Is Brad Childress the 11th-Best NFL Coach?

by Anthony21 on Jun 9, 2009 6:36 PM CDT in Minnesota Vikings

That's what Sporting News thinks. Are they onto something or on something?

The team has gotten better every year under his watch, and last season he got the Vikings to the playoffs without a viable quarterback.

Why they're onto something:

Under Childress, the Vikings have indeed shown consistent improvement -- they've gone from 6-10 to 8-8 to 10-6, and just as the record has improved, so has Chilly. He's certainly not as distant of a presence as he once was -- Marcus Robinson's criticism of the coach's communication with the locker room may have been perfectly valid two seasons ago, but I certainly don't get the impression that it'd be equally valid today. Minicamp displayed that Chilly is becoming more willing to mix things up offensively, signaling that his rigid execution-oriented meat-and-potatoes coaching style is evolving. And hey, ridicule the Culture of Accountability all you want, but he has cleaned the place up.

Why they're on something:

You're telling me a guy with a 0-1 playoff record in three seasons belongs in the upper echelon of NFL head coaches? Sure, viable quarterbacks have been few and far between during Chilly's run in Minnesota, but that's largely been of his own doing -- simply put, he's been too dang stubborn in his commitment to Tarvaris Jackson. And true, drafting Percy Harvin and giving the Loki formation a test drive could be perceived as signaling a more creative approach to the offense, but let's see this creativity in September before we offer Chilly too much praise.

Your thoughts?

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haha

I saw this on the daily Sporting News newspaper yesterday and had the same response. My only logic in this case was by looking at the head coaches after Chillie. Other than Rex Ryan (who is still unproven as a HC but still pretty badass) and Gary Kubiak (who has the Texans looking pretty good this year), I don’t really want any of the other remaining head coaches.

Also, remember that Shanahan is not included in the current list (so technically Brad should be 12th)

by allday28 on Jun 9, 2009 7:15 PM CDT reply actions

11th best at what?

I have not read the article and probably will not.
Is he the 11th best at wasting time in a two minute drill.
Is he the 11th best at wasting talent with AD on the sidelines on 3rd down and not putting AD and Chester in the same backfield until maybe now.
Is he the 11th best at totally mismanging his QB situation so that is his 4th year of coaching his best and only hope is to hope that a 40 year old injured Farve can come out to retirement and make his offense look useful.
Maybe with BF the VIKES go a long way or all the way, but it will not be because he is the 11th best coach, it will be that he had enough very good players on offense and a great defense to overcome the handicap at the HC position. He also would not be the first coach in NFL history to have had the players make him look real good. Even the Bears went 13-3 one year with a dud of a coach. If he is the 11th best coach, then Mike Tice was a genius.

by ZygiZag on Jun 9, 2009 8:31 PM CDT reply actions

Mike Tice did better with way way less talent thats all that needs to be said tell me if you would take Childress over Tice.

by Zoxide on Jun 9, 2009 8:37 PM CDT reply actions

I don’t know where I would rank Childress, but he has done better than Tice. The Vikings never had a double digit win season under Tice, or a division championship in 4 season as head coach (2001-2005). Tice had two season below .500 (2001:5-11, 2002:6-10). People complained that the Vikings “backed-in” to the playoffs this year (even though they won it fair and square), but when Tice’s Vikings made it, they were 8-8 and actually backed into the playoffs by holding the tie-breaker over New Orleans for the last wild card spot. And Tice inherited a team that was 11-5 in 2000, the year before he took over. I don’t know how much control Tice had over personnel moves, but there were some horrible trades and draft picks during his time and it is well known how much he loved Troy Williamson and you got to think his influence is why the Vikings took him so high.
Childress hasn’t always made the right decisions, but I wouldn’t expect a rookie head coach to get it all right away and the team has improved each year he has been there. In 3 years he as accomplished more than Tice did in 4 by making some great personnel/draft decisions, having a division championship, and overall it would be tough to convince anyone that the Vikings are heading in the wrong direction which is something people questioned with incidents like the Love Boat and Super Bowl ticket scalping under Tice. No team is perfect, but even without Favre, the Vikings are in a great position to repeat as division champs and compete in the playoffs and better than they were under Tice.

