It seems my Vikings club has chosen Eagles Offensive Coordinater, Brad Childress as their new Head Coach.
I know next to nothing about this guy except that he looks like Major Dad, he was suppposedly good with McNabb and he didn’t call the plays in Philly. So tell me what we’re getting in this guy. To hear some of the local media tell it, he’s a Belichick type genius. Should I be optimistic or should I look forward to some more 7-9 seasons?
No replies to this, but then… after this season, who’s going to admit being a Philadelphia Eagles fan?
Good point. Does ANYBODY know anything about Childress? You don’t have to admit to being an Eagles fan.
When I saw the name on the ESPN scroll I thought it sounded familiar to me. And it was, he was an assistant coach (QBs coach, later the offensive coordinator) under Barry Alvarez at Wisconsin from 92 to 98. He never ran a particularly pro-style offense but with some giant offensive lineman some servicable quarterbacks and a guy named Dayne he did pretty well and was a part of 2 Rose Bowl wins. Combine that with the Eagles record up until this year, he’s got the aura of being a “winner” around him, I guess. Can’t say how much the Eagles’ success was Andy Reid vs. him though.
Personally I always like to see teams go after “new blood” when bringing in a new coach. I’m particularly underwhelmed by the fact that the Packers are interviewing Wade Phillips for their job.
I heard he never called the plays in Philly, but had a big part in practices and designing the offense. He seems ok, I met him here once.
I hear he wants Packer QB coach Darrell Bevell as OC. He was the QB on the '93 UW Rose Bowl team. Nice guy, as nice as they come. Might have been a big factor in why Favre has fallen in his game. As a Packer fan, I say go ahead and hire Darrell as OC.
Wade Phillips? Ugh.
Made Ron Dayne a successful back? The guy must be a freakin’ genius.
Here in Mashville we have two reasons to like Wade. One, his old man used to coach our team (when they was the Oilers). Two, he coached the Bills in the famous “Music City Miracle” game. Heh. That was the play that killed his career.
We oughtsta put up a statue of Phil Luckett somewhere.
If you think Wade Phillips is an unattractive choice, I heard on a local sports talk radio station yesterday that the Packers might be interested in Mike Tice. As a Purple fan, that’s just fine with me. 
Thanks for the info on Childress. I forgot he was at Wisconsin. I’m sort of cautiously optimistic. The fact that he was wanted by about five other teams is a good sign too.
Was Tice that bad? Now that he’s gone, I can say I always liked him. He was the only one in the Central/North division I was wary of. He took chances and they usually panned out, stood up for his guys, seemed to have a good offense he was running, or at least his OC was. Always had a potent offense. Take away the stupid passes from Moss into the opponents arms in the end zone, of course. They were always good, though granted this year they were favorites to make it to the Super Bowl ( after all they received from trading Moss) and didn’t. At least most people were expecting them to win the division, and they didn’t. And come on, if he ever had to write something down, he always had a pencil handy!
I’d be surprised if GB hires Tice though. THis new idiot we got is interviewing about 10 people at last count.
The Eagles offense has never featured wide receivers not named Owens. At least, not under Childress.
It was the dullest of the dull west coast style. The typical season involved no wide receivers ever getting 50 catches; it was all dumpoffs to the running back coming out of the backfield and qb scrambling.
Was that because the receivers were so amazingly awful, the scheme was bad, or McNabb couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn if it were beyond 10 yards downfield? Probably equal parts of all three.
No, the coordinator from the Eagles with a chance to recreate the success of the previous four seasons is Jim Johnson.
I hope you’re not too big a fan of the vertical passing game, because I doubt you’ll be seeing much of it. Do you have a Brian Westbrook / Tiki Barber type running back? You’re gonna need one…
hehheh, I just checked pro-football-reference.com for a basis of comparison.
Other than the Superbowl year when McNabb had Owens most of the season, Donovan never came within 400 passing yards of Eli’s mark this year. (Okay, once he came within 397 yards.)
With Owens, McNabb actually did break 3800 yards. (Eli threw for just over 3750 this year.)
With a healthy Culpepper and wide receivers who can catch, Childress will finally have an opportunity to field a decent passing game.
If I were a Vikings fan, I would be cautiously optimistic. It is accepted wisdom that it takes several years for a qb to learn the west coast system, but how much worse, really, could Childress be than Tice?
Maybe he’ll modify his philosophy to take advantage of Culpepper’s (or Johnson…I envy your backup) accuracy and your receivers’ hands, neither of which were available to him in Philly.
He might be like a kid in a candy store. Most of your problems seem to be off-field issues, which are nothing to sneeze at, but on the field you guys have some talent.
Tice, as a personality, is a pretty likable guy, a good sense of humor and a straight shooter who doesn’t run away from questions. He was also liked by the players but the knock was that he was too much of a players’ coach, too the extent where he was reluctant to crack the whip when he needed to, where players didn’t fear him and where stuff like the Love Boat incident was allowed to happen under his watch. I guess he also had a tough time handling Randy Moss, but I don’t know that any coach has been able to really control Moss.
My feeling is that Tice was a good O-line coach, who had a good rapport with players and who got promoted a little to far over his head a little too early. I think he’s be agood addition to any team as an assistant but he may not ever be HC material.
