Was Brad Childress Joking with Brett Favre Hug Comment?

The disastrous season for the Minnesota Vikings was on the brink of growing even more embarrassing until the team made a valiant comeback Sunday. Down 24-10 late, Adrian Peterson and Visanthe Shiancoe had touchdowns to help tie things at 24 with Arizona. The Vikings won 27-24 in overtime and turned a desperate moment into a celebration. Brett Favre threw for a career-high 446 yards helping the Vikings escape at home and helping coach Brad Childress keep his job for another week.

Many people believed Childress could be fired after the game, but the morale-boosting win was hardly the time to make a coaching change. In his post-game press conference, Childress was asked if he needed assurances he would keep his job and he said “No, I’m not going to stand here like Brett Favre and tell you, compassionate, I need a hug. I’m all right.” Here’s the video of what he said:

People instantly felt Childress was taking a shot at Favre with the remark. Enlightened folks will suggest that Childress was simply making a reference to an answer from Favre to a question that came up during the week. On Wednesday, in the middle of the Randy Moss controversy, Favre was asked if Childress was a compassionate coach. His answer was “Is he compassionate as in give us a hug or something? Boy, I sure could use one, too. But he hasn’t given me one.”

If that was a joke, nobody was laughing. It must be pointed out that Chilly was complimentary of Favre earlier in his news conference, so there didn’t appear to be bad feelings at the time, but it sure didn’t seem like a joke to me. What about you, you buying it?