{"id":1269,"date":"2025-07-11T10:30:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T10:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/1269\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T10:30:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T10:30:04","slug":"deion-sanders-wants-to-add-byron-leftwich-mike-zimmer-to-colorado-coaching-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/1269\/","title":{"rendered":"Deion Sanders wants to add Byron Leftwich, Mike Zimmer to Colorado coaching staff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Colorado coach Deion Sanders wants to add a couple of assistant coaches with significant NFL experience to his staff.<\/p>\n<p>Sanders said at Big 12 media days that he\u2019s \u201cpraying\u201d Byron Leftwich will agree to coach at Colorado, and that he wants Mike Zimmer on the staff as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur coaching staff, this is without Byron Leftwich, which I\u2019m praying that he does the right thing, and Mike Zimmer, we have 160 years of NFL experience,\u201d Sanders said. \u201cWith those two added, that\u2019s 204 years of NFL experience. And I want those years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although there was a report in March that <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nfl\/profootballtalk\/rumor-mill\/news\/byron-leftwich-joins-university-of-colorado-coaching-staff\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Colorado had already hired Leftwich<\/a>, Sanders\u2019 comments made clear that Leftwich has not yet agreed to join the Buffaloes\u2019 staff. Leftwich was a first-round pick of the Jaguars in 2003 and spent a decade as an NFL quarterback, and he has also been an NFL assistant coach, most recently as the Buccaneers\u2019 offensive coordinator from 2019 to 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Zimmer was reportedly <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nfl\/profootballtalk\/rumor-mill\/news\/mike-zimmer-wont-return-to-cowboys-will-likely-retire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">planning to retire<\/a> this offseason, but Sanders would like him to change his mind about that. Zimmer is best known to football fans as the head coach of the Vikings from 2014 to 2021, but he also has a great deal of experience as an assistant, including working as the Cowboys\u2019 defensive coordinator last year, a previous stint as the Cowboys\u2019 defensive coordinator from 2000 to 2006, and defensive coordinator jobs in Atlanta and Cincinnati as well. After the Vikings fired him, Zimmer worked as a consultant for Sanders, first at Jackson State and then at Colorado. Zimmer\u2019s nephew, Andrew Zimmer, is already on the Colorado staff as a quality control analyst.<\/p>\n<p>Sanders has transformed Colorado into a high-profile program, and major NFL experience on his coaching staff has been a big part of that. Sanders also has Pro Football Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk coaching running backs, Pro Football Hall of Famer Warren Sapp working as defensive pass rush coordinator, and former NFL head coach Pat Shurmur as offensive coordinator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colorado coach Deion Sanders wants to add a couple of assistant coaches with significant NFL experience to his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-1269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}