Fulcrum for a One-Punt Loss

At the half-way point of the 2008 season, it is now officially too late in the season to continue to claim that it is "still early." It is also too late in the season for NFL teams, with the possible exception of St. Louis, for any team to call for its fan base to let things play out and see where they go. At the midway point of the season, as in most other seasons, we have a pretty good snapshot of where things are and where they are going.

With a 3-4 record heading into the bye week, the Minnesota Vikings are about where they have been every season under head coach Brad Childress. They are not great. They are not awful. In other words, they are right about where about seventy percent of NFL teams currently are.

It was not supposed to be like this, of course. The cupboard was supposed to have been stocked when Childress arrived in Minnesota and was to have been fortified many times over in the years since that time. On offense, the Vikings lost Daunte Culpepper. On defense, the team lost virtually nobody that could play the game. Added to the mix were bona fide players such as Adrian Peterson, Chester Taylor, Steve Hutchinson, Bernard Berrian, and Jared Allen.

Despite the additions and the retention of talented veterans, the Vikings continue to tread water, in some areas even reverting to forms last seen in the low-budget Mike Tice era. In particular, the offensive line looks a mess, the linebacking corps without E.J. Henderson is porous, the secondary suddenly is sieve-like, the punting game is disastrous, and kick coverage is worse.

There are some positives, of course, to go along with all of the foibles. Those positives include an improved and more consistent running game than that offered in the Michael Bennett-Onterrio Smith days, a slightly improved pass rush, and improved play at the cornerback position, particularly in nickel and dime packages.

Yet, with the improvements, the errors not only persist, they seem to be mounting. And, at some point, someone ought to stand up and accept accountability. Who that ought to be can be gleaned from a long list of possible culprits. Take your pick--and feel free to mix and match.

Coaching. Harry Truman once said that when it came to the ramifications of policy implementation, the buck stopped with him. To date, we have yet to hear Childress utter anything even remotely resembling these words, save for the few instances in which he has uttered words near these only to insert the caveat that he "cannot play the game for the players."

We could run through the season and point to numerous coaching miscues that good coaches tend not to make, but let's reserve comment merely for yesterday's loss for the moment. Whether it was the decision to use Vinny Ciurciu at linebacker at any point in the game, the decision to use squib kicks on kickoffs that put the Bears in better field position than where they normally would begin play following the average Devin Hester kickoff return (and in a better position than if the Vikings had merely kicked the ball out of bounds!), the decision not to attack a Bears' secondary missing its two starting cornerbacks and its nickel back, or the decision not to employ a hurry-up offense when down by seventeen (the Bears went with a no-huddle offense on their opening drive en route to an easy touchdown), Childress and his staff had their worst game of the season and their worst game in Childress' tenure. It was a game that, from a coaching perspective, should signal the end of Paul Ferraro's tenure as special team's coach in Minnesota and ought to give pause to any thoughts that Zygi might have had about tabbing defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier as even an interim coach.

Childress already has laid the excuse framework for yesterday's loss, pointing to Chris Kluwe's drop of a punt snap and the unfortunate bounce of a ball into return man Charles Gordon's arm, with both plays resulting in Chicago touchdowns, as key plays. What he likely will not say, however, is what he says whenever the Vikings eke out an ugly win--you make your breaks and you earn your results. We know no win is a bad win. But is any loss a bad loss? And, more to the point, does coaching effect outcome or is coaching just a necessary process that affects games only at the margins? We await a reply.

Linebackers. Without E.J. Henderson, the Vikings' linebacking corps is a mess. Ciurciu is hopeless virtually anywhere on the field, but particularly at linebacker. Why he was in the game on Sunday remains a mystery. Suffice it to say that even the recently cut (Kansas City) Napolean Harris is a substantial upgrade over Ciurciu--a point that should have been abundantly evident to Frazier well before the Bears scored their second offensive touchdown.

