Minnesota Vikings Have Problems at the Top

Try to imagine this scenario: 3rd-and-9, the offense has the ball on their own 35. 

Down by 10 with five minutes left to go in the game. The coach has a big decision to make. 

What does he call? This is a regular scenario for Vikings fans, by the way. Most teams would have a 15 and out up their sleeve. 

Maybe they find the TE up the middle for 20 or a 12 yard cross. Not the Vikings. 

For three years now, fans of this franchise have been subjected to two yard flareouts to the FB or a five yard out to Bobby Wade. For three years, Childress has been serving us turd sandwiches.

I think the biggest question Vikings fans should be asking themselves is why Childress was the guy in the first place? On Jan. 6, 2006, when Brad Childress was hired as the new head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, most fans of the team were just happy to see former coach Mike Tice leave. 

Tice was leaving behind a legacy riddled with scandal, from the notorious "Love Boat" event to Tice himself scalping his own tickets to the Super Bowl. His entire reign was an unorganized jumble of media room rants, poor draft choices and undisciplined athletes running around like adolescent school boys.

His tenure was such a mess, in fact, I imagine his office was in a state of disarray similar to my college dorm room.

So, Tice gets canned and in comes Childress, the supposed savior of the franchise, with his three year plan in place. Childress was a guy with a long college coaching background, most recently with the University of Wisconsin as a running backs coach and then as offensive coordinator.

Later moving to the Philadelphia Eagles as quarterbacks coach and then offensive coordinator under Andy Reid. He was a supposed Reid disciple, a student of the West Coast offense, and apparently an excellent quarterbacks coach having tutored Donovan McNabb.

That, however, is not the entire story. Childress came to Minnesota with the intent on running his offense, his way. 

The fans and media thought this would be a good thing, after all, the Eagles have consistently been a good offensive team. Childress, though, never called the plays in Philly, Andy Reid did. 

He was still the guy who groomed McNabb, right? Not really. 

McNabb was the best quarterback from that famed 1999 draft class and would have been good with or without Childress. What about when he coached in college? Even as the offensive coordinator for Wisconsin, he still didn't call his own plays. 

Now, it only took Childress a year to realize he couldn't call his own plays. He realized he's just not Andy Reid, and handed those duties over to Darrel Bevell (who isn't a whole heck of a lot better). 

However, we're at three years and running of the Tarvaris Jackson experiment and Childress' ego still won't allow him to give up on a kid who is essentially Mike Vick minus talent and dogs.

Childress' mancrush on Jackson has essentially wasted what could have been some very productive years and the fans should feel cheated.  As much as this team needs a new QB, it needs to replace the man who drafted the current one.