[Bette]

Here's a sneak preview of next week's E-rant question on TwinCities.com: "Where would the free world best be served by a regime change? A) Iran, B) Venezuela, C) Winter Park."
If you answered "Winter Park" you're no doubt one of thousands of Minnesotans who are calling in to radio talk shows, dashing off e-mails to sportswriters (please stop) and frantically sticking pins in your Zygi Wilf action figure, the official voodoo doll of Vikings fans everywhere.
There's no question that coach Brad Childress is slightly less popular than intestinal flu these days. In addition, the atmosphere appears to be growing increasingly sour at Winter Park. Everybody has his limit, and the frustration keeps mounting.
How much longer can an inexperienced head coach keep veteran players buying into a program that isn't working? A year and a half into this weird experiment, there has been little discernible progress.
We appear to be building toward a state of critical mass, although it is impossible to know what Wilf is thinking, other than: "My, that vacant lot would be a grand place for a strip mall."
But I have to giggle at some of those who already are looking beyond Childress' demise. Their expectations for the future are absurd. I hear it all the time: Let's get Bill Cowher! Or Bill Parcells! Or some other big-time coach.
Fat chance. Like some big-name coach is going to come to this organization, which is completely dysfunctional. We can't even figure out the chain of command here. Whether it's the Triangle of Authority or Rectangle of Rear Ends or whatever, the accountability trail just sort of grows cold.
Any established coach, one who has the credentials and the clout to pick his spots, won't be looking this way. Not with this ownership and these facilities and this power structure. Why would he?
The team already is tottering. Toward the end of the Green Bay game, some of the guys appeared less than enthusiastic about being on the field. The rest of the season could become a nightmare. And if the team finishes, say, 5-11 and the players are seething, Wilf can't justify the status quo for 2008.
But he has miscalculated before. This whole mess has been the result of one miscalculation after another. Childress made some horrible miscalculations with regards to his personnel, especially at quarterback. And trying to install a West Coast offense with these players is like trying to cram a football down a garbage disposal.
Furthermore, I think even the cigarette companies come across as more sympathetic than the Vikings' organization, which has absolutely no sense of the importance of public relations. From cutting a player on Christmas Eve to docking a guy's pay for attending his grandmother's funeral, these people commit one gaffe after another.

If and when a new coach comes in, he won't be a big star. And it's not as if the Vikings will roar into the fast lane. It's more like they will have to turn around and go back to the starting line. Which, I guess, isn't all that far away.
http://www.twincities.com/ci_7455268?source=rss

[Bette]

Yikes. Sounds like Viking fans arent very happy these days.

[azrael492]

I don't know if I can blame him. He did not get any input on the players he inherited. I hate when fans think a coach can make a team start winning just by showing up. They need time to get the players that he wants for his system, and get them to buy into that system. He really needs a QB too. He is down to using a career 3rd string QB. He needs more time.

[ThePundit]

I think the problem with Childress is he stubbornly insists on sticking with Tavares Jackson even though he's not any good. So the fans see no light at the end of the tunnel.