It might take a Super Bowl win this season for Brad Childress to save his job in Minnesota. And even then…
A couple of anonymous players expressed their dislike for Childress to former Vikings beat writer Sean Jensen (who now covers the Bears for the Chicago Sun-Times). One player even stated that he hates his head coach.
”We know that Childress doesn’t have our backs, so why should we have his?” one player said. ”We’re playing for us, and we’re winning despite him.”
”As much as I hate Childress,” another player said, ”I will keep playing.”
Obviously I’m not inside the Vikings’ locker room day in and day out, so I’m only observer of the situation. But it appears to me that Childress’ biggest problem is that he doesn’t know how to mange people.
When he gets frustrated or he doesn’t have control of a situation, he thinks that he’s motivating a player by calling them out. But he hasn’t earned their respect so when he does that, he only winds up pissing them off. He doesn’t have the faintest idea on how to mange personalities like Favre or Moss, so he winds up alienating them (or flat out getting rid of them, as was the case with Moss) and they turn their backs on him.
The other problem is that Childress doesn’t think things through. He acts on impulse and says whatever is on his mind, which winds up biting him in the ass. He also thinks he’s smarter than everyone and that he can do whatever he wants (i.e. waive Moss, go down to Mississippi to pull Favre off a tractor, etc.) because the Vikings are his team. But all he’s doing is rubbing people the wrong way.
The only reason this man still has a job is because owner Zygi Wilf hasn’t given up on the season yet and doesn’t want to make a big change. Once he does, Childress will be in the unemployment line faster than Randy Moss was run out of town.
