Posts tagged: brad childress

Jay Cutler, If Available, Could Make Some Sense

December 12, 2013, by 31 comments

Quarterback Jay Cutler isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.  His personality rubs some the wrong way, his leadership has been questioned countless times, and he won’t be winning any Mister Congeniality contests anytime soon.  Still, he is an accomplished veteran at the NFL’s most important position, and recent rumors stating the Bears might let him walk after this season are sure to grab attention.

It is an especially intriguing scenario for Vikings fans who are as hungry as ever for some new hope at the quarterback spot.  For every rumor in the NFL a counter-rumor is sure to follow, and some are wisely betting that the Bears don’t simply let Cutler leave, but let’s pretend for a second they do.  Should the Vikings be interested?  Would they be?

First off, they clearly will enter the offseason in the market for a new quarterback or three.  The Christian Ponder experiment is pretty clearly on it’s last legs, Matt Cassel can opt out of the second year of his deal, and Josh Freeman can’t be happy riding the bench after migrating north from Tampa midseason.  None of the above have proven they can lead the Vikings in an overly impressive way and so it seems they will once again be looking for the guy that just has “it.”

Secondly, they are preparing to play the next two seasons at TCF Bank Stadium, and finding a quarterback that can have success outdoors in Minnesota could be even trickier than trying to find one that can succeed in the Metrodome… which hasn’t been the easiest task ever.

Cutler, now 30 years old, has played outdoors in every home game of his professional career.  He has three seasons in Denver under his belt, and four in Chicago, and so that experience could be mighty attractive.  He has not only played in the cold and wind, but he’s also been fairly successful.

Cutler has a career passer rating of 84.4 and 23,224 yards on 3,220 attempts.  He’s thrown for 149 career touchdowns and has thrown 108 interceptions.  Durability has been a concern lately, however, as he hasn’t played a full 16 game season since 2009.

The Vikings showed some interest in Cutler when he was on the trade block in 2009.  They were reportedly involved in a three-way negotiation that would have sent Cutler to Minnesota and Matt Cassel, of all people, to Denver.  The story goes, though, that head coach Brad Childress was not as sold on Cutler as the front office was and put a stop to the talks.  Of course, the rest is history.

Childress is gone now, though, and much of that same front office remains intact.  While intra-division trades are very rare, and Cutler would almost certainly have to become an unrestricted free agent to make this scenario possible, I am curious as to how receptive our readers would be to having Cutler be the next starting quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings.  Keep in mind while voting that signing Cutler would not necessarily kill the team’s chances of drafting a young quarterback in May’s NFL Draft.

Autopsy Report: Chris Cook Disappoints

November 26, 2013, by 37 comments

The Vikings season is not over yet, but it is certainly dead, and before we get too far ahead of ourselves by looking towards the offseason for quick fixes, I wanted to look closer into the causes of death.  In this series we will look at the long list of reasons this season has been such an epic failure.  Up first, my good buddy, cornerback Chris Cook.

Today, I had a bit of an online scuffle with Cook, after he let the world know that he was “still in bed” on his day off I noticed that many of his teammates were volunteering at a Children’s Hospital at that very moment.  Then, chippy bastard that I am, I suggested that maybe Cook’s tweet about taking a day off was actually meant to be posted on Sunday.  He then decided he had seen enough of me and told me to “get a life” and promptly blocked our VT account from communicating with his.

He then went on a little rant stating “I swear some people live to try and make other people look bad” and “I guess I’m not allowed to have a day off!”  I assume the people that he is referring to are all NFL wide outs.

He then went on to say “laptop thugs are the worst.”  I would actually argue that, you know, real thugs are worse.  Whatever, though, different chokes for different folks.  He then suggested that he would like to be rude, presumably back to me, but that the “little birdie called media” prevents him from doing so.

Now perhaps I didn’t utilize much tact in my tweets, and didn’t show much respect, but the fact is Chris Cook is my least favorite Vikings player we’ve had in a long time and his social media habits in contrast to, say, Greg Jennings is one of the reasons for it.  I can’t think of a single moment, in almost four full seasons, that I have been proud to see Cook wearing a horn on his helmet.

Injuries, an arrest involving a firearm, and an arrest for felony domestic assault by strangulation have caused him to be one of team’s least reliable players over the last four years.  He only played in six games his rookie season, six in 2011, 10 in 2012, and eight so far this year.  When he does manage to stay on the field, however, the results have not been very impressive.

Through 30 games played (26 starts) Pro Football Reference credits Cook with a career stat line of 84 tackles, one sack, and 13 defended passes.  That means he has zero interceptions, zero forced fumbles, zero recoveries, and virtually no big plays to his name whatsoever.  Turnovers aren’t the only measure of a defender in the NFL, but a lack of them has been a big reason the Vikings secondary continues to look miserable.

Cook is far from the worst talent the Vikings have at the position, but he has failed to live up to the hype that caused the Vikings to draft him in the second round in 2010, and he doesn’t seem to have progressed at all since last year.  You wouldn’t expect a player of his size to play so soft so consistently, but he does, and the result is a player as unintimidating in coverage as he is in run defense.

Rick Spielman and Brad Childress made Cook their top choice in 2010, but Childress is long gone and Cook is now in the final year of his rookie deal.  Cook was acquitted of both his felony charges, after the Vikings essentially paid him to stay home, and Judd Zulgad has reported a few times that his presence on the roster didn’t sit well within the locker room at that time.

