vikings announced that they had decided on replacement(s) at the Offensive Line Coach position to attempt to fill the shoes of the late Tony Sparano. While promoting from within the organization at this point in the season makes sense, what with offseason install already having been completed, the Vikings apparently did look outside of the organization.

And one of the names that they reached out to was a familiar one.

Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network is reporting that the Vikings attempted to reach out to former head coach Mike Tice to fill the Offensive Line Coach vacancy, but that the two sides “couldn’t get it worked out.”

Tice announced that he was retiring from the world of coaching back in February, citing his believe that players “didn’t want to be coached” anymore. Since he was fired by the Vikings after the 2005 season, Tice has been the offensive line coach for four different teams (the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Chicago Bears, the Oakland Raiders, and the Atlanta Falcons), and spent the 2014 season as the Bears’ offensive coordinator.

To be honest, I’m a little surprised that the team reached out to Tice. While he was a pretty damn good offensive line coach, I always thought that the way things ended between him and the Vikings’ organization was a little bit of a rough patch for him. After all, following the team’s victory to end the 2005 season, Tice had literally just barely gotten back to the locker room when he was informed that he was being fired.

I think that bringing Tice back would have been a solid move if we were looking at things in a vacuum. But, again, with all of the offseason installation and things of that nature already having been completed, shifting Clancy Barone and promoting Andrew Janocko was probably the right move for the Vikings at this point. But, the Vikings did make an effort to look outside of the organization for a new offensive line coach after all.