Minnesota Vikings

Alright, anyone who follows any sports team knows that some seasons are good, some are bad. That’s part of the game. One of the most truly frustrating things to endure, however, is when a season is built up to be amazing, but it plays out poorly. This year that seems to be the case across the league. The incumbent Super Bowl champions, the New Orleans Saints, are not on their way to a repeat. The Cardinals have only won something like three games. Then there is the Minnesota Vikings…

Oh the Vikings…

For those of you who don’t know, the Vikings’ current record is 2-5. The two wins were against the Lions (who are perpetually on a bad season lately) and the Cowboys (how do you piss off a Texan this year? Mention the Cowboys). The Vikings have had a laundry list of problems leading up to this season. Before I get to that, however, let me summarize why this season was expected to be so amazing:

• Brad Childress has increased the Vikings’ record every year since he started as head coach. See the following graph:
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• Despite his age, Brett Favre had one of the best seasons of his career in 2009
• The return of Randy Moss to the Vikings’ offense meant the return of one of the teams best receivers in recent memory, and would mean that an opposing defense would no longer be able to devote the coverage needed to Percy Harvin
• Adrian Peterson – enough said

Now what has played out:

• Brad Childress’s streak of increasing records is broken. He has already lost more games in the first half of this year than all season last year.
• Despite his Wrangler commercials, Brett Favre has had one of the worst seasons of his career in 2010.
• Childress is booting Randy Moss from the team. Percy Harvin will once again have the kind of coverage needed to keep him from making plays
• AP is still staying strong, though

What went wrong here? You can blame Favre. You can blame Moss. You can blame Childress. In all actuality, I think the real blame rests on Vikings owner Zygi Wilf. Perhaps blame is the wrong word for it. I think he misinterpreted some important interactions. Here is a quick breakdown of a few of the important characters:

• Brett Favre: The only man in NFL history to have started against all 32 teams in the league. Knowing his status as a football icon, he doesn’t feel the need to listen to coaches. Off the field he is known for sexting pictures of his penis.
• Percy Harvin: Vikings receiver. He was a staple of the Vikings’ offense in 2009. He responds well to orders.
• Randy Moss: Vikings receiver from 1999-2004. At that time, he and Cris Carter were the unquestioned top quarterback-receiver pair in the NFL. After a bad season in 2004, he was traded. He returned to the Vikings a few weeks into this season. He is well known as a hot head that does not take kindly to authority figures of any kind. Off the field, he is known for running over a meter maid for trying to give him a ticket.
• Mike Tice: Vikings head coach from the early 2000’s. You did not give Mike Tice crap. Period. Traded in 2005 after a decent season that narrowly missed going to the playoffs.
• Brad Childress: Current Vikings coach. His winning record is stated above

Now, why did these people work in the past?

• In the early 2000’s Moss was able to excel as a receiver largely due to the discipline forced on him by Tice. Moss was always known to be talented in his position, but his attitude always got in the way, until he encountered a head coach who would not take his attitude.
• Favre was able to excel in 2009 largely because he felt the team cooperated with him. He would tell Harvin what to do, Harvin would do it, that worked. Boy howdy, did it work.
• Though undermined somewhat by Favre’s personality on the team, Childress could still coach the team while often referring to Farve on some matters.
• Up until the 2009 NFC championship game, Brett Favre had two ankles.

What changed that resulted in the 2010 season?

• From the very beginning, Brett Favre played his little game of whether or not he would retire. This means he missed all of training camp and the preseason. The first real football he played in 2010 was the season opening game. It doesn’t matter who you are or how long you’ve been playing. If you spend eight months off and are coming off an injury, you can’t just walk in and take down the reigning Super Bowl champions. By extending his summer break through training, he had already sold his team up the river for game 1.
• Randy Moss was brought in late in the Viking’s bye week. This means that when the new Moss-Favre duo took the field for the first time, they had only been on the same team for three days. It takes some time to get into a rhythm together. Once again, under training costs a game.
• Speaking of the Moss-Favre duo, now there are two big personalities in play. Moss wants to go out and do whatever Moss wants. Farve wants everyone to listen to him. Childress would kindly like to ask for your attention while he tells you what he needs to have happen. On the field this plays out that Moss takes a bad attitude when Favre doesn’t do things his way. Favre can no longer make the plays he wants to make because his receiver is not listening. The team is lacking a central leadership figure, and Childress is helpless.

The fundamental flaw in this season came from putting these two big attitudes together with no one around to rein them in. If Tice were still coach, I think these men would have been put in their place quickly and would be exactly what you want when you put a powerful quarterback with a powerful receiver. That is to say, points. Brad Childress is an excellent football coach, but he is clearly not equipped to engage these men. He could function well in nearly a co-coaching relationship with Favre, but when the moment came that the team needed a strong central leader, it was not present. Now when Moss publicly undermined him (which is no surprise from Randy Moss unchecked) this week, all Childress could do is ditch Moss in hopes of recovering the dynamic that made wins last year.

To be fair, it is a tough one to call. Childress can make football happen, who could have known he wouldn’t have the skill set to balance Moss and Favre?

Next question: The Future

Near future. Will trading Moss work to restore the team’s balance?

Short answer: Probably not

Longer answer: Favre’s problems are not entirely attitude related. He still probably sits as good as any average quarterback, but injuries have taken their toll physically as much as scandal has mentally. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. No matter how good Childress is he won’t make what’s left of Brett Favre any better. Jackson perhaps. The only way to make something of this season would be if Favre doesn’t play for a bit. That won’t happen. It is not out of the realm of possibilities that Jackson could make the plays needed to win. The extreme would be if the team can go 9-0 for the rest of the season to end 11-5, perhaps even a playoff shot. Put Jackson in and you might see 8-8 or even 9-7 for the season, maybe even a playoff run if we’re lucky enough to have the Bears and Packers start falling apart, but the way things are going, I’d consider Favre to be doing extraordinary if he can get us to 5-11.

Long future: What will happen next season?

Moss is gone, Moss is not coming back. Favre will not be asked to play again, either. If this isn’t his retirement season, some other team will have to deal with him next year. My real fear is the Wilf will throw the baby out with the bathwater and get a new head coach. With these big personalities gone, he should be able to get back to the kind of coaching that he’s done in the past. This could be a learning experience for Vikings management. They now know not to put it on Childress’s shoulders to deal with these big personalities that fell the Vikings this year. There’s no reason to believe that with more modest talent he can’t make extraordinary things happen, but I have a strong feeling that won’t be the case.