The difference between Tomlin’s D and Frazier’s has been once effective (5th lowest rating allowed in 2006) vs. very ineffective vs. the pass (10th worst in 2007, middle of the pack in 2008, and 7th worst in 2009). Childress definitely had a lot to do with Frazier getting the job and keeping it without much improvement despite spending a lot of money on Madieu WIlliams and high draft picks on Chad Greenway and Cedric Griffin (before his arrival), Jared Allen, and Tyrell Johnson.

Maybe the Tampa-2 has been used so often that everyone has figured out how to beat it, or at least the version the Vikings have been using. Both Childress and Frazier are very married to their systems, often choosing lesser talents just so that they won’t have to learn as much about a new system (which would still involve making reads, taking good angles, getting there ASAP and tackling, but who cares about those kinds of skills when there are plenty of slow learners who already have experience with the Childress/Frazier Systems?) and doing dumb things like dropping Pat Williams into coverage because someone else running this system had that play for a more mobile DT.

“King” Carl Peterson traded a 1st round pick for Dick Vermeil! It almost would have been worth it had DV stuck around for 2 or more years.

Finding a replacement for Pat Williams should be a focus in the next 2 drafts (assuming that he plays another year, and I think that he will).

McKinnie has been great for the Vikings until part of this year. I don’t know if he’s been banged up or is showing some age and wear and tear or if it’s a matter of concentration. I agree with others who have written that McKinnie was beaten by a speed rusher this week and holds his own very well vs. bull rushers. There simply aren’t many speed rushers in the NFL right now, so that is one area I don’t expect to be a problem in the remaining games that the Vikes will play this season. That said, I’d be happy with an OT who could play multiple positions.

My point was that this Vikings team still struggles to beat last year’s playoff teams, and all of the complaints which led to the fire Childress movement are still true today plus a few unpleasant surprises. Sure, they have won a bunch of cupcake games that just about any coach could have won with this level of talent and payroll, but losing to ARI and CAR did not inspire confidence that this team is a real threat in the playoffs.

Things this coaching staff hasn’t figured out:

• how to get 4.0 ypc out of Adrian Peterson
• how to protect Favre
• how to stop sucky backup QBs from having great games
• how to create more turnovers (currently 24th)
• how to get quality play from a secondary of hand-picked guys who already knew the system

The first 2 could have included keeping Matt Birk. We miss him now. The last 3 could have been addressed by keeping Darren Sharper and drafting talented players rather than less talented guys who supposedly would need less coaching. In my mind, great coaches don’t draft guys who already know the system so that the coaches don’t need to work so hard or explain so much; rather, they draft talented players and try to get the most out of them. Successfully achieving the latter will always prevail over successfully achieving the former. Darrelle Revis, for example, as more passes defended and INTs (36) than Cedric Griffin (7), Tyrell Johnson (7), Madieu Williams (4), Antoine Winfield (5), Bennie Sapp (4), Karl Paymah (2) and Asher Allen (2)…more

than the entire Viking secondary!

Since you didn’t go on about how Childress is the next Belichick or deny reality to proclaim your love for him, you fall well short of being a true Childress apologist.

The failure of the Vikings this year has been the offensive lines inability to open run lanes.

Couldn’t agree more. The OLines inability to open run lanes and/or protect Favre has been costly. Our offensive struggles put more pressure on the defense and in the case of the Carolina game, caused it to collapse in the fourth quarter after playing fairly solid for three quarters.

Special teams have improved

They had to improve from being one of the worst ST units ever under Chilly’s buddy, Ferraro.

The Vikes use the same system that has been used since Chilly got here. A predictable, yet effective, form of the West Coast offense. He has yet to have one QB start his offense for more than one year. This is remarkable.

For the first 3 years, it was a lot more predictable than effecive. This year, the offense is effective because 1) Chilly finally caved on his assertion that WRs should never be drafted in the 1st round; 2) Brett Favre has taken over some of the playcalling, both on the sideline chats with Chilly and Bevell and at the LOS; 3) this is the first year that Chilly tried to get a QB because he was good rather than average and submissive; 4) Favre and a WR training camp seem to have transformed Sidney Rice, although not many QBs could be quite as accurate as Favre has been this year.

To play any other style of defense requires faster players in the secondary that can absolutely cover Man on Man. The Vikes don’t have those kind of players yet.

That’s correct — the Vikings have limited options because they believe in selecting limited players, but for some odd reason aren’t sure why they get such limited results. Doing so is also an admission that they can’t coach talented, skilled and truly good players.

This means no time of possession on offense, a tired defense, and a sacked QB.

Believe it or not, the Vikings rank 7th in ToP, so it can’t be that, which also means that the D is getting more rest on the sidelines than 25 other NFL teams including at least 5 playoff teams.

The failure of the Vikings this year has been the offensive lines inability to open run lanes. For whatever reasons ( injuries, speeding tickets, crying babies) they were terrible Sunday night.

According to NFL.com, the OL does well in run stats (tied for 7th in PWR) but is below average in sacks allowed.

Now that we know how much Cedric Griffin drinks before he drives home, I guess you would use that to excuse how often he gets beat deep.

In all walks of life, people deal with crying babies, traffic tickets (although more responsible people have fewer or no traffic tickets), relationships…and are expected to be on their games every day with that sort of pressure to perform affecting many more days per year. All you’ve said here is that the Vikes are a bunch of wusses, and that is EXACTLY how they played Sunday night. Maybe it means that Matt Birk and Darren Sharper were tougher than the wussies that have replaced them?

I would welcome a SB loss as well. I may even start liking the coaching staff if they could manage to lose a SB, although I will be most skeptical about whether it is mostly because of Brett Favre until proven otherwise.

…that they’ll WIN the super bowl?! , right?? if so, i hope ur right, and not just eggnoging a bit early ;)

They played OK vs. PIT, who probably should have kept handing off to Mendenhall since he was gaining yards at a great rate. The secondary gave up a 40-yd TD to Mike Wallace and probably could have won it by making more plays on the ball (like Keyaron Fox’s INT return basically won it for them).