ED NOTE: This has bad words. None of the other things we write on here do, but this one does. It seems to be a popular bit, so until the law catches up with me, I’m going to keep doing it. Thanks for understanding, and thanks for not reading and not letting your kids read it if bad language isn’t your thing. Hope you enjoy the rest of our articles—Ted

When you’re a warrior poet, understanding the past is the key to unlocking the future. Whether it’s the performance of your army, or the performance of other armies in similar situations on similar battlefields, if you understand history you already know the outcomes of battles before they even take place.

And because you understand history, you had a plan to keep your army focused, and to Make Georgia Howl. It wasn’t easy, as you were facing an experienced unit, on their turf, fighting for their post season lives. But you didn’t give a damn, did you?

No, no you didn’t.

Because you are Zim Tzu, Razer of Atlanta, Slayer Of The Jungle King, Silencer Of The Lambs, Pillager Of Capitals, Conquerer of The Brown Islands, Murderer of Crows, Melter Of Cheese, Hunter Of Bears, He Who Makes Pirates Walk The Plank, Impaler Of The Fleur De Lis, First Of His Name, High Septon Of Mankato, Lord Commander Of The Iron Range And Twin Cities, Master Of Fortress Winter Park, and Warden Of The North.

And when you invade, conquer, and come back home from your March To The Top Seed, the Great Unwashed need to hear tales of your heroic deeds. The who, what, where, when, and why, if you will.

Enter this Pulitzer Prize Winning blog*, stage left. When Zim Tzu speaks, he must use language that is reserved, so as to not offend the masses. So we take what he says in his weekly day after the game press conference, interpret it,** and then transform it into language that we can all understand, and use in our lives to make us better people.***

*We really do have good writers, who put out great content. This is not that.

**If by ‘interpret’, you understand that I literally mean ‘make up everything except his actual press conference quotes’, we’re on the same page. If by ‘interpret’ you think I mean ‘reads his mind to discern what he actually means’, your lawsuit will be thrown out of court. Because you are stupid.

***It’s just a football coach talking about football. Don’t read into it more than that. Namaste.

As usual, Zim Tzu held court at Fortress Winter Park Monday, and as always, his actual quotes are first, followed by what he really meant. AGAIN JUST TO BE CLEAR THE ‘WHAT HE REALLY MEANT’ PART IS AS LEGITIMATE AS PACKERS STOCK MAKING ONE AN ‘OWNER’ OF A FOOTBALL TEAM, FOR FUCKS SAKE.

What Zim Tzu said: It was a good win yesterday on the road against a good football team. I thought there were some big things that happened in the ball game. The five-minute drive the offense had at the end of the game. Third down conversion, but to be able to take the clock and use the clock. Understand time management and being able to not let them get the ball back and have a chance to win. I thought that was a huge play. I thought we did some good things as a team. We punted them down there at the two-yard line. We stopped them on defense and we get the ball at the 50-yard line for the offense. I thought there was a lot of good complimentary football going on there. Obviously, third downs were big and red zone touchdowns that we had offensively. A lot of those things that we’ve been talking about helped us to be able to get a win.

What Zim Tzu meant: We fucking epitaphed the current NFC Champions in their new house with a drive that was made of balls so big you’d think it should be a sculpture in a goddamn art museum somewhere. We play so much complimentary football Stuart Smalley would be proud.

Q: What stood out to you about what you were able to do against Matt Ryan?

What Zim Tzu said: I think we did some good things on defense and we did some things we have to get better at, honestly. I didn’t get them lined up a couple times very good in some of the situations. I have to do a better job there. But we gave them some different looks and things we had to deal with.

What Zim Tzu meant: We fucked with his head more than a crazy ex-girlfriend, but we could have done a lot better.

Q: Kyle Rudolph talked yesterday about how you spent a couple of days working on nothing but red zone at practices during the bye week. What is the key to getting everything working in the red zone or being able to make a stop?

