Well yeah, the obvious answer is all he had to do was listen to Randy Moss’ postgame press conference following the Vikings’ loss to the Patriots to know that was the case. Still, it was pretty interesting to read Brad Childress’ interview with the Pioneer Press and hear him defend himself. Keep in mind, this is the same Brad Childress we said might not ever sniff another NFL head coaching job, standing up for himself by saying the players liked him:
Childress contends he had many supporters in the locker room, citing the players who reached out to him after his firing.
Regarding Moss, Childress heard late in the process that Moss was lobbying Wilf to fire him, but he was already set on waiving Moss.
So was Chilly trying to waive Moss before or after he found out Moss was trying to get his butt fired? Probably about the same time we all learned Randy was making the coaches look bad. Childress also mentioned in his interview that he left the team in better shape than when he got there. I disagree with that contention.
The Vikings had two 9-7 seasons and an 8-8 year under Mike Tice prior to Childress’ arrival. Tice was vastly undeerqualified for the job but still had them doing much better than 3-7, which is how Chilly left things. I’ll also argue that Minnesota’s improvement had much more to do with front office moves than coaching. They drafted Adrian Peterson and Sidney Rice in Childress’ second year on the job, they gave up several draft picks for Pro Bowler Jared Allen a year later, and the year after that they bought Brett Favre. Childress coincided with the collapse in Minnesota and did not leave things better than when he got there.
