Minnesota Vikings: Brad Childress Lives To Coach Another Day!

The Minnesota Vikings' win over the Arizona Cardinals felt a lot like the team's victory over San Fransisco last year in week three of the season.  

Another NFC West opponent and another Brett Favre fourth quarter comeback. 

This time it took Favre's end of game heroics just to get the game to overtime, where the Vikings prevailed 27-24 on a Ryan Longwell field goal.

With 12:36 left in the fourth quarter, the Cardinals had just kicked a field goal to extend their lead to 24-10.

It looked like this might be head coach Brad Childress' last game at the helm of the Vikings.

Then Brett Favre worked his magic leading two fourth quarter scoring drives.

With 34 seconds remaining, Favre was able to connect on a 25-yard touchdown pass to Visanthe Shiancoe. 

But it never should have come down to this.

Going into the game, this looked to be everything the Vikings needed—the Arizona defense was 29th in the league allowing 143.1 rushing yards per game, while Adrian Peterson entered the day second in the NFL at 110.9 rushing yards per game.

The Vikings were playing at home at Mall of America Field, and were 7.5 point favorites.

The game plan should have been simple—have Farve turn around and hand the ball to Peterson.

Instead, even with four carries in the overtime period, Peterson only carried the ball 15 times for 81 yards. Fortunately, he also caught four passes for another 63 yards and finished the game with two touchdowns, one rushing and one receiving.

If Childress was facing a possible firing with a loss to the Cardinals, he was not coaching like it.

Twice he had his team driving deep in Cardinals' territory and instead of handing the ball to the best running back in the NFL, he would put the ball in Favre's hands.

Before his heroics, Favre would end one drive with an interception, and another with an incomplete pass on 4th-and-goal from the 1-yard line.

On this day, it appears Childress fell in a pile of dung and would come out smelling like a rose.  

With the release of Randy Moss this week, the rest of the receiving corps must have finally gotten the message. 

There was a coming out of sorts for many of the Vikings' wide receivers.

Greg Camarillo had the best game of the season with 66 receiving yards on four receptions. Yet the highlight of the day for Camarillo came on the Vikings' fourth play from scrimmage.

Facing a 3rd-and-9 from the Arizona 44-yard line, Favre threw his first of two interceptions. Camarillo hustled to chase down Kerry Rhodes, stripping him of the ball at the 2-yard line, resulting in a touchback for the Vikings.

Sporting yellow shoes (o.k., maybe they were supposed to be gold), Bernard Berrian had nine receptions for 89 yards, matching his season total in the previous seven games!

Percy Harvin added nine receptions of his own for his second 100-yard receiving game of his career, with 126 yards.

His only low light would be on the second-half kick off. While pushing for an extra yard, he had the ball stripped from him. After Minnesota's Jimmy Kennedy kicked the ball as he was trotting off the field thinking the play was over, the Cardinals' Michael Adams would pick up the ball and return it 30 yards for a touchdown.

Favre hit eight different receivers while throwing for 446 yards—a career high for the 20-year veteran.

Completing 36-of-47 passes, with two touchdowns, along with two interceptions, Favre had his best quarterback rating of the season at 101.9.

Perhaps this will be the catalyst to propel the underachieving Vikings into a winning streak.

Even Vikings' defensive end Jared Allen found his groove, getting 2.5 sacks on the day as the Minnesota defense doubled its sack total on the season with six sacks of Arizona's Derek Anderson.

Yes, everything seemed to fall in place late in this one, it might even be enough to turn around the Vikings' season and save Childress' job for another year.