Quarterback. As bad as the linebackers were on Sunday, quarterback Gus Frerotte was far worse. We undoubtedly will hear about how Frerotte was constantly under pressure and how receivers did not always run the right routes--two issues that seem to have cropped up every week for nearly three years now--but the truth of the matter is that Frerotte was brutal on Sunday. Even easy scoring tosses were thrown wide, but the worst of his passes clearly were the four picks.

None of Frerotte's four picks were the consequence of pressure on the quarterback. They all simply were bad passes. For a veteran quarterback to have four brutal picks in one game, against backup corners, is tough to understand.

Offensive line. No surprise that the offensive line continues to struggle as the Vikings continue to rely on the likes of Ryan Cook and Bryant McKinnie to block far superior football players. The Vikings have few options on the ends, but re-inserting Artis Hicks for McKinnie would be a good start.

If you want to take away something positive from yesterday's loss, there were some things that fit the bill. Visanthe Shiancoe continued to hold onto the ball and even made a difficult catch of a poorly thrown pass. Adrian Peterson finally broke a run. And Ryan Longwell looked solid. Outside of that, everything was pretty much as it has been under Childress, but worse.

Up Next: Some Numbers.

Will Can Meet Will for Childress?

Of all the players in the NFL with which Minnesota Vikings' head coach Brad Childress is smitten, none has more garnered his favor than Philadelphia Eagles' running back Brian Westbrook. Nary a press conference or interview passes without Childress gushing about Westbrook's flexibility and accomplishments. Nor without Childress commenting that Vikings' running back Adrian Peterson is no Brian Westbrook.

There is no argument here. Peterson certainly is no Westbrook. But that's not because he cannot be. Rather, it is because Childress insists that he is not and refuses to use him in the manner that the Eagles use their versatile, if oft-injured back.

In 2003, his second season in the NFL, Westbrook caught 37 passes for 332 yards and ran the ball 117 times for 613 yards. In 2007, he improved those numbers to 90 receptions for 771 yards and 278 rushing attempts for 1333 yards.

In his rookie season with Minnesota, Peterson caught 19 passes for 268 yards and had 238 rushing attempts for 1,341 yards, despite missing two games to injury and returning early from his injury leave. This season, Peterson has caught 11 passes for 56 yards and rushed 129 times for 561 yards.

The numbers suggest that, despite Childress' curious statements to the contrary, Peterson not only is very much like a young Brian Westbrook with respect to his ability to serve not only as a running back but as a receiver, but also that Peterson might even be more like Westbrook than is even Westbrook.

What appears to be limiting Peterson's success is not, as Childress continues to offer unprompted, that Peterson simply does not have the skill set necessary to catch the ball, but Childress' unwillingness to break from the mold that is his ultra-conservative brand of the West Coast Offense. Unlike the West Coast brand of offense run in Philadelphia and previously in San Francisco, two offenses that rely heavily on the running back in both the rushing and passing game, Childress simply cannot imagine such a scheme working with the likes of pedestrian backs such as Peterson and Chester Taylor.

For the Vikings to succeed beyond the mere humdrum that has become their .500 pace, Childress must accept what is so clear to even the most casual of observers. Namely, he must accept that he has talent on offense that, despite the warts of the offensive line, can change games dramatically. If only given the proper opportunity.

Childress seems to have some sense of what is happening on the field. Unfortunately, he continues to sabotage his own efforts by refusing to capitulate when it comes to making better use of Peterson.

In the field of clinical psychology, stubbornness is correlated with passive-aggressive personality types. Anyone who heard Childress' latest press conference no doubt would have little trouble associating either attribute with the Vikings' head coach. Fortunately for Childress, the symptoms are treatable. Unfortunately for Vikings' fans, the trait-holder must acknowledge the characteristics and then endeavor to address them. It's not at all clear that Childress is desirous or capable of either. And that probably means more of the same for the Vikings' offense.

Up Next: Bears With Us.