It shouldn't be a surprise when a fellow head coach admits that they want to be like New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. In fact, that should be the default setting of every single coach in the league.
Be like Belichick. Win a ton of games. Never be satisfied. Keep winning games.
So everyone should nod their heads in unison when Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer admits in a profile with ESPN that he wants to be like Belichick.
"I hate to say this, but I always wanted to be as good as Belichick was to him [Bill Parcells]," Zimmer said about honoring his mentor Bill Parcells. "I'm not a silver spoon guy; I'm a guy that has to prove it every day and I always wanted to prove I was the best."
There's no better way to honor someone- or no better way to stick it to someone- than by continuing to win, and Zimmer wants to win as much as Belichick in order to make his mentor proud. Zimmer's copy-and-pasting the Patriots locker room mentality to try and achieve that goal.
"[Vikings] coaches don't like to dwell on too many positive things for too long," Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway said. "So you just tend to move on to the next thing. What's next? What's the next challenge?"
"It's important that you do your job," Zimmer said, without attributing credit to the Patriots trademark on the phrase. "So that someone else can have success doing their job."
"Don't take the cheese," Parcells would tell Zimmer and his players on a weekly basis. What the heck does that mean?
"There'd be a lot of games where [Parcells] would hang mousetraps in the locker room," Zimmer explained."Really all over the facility, and just talk to them about about how if you don't understand the things that got you to be good, you're going to fall into a trap."
Do your job. Don't buy into the noise. Focus on what got you to where you are. Focus on the next challenge.
That sounds like a pretty good coaching model.