Tom Pelissero

USA TODAY Sports

MANKATO, Minn. — Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Zimmer spoke with USA TODAY Sports at training camp Monday to talk about quarterback Teddy Bridgewater’s development, tailback Adrian Peterson’s role, his biggest fear about expectations facing his rising team and more. Here’s an edited transcript:

Q: Congrats on the contract extension. You can pretty much just coast now, right?

A: Yeah, right. You know me better than that. The money’s nice, but the only thing I want to do is win. That’s all I care about.

Q: Last year here, I told you some NFL scouts believed Teddy Bridgewater would take a step back in his second season. You didn’t buy it. Statistically, he was the same guy from 2014 to 2015. What if anything do you see that’s different?

A: I see a lot of things different. The strength that he has now. The maturity. The things he sees on the field. The decision-making. He’s always had good decision-making, but now, I think his mentality is more aggressive. Just what I’ve seen in OTAs and I’ve seen so far in training camp, he seems to be more aggressive. He still takes good care of the football, but it’s no big deal — 'Hey, I’m going to take my shots.’

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Q: Can you live with that, if he makes more mistakes but also makes more plays?

A: Well, I think every situation is different. Certain games, we want to be a little more conservative. But no, I’m actually pushing him to (be aggressive). I want him to be able to have that mentality. We want to be able to practice, ‘Hey, this is the day we’re going to be aggressive.’ The thing about Teddy, and everybody talks about this and talks about that — he knows how to win, and what else is there with the quarterback? I’m not going to mention names, but there’s a bunch of quarterbacks throwing for 300 yards and their team doesn’t win. They make mistakes. They don’t play right in the critical situations of the game. And (people) say, ‘Oh, his arm strength.’ His arm strength is fine. He’s been throwing the ball 55 yards down in practice all the time. Ask what kind of arm Joe Montana had or any of these other guys. It’s just so fantasy football now. Our team is built a certain way, and that’s how we’re going to play. That’s just how we are and who we’re going to be, and I’m not going to apologize for it.

Q: You’re still a run-first team.

A: Yeah. It’s going to go through Adrian (Peterson). That’s how it is. But we’re trying to be a little more diverse in some of the things we do.

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Q: How close is Adrian to practicing?

A: He’s close. (The hamstring strain is) real slight. Real, real slight. He can do a lot of things. It’s just I don’t want him full-go yet. He’s probably 95% or something like that.

Q: Can he still handle the workload like he has at age 31?

A: Oh, yeah. He’s 6% body fat. He’s a stud, man. And he works. And he’s excited about it. I think he’s excited about the changes we made on the offensive line, the new guys we brought in.

Q: How’s (first-round receiver) Laquon Treadwell doing so far?

A: Good. He was a little slow in the OTAs (organized team activities), coming off the banquet circuit and all that stuff. But he’s worked real hard. He looks way improved so far this camp.

Q: One thing I heard in pre-draft process is he’ll show up on game day, but he might be a guy you’ve got to push during the week. Have you seen any indications of that?

A: I haven’t had to push him in practice at all. Not once. Stays out after for 45 minutes catching balls on the JUGS machine. Came back in good shape. He works.

Q: We talked back in January about your vision for the defense over the next couple years with all those ascending young players. Are you still on that trajectory?

A: Yeah, I think they have the opportunity to continue to get better. The guys seem like they play fast, they communicate fast. Because of the familiarity with the system. Linval (Joseph)’s a big key, because he’s such a powerful inside force guy that can really help. (Eric) Kendricks has looked a lot better to me this camp — just more composed, making the right calls, lining up, making plays all over the place. I think we have a chance to be a solid defense. I don’t know how good we’ll be.

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Q: It seems like health is a huge part of it. You were banged up last year. Anthony Barr is one guy who always seems to have something nagging him.

A: Luckily, (Barr)’s been out here doing things good. His body feels good. But he is a good player, Kendricks is a good player, the linebackers have a chance to be good. I think we’ve got some guys that can cover a little bit, and I think we’ve got some guys that can rush. (Danielle) Hunter continues to improve. Everson (Griffen) is a full day at work. And I keep talking about — like I’m upstairs watching a game with some teams that we play, and it’s 42-39 and I’m watching this offense and watching that defense. I think we have a good team. Defensively, we’re fairly solid. Offensively, we have some weapons. We’re pretty good in special teams. To me, that’s what it’s about, and if we can keep developing some depth and staying healthy, then we have a chance. It’s not going to be easy. A bunch of our games were close last year. But we played smart and didn’t beat ourselves in a lot of games. We have a smart football team that is talented that knows how to play together.