What Zim Tzu said: Part of it is number one, you have to understand the situation. If it’s third-and-four on the eight, you’re not just playing the touchdown. You’re playing the third down. So that is part of it. Part of it is understanding that everything is more condensed now. So the advantage goes to the defense a little bit because now you’re playing sidelines and backlines and things like that. Offensively, you have to understand that the windows are going to be a lot tighter so you are trying to get some more space width-wise. But there’s a lot of it. If you can run the ball in against some of the different coverages that you get, then that’s important. Part of it is most of the time you can anticipate a little bit more pressure down there, with some of the teams, depending on their makeup and things like that because they don’t have as much to lose. It’s a lot of things that we just try to teach, that’s all.

What Zim Tzu meant: Pat Shurmur and I had a conversation about this during the off-season. I said ‘hey Pat, why did we run Matt Fucking Asiata into a wall of humans down there when we knew it was going to fail?’ And he said ‘well that was the only play we had for the goal line, and Matt is a big dude, sure seemed like it would work the 103rd time we tried it.’ So I says ‘hey Sisyphus, how about we quit rolling that fucking Asiata rock into the humanity wall, and try something else?’ So we did. And it’s pretty fucking awesome.

Q: What are your thoughts about being 10-2, being first in the NFC, and controlling your own destiny?

What Zim Tzu said: No thoughts. We’ve got four games left. My only thoughts are about the Carolina Panthers and trying to get a win this week. All that stuff is nice to talk about, for you guys to talk about, but for us, we don’t talk about it. We go about our business.

What Zim Tzu said: it’s pretty fucking awesome, considering the futility we’ve seen around here for the better part of a generation. But we’ve accomplished nothing yet. Nothing. We’re gonna fuck Carolina up, though.

Q: I think your safeties drew three blocks in the back. What can you say about the way they played?

What Zim Tzu said: They played good. Both of them played very well. Harrison made some outstanding plays. Sendejo as well. The backend played really well yesterday. I think that was a credit to them. I thought Trae Waynes played real good, obviously Xavier [Rhodes] played well. They understood the plan that we had to try to do.

What Zim Tzu meant: My thought is that Atlanta did a better job of holding on to people in this game than Sylvester Stallone did in the fucking beginning of Cliffhanger, that’s for goddamn sure. DON’T LET ME FALL GAAAAAAAAAAABE, amirite fuckers?

It was about as effective, too.

Q: Even though you didn’t record a sack, what did you think of the pressure on the quarterback?

What Zim Tzu said: It was good. They changed a lot of things up in the ball game than we anticipated getting, so we had to change things up as well. That’s part of the chess match that goes from each play, each series, each half, each quarter, but I thought Everson [Griffen] rushed well, Danielle [Hunter] had a couple good rush, Tom [Johnson] had a couple, Linval [Joseph] had a couple. It’s not always about sacks, it’s about effecting the quarterback.

What Zim Tzu meant: We only had to rush four all day and still put more pressure on Matt Ryan than a human would feel down at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. And it’s fun playing chess when everyone else is playing checkers. Checkmate, fuckers.

Q: How important are the linebackers when it comes to third down?

What Zim Tzu said: Everybody is important. Understanding what your assignment is and then being able to execute it and count on the guy next to you to do what their supposed to do. It’s real important. A lot of times they have to cover vertical routes and crossing routes and backs out of the backfield, but they’ve done a good job.

What Zim Tzu meant: Kickers are not important on third down. Everyone else is.

Q: What’s been the key to the success on third down?

What Zim Tzu said: I think we’re number one in the league now on offense on third downs, right? We’ve made a lot of plays. Even on some of those third and longs, Adam Thielen comes up with a play, Case [Keenum] scrambles for one. I think part of it is the different options that we have – [Laquon] Treadwell had one yesterday, Jarius [Wright] had one yesterday, sometimes it’s Rudolph. Being able to have man-beaters, zone-beaters, pressure-beaters, being able to have those concepts in there.

What Zim Tzu meant: Funny you should ask that. I asked Pat to do something kind of revolutionary with the third down offense this year, and that was to convert them in to first downs, keep drives alive, and score fucking touchdowns. So before we installed the ‘score fucking touchdowns’ chapter of the playbook, we installed the ‘get fucking first downs’ chapter. Also, our team is full of Master Beaters, in any situation. All day, every day, we’re masters at beating. Masterbeaters, is what we are.

