MVN - Most Valuable Network

Vikes Face Gates, Childress is a Dope

The Star Tribune reports on a legit concern for this week’s game…the Vikes have been absolutely lit up by tight ends in the past few weeks, and in the San Diego game, we’re facing arguably the best tight end in the NFL: Antonio Gates.

For Darren Sharper, it’s time to put up or shut up. He’s been yapping about how he should be fired if a tight end catches the ball on him- and yet, Dallas Clark and Tony Gonzalez have had huge games against this defense.

I’m extremely skeptical about our ability to keep Gates under control. The Vikings are having some trouble covering the middle of the field, and we’ve certainly seen their inability to slow down tight ends in previous games. I definitely think there’s a good chance that the Vikings will get lit up by Gates…he’s having a great year, and there’s little reason to think that the Vikings can slow him down.

Elsewhere, I’ve gotta give some props to Jim Souhan. Do I usually enjoy reading his columns? No, but he made some extremely good points in an article from earlier this week:

“It’s a little-known rule, particularly by you guys here, but if you put your foot out of bounds when you’re worried about a ball that’s going out of bounds and you’re not sure, ‘Is it staying in? Is it going through the end line? Do I sit and watch it?’ — the minute you put your foot out of bounds and possess the football, the football is out of bounds,” Childress said.

Everyone in the room took a deep breath, then Childress said, “We coach our guys quite often on that fact.”

This is endemic of Childress’ tenure. The more picayune the detail, the more passionate he becomes. Since arriving in town, he has obsessed over silliness like media access and cloaking the identity of his starting quarterback.

Congratulations, Souhan. I hereby present you with the slow clap.

First point: I hate cocky Brad Childress. If anyone has the right to be a snob to the media…well, it ain’t Chilly. Coach- ANYONE who follows football could’ve figured out the “fielding the ball with your foot out of bounds” rule. It’s not complicated. At all. Just shut up with your whole “look at what a football genius I am” act…Vikings fans have run out of patience with you, and you certainly didn’t help your cause at this week’s press conference.

Second: When your team has a struggling pass defense; when you’re getting NOTHING out of your quarterbacks; when you’re displaying a coaching ineptitude on a weekly basis with your worthless game plans…I might reconsider bragging about how often you instruct your players on an obscure rule.

You have bigger problems, Coach.

Here’s an idea, Chilly…before you continue to keep making the upcoming starting quarterback a secret, before you continue focusing on meaningless details, try having a gameplan that’ll be effective beyond the first five minutes of the game. Figure out how to better utilize Adrian. Find new and inventive ways to pressure opposing quarterbacks.

Christ, I can’t stand this guy. I literally got a headache after typing those last few paragraphs.

Childress would make a great parody of a football coach for an SNL skit or something. Unfortunately, he’s the real deal. He simply must go at the end of the season…otherwise, I’ll lose all faith in the Wilfs.

Here’s yet another problem with Chilly’s coaching:

Two questionable replay decisions last Sunday left Vikings coach Brad Childress with a 2-6 record in 2007 challenges. The mark ranks him No. 30 among NFL coaches, according to independent statistics compiled by ESPN.com.

Asked if he had an assistant advising him based on television replays, Childress said he made the challenge decision based on live action.

“We really don’t have a crowd [of assistants] that is just watching the TV as it goes,” Childress said. “But that’s what I thought had happened as I was watching it. And I was pretty close down there looking at it right down the line. So I’ll take [responsibility for] that.”

What is it with Vikings coaches and challenges? Tice was horrible at winning challenges, and Chilly’s proven himself to be just as bad, if not worse, than the Lovable Lug when tossing the ol’ red flag onto the field.

I’m not surprised to learn that the Vikes don’t have a coach who reviews the replays, to evaluate whether or not the call should be challenged. If they had someone who did that, we wouldn’t be making so many moronic challenges.

Here’s my question: Don’t most teams have people who watch the replays, and advise the coach on whether or not to challenge the call? I’m positive that this is a common practice…so why can’t we have a similar system in place?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 9:37 pm and is filed under San Diego Chargers, Antonia Gates, Darren Sharper, Brad Childress, NFL, Minnesota Vikings, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.