It really does. It brings in new fans and new respect where before there was only mocking laughter and contempt. That’s 100% Childress and the ethos he pulls out of the team. As much as it makes me grind my teeth to see Moss in a Patriots uniform (no, I do not wish him well, I will never wish him well until he’s back in Purple), he really did have to go. He was the core of a cancer deep inside the Vikings squad and it took a couple painful years in the armpit of the NFL to burn that out of him. C-Pep was offered enough rope to make himself a hammock or a noose, and we know what he chose, so there went the other half of the cancer. As much as it pained me to see those things happen, at the end of the day I’d rather cheer for a Vikings team that’s made up of truly decent men, than a bunch of blow-hards who think that their talent and money puts them above their teammates, above the team itself, and even above the law.

Is a big part of why Favre’s with the team :)

I haven’t seen one person on this thread sing a hosanah— they’ve all done what you’ve done, which is compliment his skills as a talent evaluator.

We all also need to admit that if we had a cute playcaller like Sean Payton that we’d all be bitching about how the beast in our backfield doesn’t get to pound it enough. The playcalling has improved with proper quarterback play, but honestly, playcalling is a lose-lose situation for most teams as fans are always right and coaches are always wrong the second things go bad.

For those of you that hate the playcalling— we haven’t shown anthing on film in 3+ years!

“I have said many times that Childress has built a great team. But I have also said many times that he shows issues with clock management and decision making when the game is on the line.

The ONLY reason we even got close enough to the end zone to win that game vs the 49ers is because of Brett Favre."

The ONLY reason Favre had a chance to do what he did was because our team still had 3 timeouts left after we botched our first attempt at the game winning drive. His clock management is far from perfect, but to say it hasn’t improved with proper quarterback play is unfair.

I disagree. Tice brought in Antoine Winfield and Pat WIlliams. A lot of money, good character guys. He also brought in or drafted some turds as well (Onterrio Smith, Koren Robinson, Fred Smoot). Onterrio Smith was a fourth round draft pick, Smoot was a high dollar free agent. They were all first class turds.

The fact of the matter is that Tice didn’t care if the guy was a head case or a whizzinator away from a year long suspension, he just looked at talent, and if he was a good character guy, that was a bonus. To say he had to get talent for pennies on the dollar is specious, at best. McCombs was a tightwad when it came to putting money into facilities and coaching staffs, but he paid good money for free agent talent.

Childress whiffed on a couple of guys character wise (Dwight ‘The Original Stairmaster’ Smith, Robinson contract extension), but character is a big part of the evaluation process for him. Other than Dwight Smith, every guy he’s brought in has had as much character as talent. Tice was a player, and he tried to hard to be their buddy and not their coach, and it bit him in the ass. I loved Tice, never thought he got a fair shake in a lot of ways, but he had a ‘boys will be boys’ attitude, and it reflected in the team and on the field. They were undisciplined in both arenas and there were different rules for different players.

both sat on bench as 3d stringers at first. Gannon out of Delaware, Johnson from Fla State, right?

Disagree with your assessment of Edwards. He put more pressure on QBs than ANY of our higher round draft choices until we got Allen. Edwards remains a huge find in the 4th round.

Disagree on Griffin. He is much better than in earlier years. He has made many big plays in the past 2 years, and he is not giving up nearly as much in front of him as he used to. CB is a tuf position to excel at in your 1st year, especialy if you have to learn the Cover 2 intricacies. He is showing substantial improvement, which suggests he is learning the scheme. He may never be Pro-Bowl caliber, but so what?

Agree on johnson, but hope he gets better like Gruiffin has and does not bust like Offord.

5 games is way too early to pass judgment on Sullivan. Cory Withrow he is not, thank heavens. Birk rode the bench awhile. Gotta give Sully at least a year before we pass judgment. But you may end up being right on him.

