Hall of Famer on the line: Zimmer gets a call and some advice from Bill Parcells

We reporters tend to use our rear view mirrors a lot more than our windshields. And that tends to tick off NFL head coaches, who like to preach the "24-hour" rule when it comes to moving on from the previous game, good or especially bad.

The Vikings, in case you didn't notice, had a particularly bad one to move on from after Monday's 20-3 loss at San Francisco.

Coach Mike Zimmer has been a little snippy in his attempts to keep reporters looking forward to Detroit. So I asked him today who in his long career was best at executing the so-called "24-hour" rule.

"Probably when I was with the Cowboys," said Zimmer, who was in Dallas from 1994 to 2006. "That's when it started. You got 24 hours and then it's said and done. Move on.

"When I was with [Cowboys coach Bill] Parcells, he had you thinking about the next week pretty quickly."

Every coach in the league talks about the 24-hour rule. Was Parcells, the Hall of Famer, particularly good at it?

"He was good at it," Zimmer said. "He was good at a lot of things. He called me this week, matter of fact, and we talked for a little bit. He's always got some really good sayings and quotations for me. "

"Oh yeah," Zimmer said. "He made sure."

Here are some other highlights from Zimmer's meeting with reporters not long ago …

— On whether quarterback Teddy Bridgewater will help center Joe Berger, the former backup now starting for the injured John Sullivan, with the offensive line protection calls: "Teddy has the right to override [Berger's calls] at any time. He's in charge of the protections and making sure it gets done right. But Berger is a Michigan Tech guy, so he's pretty smart.

— On the age-old question of whether Monday's woes were rooted in scheme or execution: "I'd say this: The scheme that we've been running on offense and defense, Norv [Turner] has been running it for 30 years [on offense] and I've been running it for 15 [on defense]. So I think it's time-tested. But we're always looking to improve, however we have to do it. Usually, I tell people all the time offensively or defensively or whatever it is, you could line up in a 3-4 or a 4-3, but it's how you play and where you're supposed to be and what you're supposed to do. Scheme is a nice thing, but it all comes down to execution. If you don't execute … I just think what Norv has done over the course of his time and I'm not saying me, but I think there are a lot of people that are running our [defensive] scheme that are pretty good."