Q: Is there a certain eye test that you look at to see what a team is uncomfortable with?

What Zim Tzu said: Well, we try to do that every week, is make them uncomfortable. Sometimes they make us uncomfortable too. There are things, but I’m not really going to talk about them, but there’s things when I feel like when we have these guys now. But I didn’t feel that way yesterday. They’re a good football team.

What Zim Tzu meant: The only thing I’ll say is when you line up against us you’re gonna feel more uncomfortable than a nun accidentally walking in on an orgy.

Q: How is C.J. Ham developing?

What Zim Tzu said: I thought he played well yesterday. He had a third-down conversion. He caught a pass and made a guy miss and had a nice run. He gets on the right guy, he blocks them, he’s a good athlete, he does a great job on special teams. He’s improving a lot.

What Zim Tzu meant: Man, I love C.J., and he really has a unique role on this team. If we need one yard, he’ll get us one yard. If we need four yards, he’ll get us one yard. So we’ll just make sure to run the ‘get one fucking yard’ plays, and we’ll either get a first down or a touchdown.

Q: How do you think the special teams unit played on Sunday?

What Zim Tzu said: I thought they were a lot better. I thought we covered much better. We ran faster, I felt like, we ran a lot faster this week. We punted the ball really good most of the day. We had the one field goal that hit the upright. I thought we did a good job in coverage. I still want to get the return game improved a little bit. I was encouraged by the way that we covered yesterday. We’re going to need to do that as we continue down the stretch. These December games are really going to be important as we continue to move forward.

What Zim Tzu meant: Kai Forbath makes me damn near incontinent even when he makes an extra point. But he made it, so cool. But I swear to God if he Walshes a kick in December or later he goes to the Pit of Misery. Dilly dilly.

Q: Did you say anything to Case Keenum at halftime about stepping up in the pocket more?

What Zim Tzu said: No, he’s supposed to step up, that’s what he is supposed to do. Not really as far as, ‘get it out quicker’, or anything like that, no.

What Zim Tzu meant: At halftime I said ‘Case, if you throw ONE MORE incompletion, just one, I’m gonna put in Teddy.’ Well, aren’t I the silly sumbitch?

Q: Where do you see Riley Reiff’s leadership qualities impacting the most?

What Zim Tzu said: Probably with the offensive line, that’s a tight knit group over there. I really like the demeanor that they play with it. Not just with the guys who are out there. Even [Jeremiah] Sirles, he’s kind of got that same mindset. So, I think that’s a lot of it. Then, you don’t have to be a rah-rah guy to be a leader. You have to be able to do your job and people respect you. Do what you say you’re going to do, that’s usually the litmus test.

What Zim Tzu meant: I see it in the douchebag he’s blocking not impacting the QB for the most part. It’s sweet not to have a goddamn jail break every time we decide to pass the ball. Revolutionary, really.

Q: What happened on the pair of Falcons sacks?

What Zim Tzu said: Well, without getting too technical, we didn’t set right, basically. I wouldn’t throw that all on Riley [Reiff], I think Nick [Easton] could have set a bit better and it would have widen the rusher way up above the quarterback. They were expecting something else and that’s the way it happened.

What Zim Tzu meant: Without getting too technical, they fucked up. But hey, at least it’s the exception and not the rule this year.

Q: What allows Jarius Wright to be so effective on third downs?

What Zim Tzu said: Well, first thing about Jarius is, he’s a very good person that works his rear end off each and every week. He’s got good speed, he’s got good quickness, catches the ball good. He’s a tough competitor. Whenever he gets the opportunity to go in, he knows all the receiver positions if he needs to be. He’s just a guy that loves to go out there and get a chance to play and when he does, he usually makes a play.

What Zim Tzu meant: As you guys walk around Fortress Winter Park, you’ll see these red things on the wall that say ‘in case of emergency break glass’. Most people call those fire alarms, but we call them the Jarius alarm.

Q: How is TE David Morgan doing today?

What Zim Tzu said: A lot better today.

What Zim Tzu meant: He’s almost as fucking awesome as I am. Deuces.