by Josh_D on Jun 9, 2009 9:49 PM CDT up reply actions

Different era, but Tice still compares more favorably

First of all, Tice did not have 2 losing seasons. He was an assistant for 15 games and lost the last game of the year in his first head coaching experience in 2001. That year should count as Green’s last year. In 2002, Tice’s first year as HC, the team improved by 1 win (Childress’s 2006 team was 3 games worse than Tice’s winning 2005 team). In Tice’s last 3 seasons, the Vikings were .500 or better in each year (only the Seahawks could say the same in the NFC at that time), played twice as many playoff games, and actually won one in Green Bay. In 2003, Tice’s Vikings were only 1 game away from winning the division. The Vikings had also developed a young QB who had one of the 5 or so best single seasons in NFL history in 2004 while Tice was on the coaching staff. The Tice years featured RBs like Michael Bennett, Onterrio Smith, and Mewelde Moore…can you imagine what Tice could have done with an end like JA and a RB like AP?

Tice never had an 0-16 team to (barely) beat for 2 guaranteed wins. Just 1 Detroit win last year (or 1 game lost due to the WIlliams Wall serving their 4-game suspensions last year) would result in a losing record with no double-digit wins for Chilly in 3 years. So far, your criteria don’t really favor Childress. It will be interesting to see what happens this year now that 11 wins ought to be a reasonable expectation.

by KC Viking on Jun 11, 2009 8:14 PM CDT up reply actions

2001 was Greens last season. Tice coached the final game and was named head coach in Jan 02. His inherited team was 5-10.He was 0-1 (last week of 01) 6-10, 9-7, 8-8 (playoff birth with a record of 1-1) and 9-7 in his last year. Childress went 6-10, 8-8,
10-6 (Division champ 0-1). So they are about the same record wise except Tice would be margionaly better because he has won a playoff game.

I will agree that Childress and Wylf are much better in the area of accountability and not sitting idly by when a player does something stupid. However he makes Green look like a master at the 2 min drill, makes some of the most boneheaded calls, looks more confused and lost then Burns ever did, and mismanages players. At least last year was not as painful as the previous two, but I am still not sold on him. See how he does when his contract gets extended/new which barring any catastrophe he will lead the team to enough mediocroty to get that.

by tyr27 on Jun 10, 2009 7:39 AM CDT reply actions

I actually kind of like Childress. But even I think that 11 is too high. Yes, he got the team to the playoffs last year, and managed to overcome that 1-3 record which is fairly amazing, since teams that start off 1-3 don’t normally come back to win double-digits. But he makes too many mistakes to be the 11th best right now. And you could easily argue that the reason we made it to the playoffs was because of Peterson’s freakish ability. Of course Childress is the one calling plays, so he’s the one letting Peterson use it. Kind of a paradox there.

by Frost on Jun 10, 2009 9:46 AM CDT reply actions

Overrated

Brad Childress leaves his best player (Peterson) standing on the sidline in the last minute of a loss to Kansas City because he’s not a real good pass blocker. He publicly ridicules his kicker for not following orders because he wasn’t able to get the ball out of bounds inside the 20. He blindly holds on to Tarvaris Jackson with a death grip and insists he will be a top-flight quarterback.Two years ago, all the Vikings had to do to make the playoffs was win one of their last three games – and they couldn’t do that. Sure the Vikings made the playoffs last year, but with the best runner in the game, they almost didn’t. And, then, they basically didn’t even show up for the playoff game.

Childress is #11? What a crock.

by aladdinwa on Jun 10, 2009 10:26 AM CDT reply actions

11 might be okay if...

you include personnel. the vikings as an organization have made outstanding personnel moves over the last 3 years. you can point to a few flaws there but as a whole the team is so much better than when chili took over. however, i think the best chili will ever achieve is martyball status (chiliball?). he has the same overconservative approach.

by iseepurplepeople on Jun 10, 2009 11:33 AM CDT reply actions

What pisses me off is...

