In this week’s installment his weekly column for TheMMQB.com, Peter King took some time to update readers on how his former Sports Illustrated colleague and legendary football writer Paul “Dr. Z” Zimmerman is doing after suffering a series in strokes in 2008.
Zimmerman, who lives at an assisted living facility in New Jersey, has unfortunately not been able to resume the writing career that made him an essential part of the football landscape for so many years. That place in the landscape is honored each year when the Pro Football Writers of America present an award in his name to recognize the lifetime achievement of NFL assistant coaches.
The PFWA announced on Monday that Monte Kiffin and Wade Phillips are this year’s winners.
Kiffin was out of coaching last year, but returns to the NFL with the Jaguars as a senior defensive assistant this season. It’s the seventh team he’s worked for in a career that began as a graduate assistant at Nebraska in 1966 and reached its pinnacle when he constructed the Buccaneers defense that helped the team to the Super Bowl XXXVII title in January 2003.
Phillips joined Kiffin as a Super Bowl winner this February when his Broncos unit stifled the Panthers on the way to the third championship in franchise history. The ring was something Phillips was chasing since taking a job on his father Bum’s staff with the Oilers in 1976, which makes getting it pretty sweet even if the name on the bauble was initially incorrect.
