Why so Chilly Minnesota?

Whatever happened to "Minnesota Nice"? Brad Childress seems to be the most hated man in this state since Norm Green moved the North Stars. Why does the Vikings faithful hate him so much? I've been pondering this for awhile...and just to let you know...I coach middle-school basketball...so in a sense, in my own mind I'm in the coaching fraternity...so these coaches...as Sid would say, "are my close personal friends". I will try to justify some of the complaints I often see and read that iritate fans.

1. He's neglected the quarterback position. Agreed. He hasn't made an upgrade since he's been here, however the defense has gotten a whole lot of his attention and has been progressively better every year (even after Tomlin left). Do people remember the Vikings under Mike Tice and Denny Green? There were numerous games where playing on the road was an automatic loss, no matter where we were playing. There were plenty of Sundays' where the team simply didn't show up under Tice and Green. How many games in Childress' tenure have we been blown out in...the only one that I recall was at Green Bay during Adrian Peterson's rookie year (I remember that game because he left with an injury, on a borderline cheap hit).

2. He's arrogant and stubborn. Agreed. He's arrogant and stubborn...and probably didn't get off on the best foot with the media and fans during the first year or two. But, this coach was also hired to clean up the image of the Vikings right after Tice was let go. We (the Vikings) were the equivalent of the Cincinnati Bengals (if not, a leg up) in off-field issues during much of Tice's tenure. (Love Boat, Randy Moss in general, Snowmobile charity event/that turned into rape allegation, etc)

3. His playbook/play calling is vanilla and boring. Playbooks and play calling mean very little, unless you have the players to execute the plays. Perfect example is Brian Billick. Brian Billick wasn't fielding head coaching job offers until after the Vikings had Randy Moss scoring touchdown after touchdown. Billick then became an offensive genious...? How did that translate over to Baltimore? He won a Super Bowl, despite a well below-average offense. In fact, when teams don't have a good quarterback they often pick up their morale by saying, "hey, Trent Dilfer (Billick's quarterback) won a Super Bowl!" Billick was such an offensive genious, that he wasn't able to build an offense for nearly 10 years in Baltimore...resulting in Baltimore canning a coach that won a Super Bowl for them.

4. Mike Tice did a lot more with a lot less help from the owner. I hate this argument. First this is more of a front office debate, rather than who the head coach was at the time, but if we were comparing head coaches, then...: Is it Childress' fault that Red McCombs was tight with his money and Zygi Wilf isn't? How does this fall on Childress? And how do we know Mike Tice would succeed with more payroll added to the team? Would we sign more Denard Walkers'? And wouldn't you say that the Vikings under Childress have spent their money wisely, not lavishly on solid free agents additions (with the exception of Thomas Tapeh).

5. He's bald, he has a porn mustache and hides behind a Perkins menu during games. I can't defend him anymore...we should run him out of town.

SBG