philadelphia eagles Archives - Twin Cities Minnesota Blog

November 12, 2007

Brad Childress & The Great Quarterback Fiasco

Brad Childress
Originally uploade
by vitaminkg21

Okay, now it’s time to talk about Brad Childress and his responsibility for this alleged football team. There are a lot of things that Childress has messed up as head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, but none is more glaring than the handling of the quarterback position.

One of the first issues Childress had to deal with upon becoming coach was Daunte Culpepper‘s whining about more money. You can hardly blame a post-T.O. Childress
for having no stomach for dealing with a another malcontent player, but
in retrospect you’ve got to wonder if the coach’s personality
exacerbated the situation with Pep.

Childress deserves full credit for everything after Culpepper, though.

After making a huge reach for Jackson, the Vikings sign Brad Johnson to a two year contract to run the team and mentor Jackson. They make a trade with the Jets for Brooks Bollinger. Apparently, not satisfied with Bollinger during training camp, they bring in Mike McMahon, of all people, to compete for a job.

Childress knew McMahon from the Eagles, so how did he not know that
the guy was useless? McMahon is eventually cast away and the team
settles on Johnson, Bollinger and Jackson as their quarterbacks.

Johnson becomes estranged with Childress because the head coach
won’t allow the veteran quarterback to audible based on the look of a
defense. Johnson is eventually benched in favor of Jackson, who get
injured, who is replaced by Bollinger, who gets injured, and is
replaced in favor of Jackson.

After the 2006, the Vikings jettison Johnson and proclaim Jackson the starter for 2007.

This season we’ve seen Jackson, Bollinger, and now Kelly Holcomb behind center and none of them have really worked. Childress was very
excited about getting Tyler Thigpen in the 2007 draft, but then let him
slip to Chiefs instead of ensuring him a roster spot. Koy Detmer? Have I left anyone out?!?

As I’ve said before, not only is Childress’ ability to judge quarterback talent suspect, he has been completely irresponsible in not having a contingency plan in case Jackson didn’t work out.

Why didn’t the Vikings make a run at Jeff Garcia during the off season? Imagine what the team could have done with a good quarterback.

September 5, 2007

2007 Minnesota Vikings Season Preview

The thing about this season is that the Minnesota Vikings just have to get a little better than last year to win a lot more games. Consider the games the Vikings lost last year:

Minnesota Vikings in Mankato (training camp)
Originally uploaded by Kebmod’s Place

In September, the Vikings lost to the Bears, 16-19
In October, the Vikings lost to the Bills, 17-12
and to the Patriots, 7-31
In November, the Vikings lost to the 49ers, 9-3
to the Packers, 17-23
and to the Dolphins, 24-20
In December, the Vikings lost to the Bears again, 23-13
to the Jets, 13-26
again to the Packers, 9-7
and to the Rams, 21-41

The two games against the Packers and Bears each were winnable. The margins of victory for each of those four games were 3 points, 6 points, 10 points, and 2 points. The Vikings lost to the Bills by 5 points; to the 49ers by 6 points; and to the Dolphins by four point.

Instead of 6 and 10, they could have easily been 10 and 6 and division winners.

With the addition of Marcus McCauley, Chad Greenway, Ray Edwards and Brian Robison, I think the defense has gotten much stronger and much harder to pass against than last season.

But the defense, of course, wasn’t the problem last year. The offense was.

We improved on offense significantly with the addition of Adrian Peterson. I am officially a converted fan of Bobby Wade, who has proven very adept at making yards after the catch. Robert Ferguson is a great addition if he can stay healthy. Sidney Rice is a nice big target who has shown he’s got good hands, is not afraid to catch the ball in a crowd, is very athletic and has excellent body control. And if we can get Troy Williamson to catch a few long bombs, we’ll at least have the semblance of a deep threat.

The offensive line returns with one year together playing the zone blocking scheme, so they’ve got to improve simply because they are more familiar with one another and with zone blocking.

The big question is Tarvaris Jackson. He looks very poised and by all accounts is a smart kid, a quick study, and a quick decision maker. The main thing for Jackson is to avoid mistakes, which is to say turnovers, while he learns the ropes.

The most glaring weakness of this team is the coverage units, which are absolutely horrible. I’m not too confident that they’ll improve that much.

Looking at the schedule, I think it’s reasonable to think that the Vikings could go 9-7 or even 10-6 this year. I’m giving the Vikings both games against the Detroit Lions, even with Calvin Johnson. That team has to prove to me they can win, cause they’ve never done it before. I’d split the Chicago Bears series as I would the Green Bay Packers series, though I think the Vikings could sweep them as well.

We should beat the Vickless Falcons to open the season. We play the Oakland Raiders, the Washington Redskins, and the New York Giants, all of which should be wins.

So that’s eight wins.

The Kansas City Chiefs are beatable with Damon Huard at QB. The Dallas Cowboys are beatable. They’ve got a rookie coach and we don’t yet know whether Tony Romo is the real thing. The San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos look as if they will be good, but they’re sorta at that stage where it’s too early to tell. Even the Eagles could be beatable because you never know if Donovan McNabb will be healthy.

Thee only guaranteed loss is to the San Diego Chargers.

March 29, 2006

NFL’s Old Guard

The Steve Hutchinson signing sure did the hair on the backs of some NFL executives. The Pioneer Press‘ Don Seeholzer reports that the rhetorical temperature got hot enough for Vikings owner Zygi Wilf to defend the signing and his vice president of football operations Rob Brzezinski.

Seeholzer’s excellent companion piece quotes NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue saying he thinks the Hutchinson and Burleson offer sheets’ "poison pill" provisions are a loophole that he’ll address with the player’s association.

But it was a piece in, of all places, Viking Update, that carried quotes from some disgruntled NFL heavies. They quoted ESPN quoting Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Holmgren, saying "I think the poison pill business stinks. That’s too bad in our opinion. I think something has to
be done about it. To my way of thinking, you compete like crazy on the
field and the rules are in place contractually. I don’t like the idea
of agents dictating to us what they are going to do."

They quotes Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeff Lurie saying "I don’t think it’s good for football. The Seahawks lose a terrific young player like Steve Hutchinson.
That was not the spirit of restricted free agency at all and wasn’t in
the spirit of the designations. It’s a shame. The whole idea of the
designation system in a salary cap with unfettered free agency, you at
least know there are one or two players internally that you will have."

All this huffing sounds sooooo Old Guard. It’s just not done!!

Please.

If Mike Holmgren had thought of it first, you think he wouldn’t of done it? He just wasn’t creative enough and, as Wilf points out, the Hutchinson offer was entire within the rules.