Kellen Mond didn’t exactly get off on the wrong foot with former coach Mike Zimmer. Quite the contrary, he never knew where he stood with his former head coach since they barely spoke to one another.
It makes sense considering Zimmer didn’t have much to say about his young quarterback when asked if he was interested in starting him ahead of the Vikings’ Week 18 matchup with the Chicago Bears.
“Not particularly,” Zimmer coldly responded, when asked if he wanted to see Mond in an NFL game.
"Do you want to see Kellen Mond next week?"
"Not particularly."
Mike Zimmer is stone cold pic.twitter.com/KI1usresi7
— Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) January 3, 2022
When speaking with the Pioneer Press’ Chris Tomasson, Mond claimed he wasn’t particularly bothered by Zimmer’s comments because the two never had a relationship.
“He’s never really talked to me personally, so I didn’t really take too much offense to it,” said Mond. “He kind of backtracked on his word a little bit after. But it’s all fun and games, whatever. It’s a new year, new coaches, new team. I’m a year older, second year in the NFL.”
Kellen’s father, Kevin Mond, doesn’t believe Zimmer’s issue with his son was personal, but he does think it was a byproduct of the ongoing problems between the coach and former general manager Rick Spielman. He thinks Zimmer wanted to go defense with the No. 66 overall pick instead of adding another quarterback.
It also didn’t help that Kellen was unvaccinated, which Kevin saw as another potential problem working against his son. Zimmer had been adamant about getting players vaccinated to lower the odds of them missing games.
At the end of the day, it ended up being an uphill battle that Kellen had no hope of ever climbing as long as Zimmer was at the helm.
“Zimmer wasn’t mad at the person, he was mad at the selection of the quarterback,” said Kevin. “So whoever was going to get his venom thrown at him, it just happened to be Kellen.
“Kellen was in the doghouse from the start because of the draft and then, number two, the COVID. So he was in Zimmer’s doghouse and wasn’t getting out. They weren’t going to give him the time and Zimmer not playing him at the end of the year was, personally to me, Zimmer just sticking his thumb at Spielman.”
It all feeds into the overarching narrative that the Vikings were operating with serious dysfunction within the previous regime.
Hall of Fame cornerback and current college football coach Deion Sanders, a friend of Zimmer’s, claimed Spielman and Zimmer weren’t even on speaking terms for multiple months into his final season, ahead of the eventual firings.
It’s hard for veteran players to succeed in that kind of environment, much less a rookie third-round draft pick. Kellen Mond never stood a chance with Zimmer.
So it’s no surprise why it’s like night and day under coach Kevin O’Connell and offensive coordinator Wes Phillips. The two have taken a legitimate interest in Mond’s development, and it’s already showing on the practice field.
O’Connell admitted he was impressed by what he’s seen so far from the 22-year-old quarterback, and Phillips echoed that belief in a recent media conference.
“Kellen is very sharp. He has really picked up the offense very well,” Phillips said.
In many ways, this is a do-over rookie season for Mond, who hopes to put the Zimmer drama in the past and finally get a fair crack at realizing his full potential as a Viking.
