The Vikings were one step away from the Super Bowl last January; this January they are a non-playoff team.
At his wrap up news conference on Wednesday, Vikings coach Mike Zimmer vowed to restore the team's winning attitude.
"We had a chip on our shoulder last year," Zimmer said. "I don't know that that chip was there. And we're going to get it back.
"You can look at a lot of statistics, but quite honestly, this football team through the years I've been here had that nasty, 'We're going to win no matter what the situation is' mentality, and I don't know that we had it.
"It's a different vibe with this football team, and I don't know exactly why ... for some reason, we didn't finish the games like we did before. We're going to get that mentality back.
"We're going to get it back."
Zimmer is entering the final year of his contract, and said that was fine.
"I've got no problem with that ... free agent after that, right?" he joked.
As for pondering retirement, he said, "I can't believe someone threw that out there. It was totally, whatever they call it, hashtag fake news.
"I'm not a quitter."
Zimmer said he has until Tuesday to decide whether he'd like to keep interim offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski on for a permanent ride. Stefanski replaced John DeFilippo for the season's final three games.
"(There are) all kinds of options there," Zimmer said. "Kevin is a very good football coach, very smart guy. I thought he did a good job for the three weeks in a tough situation.
"It's fair to the organization, myself, and the fans to look at everybody.
The preseason death of offensive line coach Tony Sparano was raised several times as a dark cloud over the season.
"(It) threw things into a downward spiral," Zimmer said. "He was a Type A personality, very innovative in the run game, strong voice in the room, strong voice with me, so we lost a little of our identity. And we're going to try to get that back."
Offensively, the Vikings had issues, and that was part of the reason DeFilippo was fired after a loss in Seattle on Dec. 10.
"We didn't score points, we didn't score enough in the red zone," Zimmer said. "Obviously I want to run the football and play action pass because I think that's the most effective way to challenge a defense. But there's a lot of things we need to improve on."
As for $84 million quarterback Kirk Cousins, Zimmer said they would meet to talk about improvement.
"It's about the football team," Zimmer said. "One guy doesn't win games, one guy doesn't lose football games, I don't take it that way. I have a lot of confidence in Kirk, I've talked to him, I've talked to other people about what I can do to help him moving forward.
"He was a great teammate, he studied real hard ... I'm sure there are some areas where he can get better, and I'm sure he'd be the first one to tell you that."
The Vikings offensive line took the brunt of criticism following the season. Zimmer said he hoped to match his team's defensive attitude with a similar offensive outlook.
"The five years I've been here, defensively we've gone up and been here," Zimmer said. "But offensively we've been down here, so I have to do a better job of creating the mind-set that we have on defense on offense."
