Not much needed to be said as Mike Zimmer addressed the Vikings in the Winter Park film room Friday, the morning after a 42-10 prime-time loss to the Green Bay Packers that skidded off the rails before halftime.
As the Vikings coach grimaced through the game tape, he let the team's play do most of the talking.
"Very somber, very disgruntled, about every bad word you can use to describe it," defensive end Brian Robison said of the mood. "That's what was going on in there."
While Zimmer acknowledged that the Vikings were outplayed in all three phases in the loss, it's clear that the longtime NFL defensive coordinator turned first-time head coach has taken the inconsistent performance of his defense personally.
His baby, which has shown flashes of a smothering potential but has been unable to play a complete game since Week 1, was at its worst at Lambeau Field.
Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers threw three first-half touchdown passes before turning into a second-half handoff machine for running back Eddie Lacy, who ran through big holes before bulldozing Vikings defenders for additional yards after contact. The Packers finally eased up on Zimmer's defense, sitting down Rodgers and Lacy with a 42-0 lead.
"There's nothing more disheartening as a coach than for you to get manhandled up front, to be in the wrong gaps, to have people running the ball at you," Zimmer said. "It's just disheartening."
Friday morning, the players, still sleepy-eyed in meetings after a late-night flight back to the Twin Cities, had to silently sit through what most of America could no longer bear to watch after the Packers picked off a pair of consecutive Christian Ponder passes and pulled away from the Vikings.
After the team was dismissed until Tuesday, several defensive starters made a point to show their faces — many of them scowls — in the open locker room and said that things needed to change. Robison was among the veteran leaders calling for Vikings defenders to stop freelancing as individuals and start playing as an 11-man unit.
"Bottom line is you go out there and do your job," Robison said. "You might not get the sacks and stuff like that, you might not get the interceptions, you might not get the tackles for loss, but if you're doing your job you give our team the best chance to win the ballgame, and that's really all that matters in this league, how many ballgames you win and lose."
Robison said that when the Vikings watch tape from practice, they usually see defenders playing within the scheme. But when they review the coaches' film after games — especially the Packers loss, their roughest 60 minutes of the season so far — Robison said that examples of Vikings going rogue are "everywhere."
"You get one guy out of place, two guys out of place, and the whole defense breaks down," he said.
Staying together
Zimmer has preached from Day 1 that unity, perhaps even more so than talent, was the biggest reason why he was able to coach top-10 defensive units in Dallas and then Cincinnati. He knows it will take time to bring in and develop his type of players, but he felt he could have immediate success, like he did in his first year with the Bengals in 2008, if everyone bought in.
So far, though, the results have been mixed.
The Vikings are in the middle of the pack in rushing and passing defense and combined yards allowed. But they rank 25th in scoring defense and have generated just five turnovers. They have just five sacks the past four weeks.
The defense kept the Vikings in the game longer than they should have been in losses to New England and New Orleans, galvanized to shut out Atlanta in the fourth quarter of a comeback victory, and briefly put up a fight after falling behind to Green Bay 14-0.
Robison said, though, that some Vikings players "checked out" as the Packers pulled away.
"I'm just going to be blunt and say it can never be that way," Robison said. "This is a team that I've felt like all along has fought and scratched no matter what type of adversity we have faced, and I felt like we didn't have that last night."
Next up: Detroit
So how does Zimmer handle his baby from here?
The coach will spend the weekend evaluating the whole team, including his staff, looking for ways to improve, though that was his plan all along. Zimmer will consider making personnel changes, too.
"I'd consider everything right now," he said.
Zimmer also said he will rethink how he tries to get his message across to the Vikings defenders who have yet to get the memo.
However, when it comes to that, outside linebacker Chad Greenway, who missed his second consecutive game because of a broken rib, says it is on the players to be more receptive.
"After a showing like that, it's hard to find a lot of positive things," Greenway said. "But you have to be shortsighted on a loss like that, take what it is, learn from the film. Hearing out the coaches and not getting sensitive about it. I think that's important."
The Vikings, who hopped into their pickups and flashy sports cars for a welcome long weekend, know they must move on quickly from this loss and find answers in a hurry or more somber film sessions will await them.
"We've got to let it go and get ready for the next game and not play this way against Detroit," Robison said. "Because if we play this way against Detroit, they're going to tear us a new one, too."