Michael Bennett has a lot of speed and can take it to the house off a screen or if he gets outside. Bennett is not a really physical runner, though. He needs a little space and doesn’t break tackles like Barber or Westbrook. Mewelde Moore has some tackle breaking ability and is good at picking holes but he doesn’t have breakaway speed. I guess the Vikings really don’t have what anyone would call a franchise RB right now (though Moore has potential). It wouldn’t surprise me if they went after someone in the draft (you don’t think Reggie Bush will still be around at #17 do you?) or in free agency. They have a lot of cap room and the new owners says he’s going to spend money. I think Sean Alexander is going to be a free agent next year…
Alexander is an awful fit for Childress. You want a guy accustomed to getting a large portion of his touches in the passing game.
Honestly, both Michael Bennett and Mewelde Moore seem like good fits for Childress. I wouldn’t be surprised to see one of them have a breakout year in 2006.
As nice a guy as Tice is, he really underperformed after hot starts kept stalling in the Meadowlands. (hehheh) That’s one thing that Childress should be able to overcome; fading down the stretch is not something the Eagles were known for.
I just can’t stand the west coast offense. I’ve been a Giants fan for 15 years, and a secondary Jets fan for maybe 8 years. I love the vertical gameplan of the Giants, while the snoozefest that was the Jets horizontal passing attack (before this year) drove me crazy.
Anyone who thinks that dumping the ball off to the running back with screens and swing passes is a good substitute for running the ball is out of touch with play in the trenches. The running game is only partially about getting the ball in the running backs hands. Almost equally important in the running game is the fact that the offensive line gets to smash the D line in the mouth. Pass blocking is not an effective means of imposing your will on the defense.
Note that I don’t know what I’m talking about regarding the finer points of actually playing the game; the above sentiment is Mark Schlereth.
Its hard to know what you are getting with this guy. Most fans have wondered what Childress actually does. Speculation was that he designs Andy’s menu for the half-time buffet.
Is it Childress who planned the ‘run the bare minimum’ offense? It it Childress who convinced Andy that Greg Lewis can play in the NFL? We don’t know.
If Childress has any input into our draft choices, then that’s certainly a stinging indictment of his talent.
Tell that to the 49ers of the 80 ;). They definetly used the short passing game very well.
Actually, you have an excellent and relevant point.
The west coast offense is hugely successful when there is no salary cap and you outspend all other teams by a large margin.
Eh, it worked pretty well for the Packers for a stretch, the Seahwaks now, Gruden’s Raiders and Bucs and ina few other examples. I don’t think you can say that the West Coast offense doesn’t work. However there are certainly different ways to implement it and how willing the coach is to diverge from the basics to exploit weaknesses. In all the successful examples the offense used the short passing game to set up the run, move the chains, control the clock and be productive in the redzone. However they all also succeeded in creating opportunities to go deep down the field when the defense creeped up and had a balanced attack to keep the pass rush honest.
Those ugly west coast offenses that keep popping up across the league and boring fans to tears are largely just poor implementations of that scheme. I’d certainly rather watch a Giants/Denver/Dallas style offense with play-action, vertical passing and a focus on running the ball in my home town, but I don’t think it’s implementation is any more reliably successful than the west coast is.
I’m not so sure, as everyone’s been saying no one really knows what to expect from Childress. Was it him who created that awful Eagles offense where they were allergic to run blocking and passes over 8 yards or was that Reid? Is Childress going to bring that Wisconsin style offense that turned Dayne into a world beater? Is it possible this is an indication of the guys talents at being versitlle and building any offensive system to suit his players? In both Wisconsin and Philly he had established head coaches that know their stuff, it’s tough to say which offense he’ll prefer and which he’ll try and implement.
Honestly, which would you prefer? Being the Vikings who seem to have hired the very first guy they talked to, or the Packers who are willing to interview the entire NFL?
Look at the relative successes of the Falcons and Lions who both essentially interviewed one guy and had practically made up their mind who they were hiring before they’d fired the previous guy verses the Bears and Bengals who reportedly had wide open interview processes.
Personally I hope both franchises (and the Lions) muff the coaching choices, but I have more faith in the Packers doing the smarter thing than the other two.
I’m an Eagles fan. It’s hard to say what kind of system Childress is going to implement in Minnesota, but I can make some educated guesses. As others have said, Reid has done all the horrible gameplanning and playcalling in Philadelphia since he’s been here, so there really isn’t a “Brad Childress offense” to speak of. It would be unwise to assume anything about what type of offense he’d prefer to use since he’s always been working within the framework of the fat man’s personnel and play packages. It might be worth noting that in Childress’ first year as coordinator, the Eagles ran the ball much more often and more effectively than they had previously under Reid (and more often than they have since), and I’ve always heard it said by people who would know that Childress was more of a traditional running game first kind of guy. As tight-lipped as Reid is, I really have no clue how that dynamic worked as far as what Childress’ role really was and what Childress was responsible for. He’s definitely what you look for in a head coach as far as demeanor and character, for what it’s worth. I think he’ll probably end up a very good one.
By the way, as I’ve said many times, Ellis Dee has absolutely no clue what he’s talking about when he gets on about the Eagles offense.