Q: What’s the true test of whether Blair Walsh is past the kick he missed in the playoffs?

A: He was 8-for-8 yesterday.

Q: But do you have to see it in a game situation?

A: Maybe. I don’t know. He missed maybe two kicks all spring. He doesn’t look like he’s got the yips.

Q: In our pre-camp predictions, I have you guys in the NFC Championship Game. A lot of people externally are predicting big things. Is your team ready to handle that?

A: I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that this team to me is pretty well-grounded. I was doing a TV show last night with one of the players, and it’s amazing the things that these guys (repeat) that I tell them. They’re getting the message about things, about what we have to do and how we have to do it and who we are. We go play on Monday night, opening game (last season), and we don’t play very good and get beat by San Francisco. Then we play Green Bay at home and don’t play good. We play Seattle and don’t play good. But then we play on Thursday night in Arizona, we ‘can’t win in prime time’, we played pretty good and get beat. From that point on, we got flexed Sunday, Monday, whatever it was and down the stretch we played pretty darn good. So, I’m hoping that we grew with our understanding of, when you get in the spotlight, we get in these big-time games, how we have to play.

Q: You had all sorts of injuries heading into that Arizona game.

A: And everybody expected it was going to be a blowout, but we played pretty good. We were physical. We did a lot of good things that night. Teddy played great.

Q: Yet what a lot of people remember is the sack he took at the end, just like they remember the one in Denver.

A: Yeah, but we missed the pickup, the guy’s free off the edge. Those two plays are my least concern. (Dwight Freeney) beats (Matt Kalil) around the corner — in my opinion, those are not plays by Teddy. They were bad plays by other people. Hell, I could’ve kicked the field goal with 12 seconds left. I don’t put those two on Teddy. The left-handed throw against Green Bay — that was him. Two days ago, I sat up there and watched all of his interceptions. That reel’s short as heck. And a lot of them were earlier in the year when he made some mistakes. But once we started getting going — until that one bad one against Green Bay — most of them, guys are going to make some plays. He threw one yesterday or the day before and Kendricks made a great play on it — diving, laying out. Teddy’s my guy, and I’m glad he’s my guy. If he’s wrong, I’m going to tell him he’s wrong. But this kid is the makeup, the mentality, the confidence that he has just continues to grow. There was a play yesterday in practice, and this is kind of the evolution of Teddy in my opinion: He was standing back and the quarterback, I think (Joel) Stave was throwing it, so he drops back and throws the ball and (Bridgewater) says, ‘I would’ve thrown that ball over there, because I would’ve looked off the free safety and I know that that corner can’t run.’

Q: Next-level stuff. Knowing your opponent.

A: He’s not just running plays now. There was a play the other day where one of our defensive ends jumped offsides — it actually happened in OTAs, too — he said, ‘Gotcha!’ and threw the ball deep for a touchdown.

Q: He said 'gotcha' out loud?

A: Yeah. On a hard count. So those are the kind of things I’m seeing, and the ball is really jumping out of his hand. There was a play we had, he was on the far hash, he threw a corner route on the money from the far hash to the far sideline. I believe that he’s going to have a good year. If we can gel as an offensive line, and I think Treadwell and Charles Johnson and (Stefon) Diggs, and Cordarrelle (Patterson)’s had a good spring, if we can continue to keep moving and evolving, I think we have a chance to have a good offensive football team. And I don’t mind playing games 10-9, but I’d like them to be a little more. So, if we can get to that point, we’ll have a chance to be tough to beat. My biggest fear is just like you said — ‘we’re going to the NFC championship game’ and everybody’s predicting us to be good. You see every year some team takes a step back because whatever the mentality is or maybe it’s injuries or maybe they get full of themselves, stuff like that. To me, that’s more of my fear about this team. It’s not that we don’t have the ability or anything like that. It’s that maybe we’re still too young.

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