According to ESPN’s Ed Werder, Vikings owner Zygi Wilf nearly fired Brad Childress after the head coach waived Randy Moss earlier this week before talking to Wilf about the decision. The report states that Wilf was “furious about being circumvented” and almost kept Moss.
I’m actually surprised Wilf didn’t fire Childress. His front office went out and traded a third round pick to acquire Moss and his lame-brain head coach waived him four weeks later because he doesn’t know how to handle big personalities like the ones Moss and Favre have. Given Wilf’s reaction to the situation, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Childress overstepped his boundaries here.
Either way, I don’t see how Childress keeps his job past this season. He managed to get the Vikings to the NFC title game last year but now that everything has fallen apart, it’s apparent he has no idea how to right the ship. Granted, not having Sidney Rice has been a major blow to the offense and there’s no doubt that he was vital to the Vikes’ success last season. But this is still a talented team and it’s up to Childress to figure out ways to win when one of his star players goes down with an injury. That’s what he’s paid to do – that’s what his job is and he hasn’t delivered.
That said, I credit Wilf for not making a snap decision and firing Childress the moment he heard about Moss being waived. He might as well stand by his head coach now and let Childress hang himself as the season wears on. Because the Vikings are toast – they’re not coming back. Wilf just has to ride out these next nine weeks and then he’ll have everything he needs to tell Childress to hit the road. (Even though the head coach still has three more years left on his current deal.)
