Mike Zimmer Has No Regrets About Controversial 4th Down Decision

The Vikings head coach has taken some heat for not kicking the field goal in Seattle.

Ever since the final seconds ticked off of the Vikings' 27-26 loss in Seattle on Sunday night, there has been a constant stream of discussion about Mike Zimmer's decision to go for it on 4th and 1 late in the fourth quarter. Much of the commentary has been critical, with people saying Zimmer made the wrong decision, using the final result as evidence.

At this point, you don't need me to explain the context. The Vikings were up 26-21 and a short field goal would've put them up by eight points. Zimmer opted to run it with Alexander Mattison, but the second-year back missed a hole to the outside and was stuffed for no gain. Unsurprisingly, Russell Wilson found a way to go 94 yards and score the game-winning touchdown.

Zimmer has spoken to reporters twice since the game ended – immediately afterwards on Sunday night and again on Monday afternoon – and has stood his ground. He said it was an easy decision and one he has no regrets about. He also pledged to do it again if that situation ever arises in the future.

"It was about a half a yard," Zimmer said after the game. "If we got the half a yard, we win the game. So I was trying to go win it. I told ‘em on the headset, ‘We didn’t come here for this. Let’s go win it.'"

He doubled down on that approach and mentality with his comments on Monday.

"In that situation, I’m always going for the win," he said. "I don’t care. We’ve done that many times and we’ll continue to do it. We had a half a yard to go and we’d been running the ball really well. I felt like their defense was tired and we had hit two other fourth downs earlier in the ballgame. So I’ll do it again the next time it comes up. If we’ve got a chance to win the game, you’ve got to go for it."

Here's the thing: he's right. It can be debated all day, but in my opinion, the decision was 100 percent the correct one. 

With a player like Wilson (or Patrick Mahomes or Aaron Rodgers, for that matter) on the other sideline, you do whatever you can to make sure they don't get the ball back with a chance to beat you. The Vikings had been gashing the Seahawks on the ground, so there was little reason to believe they wouldn't pick up that half-yard. The execution just wasn't there.

If Zimmer had chosen to kick the field goal and the Seahawks had tied it at 29 and won in overtime – and that's not remotely difficult to imagine happening – he would be getting heat for being too conservative. That's just a fact.

I love the aggressive approach, especially from a coach who has been criticized in the past for not being aggressive enough.

"Hindsight’s 20-20 and we don’t have the benefit of that when making tough decisions," Kirk Cousins said. "We had run for roughly 200 yards and needed an inch and we weren’t able to get it."

The analytics suggest that the decision was basically a wash either way in terms of expected win probability, but that doesn't account for the fact that Wilson was on the other sideline. Regardless, Zimmer said analytics didn't play a role in the decision. He had to make a quick choice in the moment and went with the one that had a very high chance to seal the game.

If Mattison gets another few inches, Cameron Dantzler makes a play on 4th and 10, or Ifeadi Odenigbo or Anthony Harris gets a hand on the game-winning touchdown, everyone would be celebrating Zimmer's choice.

It's easy to criticize a decision with the benefit of hindsight, but that's a stupid way to judge things. In the moment, considering all of the factors at play, Zimmer absolutely made the correct call. It just didn't work out, which is the way it goes in sports and in life sometimes.

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