Getting rid of Culpepper was the right thing to do. We would not have the chemistry we have now if we had kept him. pep is just not that good at reading defenses and beating the blitz. He lost the game against the Steelers for the Lions by getting sacked several times in a row at the end. Pep was never clutch, will never be clutch. That’s just the way it is. Cook may be a bust, but Chilly reacted quickly with Loadholt, and did not overreact by passing on harvin for a OT in 1st round.

Truth is our drafts under Chilly have been great, especially when compared to prior periods. Now, whether that success is BECAUSE of Chilly and his “skill” at evaluating talent, well, we may never know. Correlation does not mean causation. He could have just got lucky.

Who cares. Enjoy the show!! It never lasts, so enjoy it now while it’s here.

Right. I’d hesitate calling Childress (or Spielman, or whomever) a drafting genius. And I’m not sure looking at starters is the best way to evaluate a draft’s success. As you note, a lot of that may be political/coaching bias, and a lot of it might also be guys starting by default.

I mean, while Sullivan and Johnson are technically starters, even assuming good future health (for the sake of argument), how confident can we be these guys will still be starting, say, 2 years from now? Because at this point both seem to be in the middle of the weak parts of their respective units. And, yes, they’re young and maybe they could develop. Or, maybe they’ll be another Ryan Cook and just not show any development at all. Wait and see.

I’m not saying the Vikings are BAD at drafting, to be clear. I just don’t think they can be considered one of the better teams at it.

Speaking of Ray Edwards, he’s a free agent after this year. Could be a situation to keep an eye on. I think they have some serious needs elsewhere (QB, DT, and S are my big concerns), and I agree Robison probably wouldn’t be good for 3 downs, so I’d hate to see them have to reach on DE in the draft. OTOH, Edwards hasn’t been anything special. OTOH, he’s still really young at 24, and while doesn’t produce many sacks, he does provide some pressure and is good versus the run. OTOH, mediocre DEs sometimes get crazy contract offers…

Griffin is a good cover guy who’s continuing to improve. He was iffy his rookie season, but was still good enough to displace Smoot. With Winfield, I think the Vikings have one of the better CB tandems in the league.

Johnson is still untested, I’ll give you that.

Robison was drafted because of his pass rushing ability, and so you want to discard him for doing…what he was drafted to do?

Ray Edwards could start on several teams, and he’s better at providing a consistent perimeter rush than anything that a Tice-era team could field, save Lance Johnstone.

Sullivan is definitely no Matt Birk. But last season, Matt Birk wasn’t Matt Birk. Sullivan has done a decent job so far, and I think his performance has improved, for the most part, from week to week.

Culpepper to Miami was a push, at best. Culpepper flopped in MIami was was exiled to Oakland. Cook, who has his faults, manged to start more than four games, which is all DC did in his one year in Miami, going 1-3 as a starter. And I’m sorry, but the ‘so and so’ was available argument is so tired when looking at draft picks. Almost any pick, by any team, in any round, can be shot to pieces. I think Cook could have been drafted four rounds earlier, and yeah there were better options available, but bottom line is he was an average starter, which is all Daunte was in Miami.

Why would a comparison of Tice draft picks on Chilly’s roster be a better evaluation? It might be more damning, as most of them were cleared out within a couple years of his arrival. Childress might have disliked Moore, but so did Tice, because he was always in his doghouse. James was an injury bust, true. What about Troy WIlliamson? Dontarrious Thomas? Darrion Scott?

When Chilly came in, he described his offense as a variation of the West Coast Offense, that he called a ‘Kick Ass Offense’. Well, we’ve seen a lot of… hmmm…. a lot of nothing, since then. Very plain vanilla, not many plays, not much imagination. Considering the overall level of talent, we should have seen more. The blame has been placed on T-Jack, assuming that T-Jack isn’t smart enough to understand/run more than half a dozen plays.

Now we have Favre, and the offense is finally beginning to kick some tail. The problem is telling whether or not the change is caused by an improved offense overall, or by Favre himself, taking liberties on the field.

I’m still waiting to see a ‘great system’.