That we let one of the best coaches in the league walk away right under our noses when Mike Tonmlin left… It’s just hard when we keep having mediocre head coaches, and we keep losing amazing coordinators who go do great things elsewhere… (Dungy, Tomlin, Billick, Linihan…) Is anybody else confused as to how there are only 3 active coaches with super bowl rings? Why has the NFL gone toward the youth movement and put so many pedegreed coaches out to pasture I’m holding off judgement on Childress this year, because if we can’t produce with this talent, it’s on him… If we don’t at least end up in the NFC Championship this year, I say we look at John Gruden, Mike Shanahan and Bill Cowher…

by ctowner35 on Jun 10, 2009 1:26 PM CDT reply actions

Gruden and Shanahan sure were doing well when they got canned, right? Honestly, it would just be more of the same. Shanahan would just dismantle our defense, like he did in Denver. Gruden would get us over-the-hill Vet QBs, though I suppose we are pursuing one right now anyways.

And Cowher is just unlikely. He’s got a home in Ohio that he just built within the year. It’s well documented. If he takes a HC gig, it’ll be for an Ohio team.

by Frost on Jun 10, 2009 9:33 PM CDT up reply actions

Gruden and Shanahan sure were doing well when they got canned, right?

Well, yeah, they were. Gruden had coached a winning team for the second year in a row and the 3rd time in the past 4 years…basically the same as Tice.

Shanahan’s last team tied for 1st in an admittedly weak AFC West (but at least all 4 of those teams won at least 2 games). From 2002-2008, the Broncos had finished no worse than 2nd in their division (including their only losing season in that time in 2007…7-9 is not bad for a team’s WORST season in 7 years and 2nd worst in 14 years under Shanahan), and they played 4 playoff games. There were reasons to think that the Broncos were only a draft or FA signee or two away from being great again, although he definitely should have given up some control of the defensive personnel (then, especially, and it will probably be a requirement for his next job). Basically, Shanahan’s last 2 years were more like Chilly’s first 2 years to Chilly fans, although 6-10 and 8-8 were Chilly’s best/only years as a head coach while those were 2 of Shanhan’s 6 non-winning seasons in 15 complete seasons as an NFL head coach.

The Vikes need a competent offensive minded head coach to replace Childress.

by KC Viking on Jun 11, 2009 8:34 PM CDT up reply actions

Weak article.

Usually, scouting articles are more objective with set criteria. This time there are none.

How is Childress ranked ahead of Tony Sparano? All he did was start the wildcat trend (which Childress is planning to mimic) and lead the first ever +10 turnaround in NFL history. Sure, some of it was due to Bill Parcells and some excellent personnel moves like signing Chad Pennington, but Sparano definitely was responsible for at least one of the 10 more wins compared to 2007. Chilly lost 3 more games after inheriting a winning team at this stage of his career.

What about Lovie Smith at #20? If Childress deserves #11 for winning 10 games (2 vs. the worst team ever) without a viable QB, then Lovie should be in the top 10 for leading a defensive powerhouse (his area of expertise) to the Super Bowl without a viable QB. And everyone knows that Chilly’s supposed area of expertise is QB coaching…yeah, I can’t wrap my head around Childress over Lovie Smith at all.

Marvin Lewis is a better coach than Brad Childress, too. Although the Bengals have struggled mightily since Carson Palmer’s injury woes and the end of the Rudi Johnson era, he turned that team around big time, winning 6 more games in his first season than the team had won in 2002. By the end of his 3rd season, Lewis had never coached a losing season, had won a division title, and lost 1 playoff game…while coaching the BENGALS.

Jack Del Rio, and maybe even Norv Turner, also deserve at least as much respect as Childress.

by KC Viking on Jun 11, 2009 10:20 PM CDT reply actions