Brad Childress Doesn’t Know Quarterbacks

The Minnesota Vikings, given recent developments in the effort to build a new revenue-producing stadium as well as the Minnesota bridge collapse, have financial concerns (relatively speaking of course). The Vikings may have to fire Brad Childress and eat the remaining $8 million on his contract as well as commit additional dollars to a new coach, which would only add to those woes.

And it says here that the Minnesota Vikings will be looking for a new head coach after the 2007 season. As we have gone over here at Misunderestimated Again, the quarterback position is critical to a franchise’s success and the Vikings, under the leadership of Brad Childress, have made a comedy of errors with their quarterback personnel moves. Shockingly, Childress has a reputation as a quarterback guru. It says here that reputation is more perception than reality.

The first thing Childress did after being hired in 2006 was to note that the Vikings were a contender and had a franchise quarterback in Daunte Culpepper.

Childress said he thinks the Vikings are close to being a Super Bowl contender. There has been speculation that the club could part with quarterback Daunte Culpepper this offseason. Culpepper is recovering from a season-ending knee injury, and he is among the four Vikings players charged with three misdemeanors each stemming from the boat cruise. He, like his teammates, has pleaded not guilty. The Vikings’ resurgence from a 2-5 start came with Brad Johnson, not Culpepper, at quarterback.

But Childress today called Culpepper a “franchise quarterback” and said Culpepper “fits right in with all the things we’ll do.” Childress said he already had checked with Culpepper’s doctors about the quarterback’s recovery from his knee surgery and had gotten Culpepper’s phone number from Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.

Promptly after saying that, Childress shipped Culpepper off to the Miami Dolphins. As Culpepper appears to be making a comeback with Raiders, this may or may not turn out to have been a good move. We’ll just say the jury is out.
Childress then announced that veteran Brad Johnson would be his starting quarterback. Johnson had experience with the WCO and had helped the Vikings resurgence in 2005, but Childress failed to realize that Johnson had no more gas left in the tank. Johnson had a horrific year and was benched after only throwing 9 touchdowns against 15 interceptions and 9 fumbles. Ouch. Strike 1.

Childress had hand picked a backup quarterback in Mike McMahon. Childress had spent over a year working directly with McMahon when both were with the Philadelphia Eagles and signed McMahon to a 2 year, $2 million contract with a $400K signing bonus. A contract of that size suggested that McMahon was to be paid on the level of the highest paid backup quarterbacks in the NFL. Despite that, McMahon was so awful in the 2006 preseason that the Vikings waived him before the season started leaving the Vikings with a salary cap burden and without a proven backup quarterback. Strike 2.

Without a proven backup, the Vikings were forced to make a move. So the Vikes traded defensive tackle prospect C.J. Mosely and a draft pick to the NY Jets for the relatively unproven Brooks Bollinger. Childress knew Bollinger from their common history at the University of Wisconsin and four days after acquiring Bollinger, Childress rewarded him with a 2 year, $2.2 million contract extention, surpassing the amount they gave to McMahon. (Never mind the fact that Bollinger was already under contract and hadn’t done anything to deserve a contract extension) Yet this preseason, Bollinger stunk up the joint so badly that it quickly became apparent that he wouldn’t be a reliable backup quarterback either. Strike 3.

(To make matters worse, Mosely had 3 sacks in his last preseason game and by all accounts is a player on the rise)

But it doesn’t end with 3 measly strikes.

Because the Vikings yet again didn’t have a viable backup quarterback, they were again forced to make a last minute trade for help. Last week they sent a 6th round draft choice to the Eagles for backup Kelly Holcomb. Holcomb is instantly the most credible quarterback on the Vikings roster, but no one could expect to him to be suitably up to speed having been with a different team until a week before the season. As Holcomb himself just noted:

“I am with a new team, I don’t know how guys run routes. Every guy is a little different with his steps. The running backs, one guy is going to be wide. One guy is going to be a little tighter. You try to all get it the same.”

Strike 4.

Which brings us back to Bollinger. The addition of Holcomb gave the Vikings 4 quarterbacks on their roster, counting 7th round draft pick Tyler Thigpen. Thigpen had been a bright spot in training camp and looked to be a good prospect. While the smart move would have been to waive the now unnecessary Bollinger, Childress managed to make two mistakes in one move. He not only kept Bollinger on the roster but he telegraphed his intent in doing so.

Childress exposed Thigpen to the waiver process. And in the process of doing so, he noted that if he lost Thigpen, “[Childress would] be sick”. Guess what happened? The Kansas City Chiefs claimed Thigpen. Strike 5.

And now we are at Childress’ last and greatest hope: Tarvaris Jackson. Jackson, a 2nd round draft pick in 2006, is a intriguing physical prospect, but didn’t start any Division 1-A college football games and has two completely underwhelming starts on his NFL resume. Because Childress always thinks he knows which quarterbacks he wants, the Vikings traded two 3rd round picks to move up in the second round of the 2006 NFL draft to take Jackson. Just two days ago, ESPN the Magazine quoted an anonymous scout as saying:

There’s not much chance that Tarvaris Jackson will get it done. He’s never been a good quarterback on any level. How’s he going to complete the tough pass on third and long in the pros when he never did it in college? Even the greatest quarterbacks struggle and Jackson isn’t a great quarterback. It blows my mind that they are putting him in there without any fallback guy.

And this is the quarterback on which Brad Childress has staked his career. Could this be strike 6?

Just to recap, that’s a 2nd round pick (Jackson), two 3rd round picks (traded for the pick that became Jackson), two sixth round picks (one for Holcomb and one for Bollinger) one 7th round pick (Thigpen), a promising prospect (Mosely) and two contract extensions and there’s still no sure thing at any spot on the Vikings quarterback depth chart.

Truthfully, there are also serious doubts about Childress’ use of personnel (outside of quarterbacks), his offensive philosophy, his communications skills and his leadership (which could be an entirely separate blog post full of additional criticism). Those doubts alone are enough to cause an NFL franchise to move in another direction, but when will Childress get a quarterback decision right? I don’t think Zygi Wilf will give him another year to find out?

[?]