Cook is going to be a unrestricted free agent following this season.  The Vikings could likely keep him around for another year on the cheap, but it remains to be seen if they have any interest in doing so.  Nearly every week he has been a giant question mark since joining the team and never once has he appeared to be any sort of answer.

One thing is for sure, though, and that is that the Vikings surely won’t be content relying on Cook going into 2014 and will be forced to search for more upgrades at the corner position.

Stay tuned for the next version of our Autopsy Report on the 2013 season.  I might even update you all on whether or not I finally got a life.

Geesh, Imagine What The Bye Week Will Be Like

October 19, 2012, by 8 comments

A half game out of first place.  An intense battle with Larry Fitzgerald and Patrick Peterson coming up.  A need to rebound following a disappointing loss to Washington.  A team in need of some serious progression this season.

The work week must be intense at Winter Park this week, right?  Well, probably, but there is also an abundance of TMZ-type stories going on with these Vikings and I thought we’d better just get them out there in the open here at VT, even though I would rather just avoid them.

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Everson Griffen Out Indefinitely While Dealing With Personal Tragedy

October 11, 2012, by 1 comment

When one dedicates a good portion of his week reading, researching, and writing about football it can be difficult to remember that there are more important things in life.  I imagine that it is a gazillion times harder for players and coaches to remember that, which could lead to some shocking situations like Brad Childress docking a player’s pay for attending his grandmother’s funeral and Torrey Smith playing lights out football only hours after finding out his brother was dead.

Yesterday, Vikings defensive lineman Everson Griffen found out he will be living the rest of his life with his mother there to help him along.  His mother reportedly died suddenly, cause unknown at this point, while visiting her son in Minnesota.

“As you can imagine, it was tough,” Leslie Frazier said on Thursday. “There was nothing that could have prepared him for that news. He wasn’t here [Thursday]. I’m not sure what his status will be going forward.

“Our prayers as an organization, as well as his teammates, are with him and his family. This is a difficult time for him, as you can imagine, and we’ll be there to support him as best we can. . . . He loved his mom, like we all do. And to have no clue that something like this was on the horizon it was tough. It’s still tough, obviously.”

“Everson means a lot to me, like all our guys do, and I’ve seen the maturation in his life,” Frazier continued. “I told him that [Wednesday] night. I know his mom would be so proud of how he has grown up and become a young man that has made her very proud. It’s hard to see him hurting. I lost my mother not long ago, I know what that experience is like, and it’s hard. It’s hard.”

Unlike the Childress situation mentioned earlier, Frazier is giving his player all the time necessary to properly grieve and says Griffen can return whenever he is ready to do so.

“It’s purely up to him when,” Frazier said. “There’s no timetable. I explained that to him,” Frazier said. “He needs to go through the grieving process properly and don’t be thinking about football. Just doing whatever he needs to do away from football. His mom was very, very close to him. This is going to be a tough deal for him.”

We here at Vikings Territory would like to extend our thoughts and prayers to Everson and his family during this trying time.

Harvin’s Past Is Again Under Scrutiny

April 9, 2012, by 6 comments

I remember giving the selection of Percy Harvin in the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft a “C” grade due mostly to the character concerns following him out of Florida.

After three seasons of breath-taking plays, Harvin’s character concerns have never reared their ugly in any big way, and he has actually grown into a sort of leadership role on the offense.

Now, however, stories about Urban Meyer’s mismanagement of the Florida program are now uncovering new details of Harvin’s checkered past.  According to the reports from Sporting News, Harvin “epitomized the climate” created by Meyer that entitled certain players and led to practices that placed stars like Harvin into a special category, allegedly allowing them to get away with things they should not have.

In 2008, Meyer told the press that Harvin and two other players missed four games due to injury.  In reality, it appears that Harvin missed those games as a result of a failed drug test and the University required the four game suspension but Meyer made sure to cover for his players.  Harvin also reportedly failed a drug test at the NFL Scouting Combine prior to the Vikings drafting him.

The report continues to recall a story where Harvin grew tired of doing stadium runs and decided to just stop.  When told to keep moving he exclaimed, “This (bad word) end now.”  The following day conditioning did not include stadium runs, and instead the players played basketball.

The most troubling story is the one that tells of Harvin assaulting wide receivers coach Billy Gonzales by throwing him to the ground and putting his hands around his neck.  Meyers never let the truth about that incident become public, saying only that “something did happen,” and Gonzales himself claims that the incident was blown out of proportion.

Harvin, in November of 2010, reportedly got into a verbal altercation with Brad Childress that nearly turned physical but stopped just short.

Harvin has not yet commented on the article by Sporting News and with his surgery scheduled for Tuesday, it is unlikely he will grant media access any time real soon.

At the end of this latest season, Harvin won the Korey Stringer Good Guy Award for his professionalism in dealing with the media.  Outside of the Childress incident and some mild pouting about the sudden release of teammate Randy Moss, Harvin seems to have his life under control and appears to be the exact type of player the Vikings were hoping to get when they selected him.

In fact, if it wasn’t for recent scandals following Urban Meyer around, Harvin’s character concerns would still be just a thing of the past.

The Vikings May Have Found A Dealer

January 27, 2012, by 8 comments

Former Vikings head coach Brad Childress is reportedly joining the Cleveland Browns as their offensive coordinator, the first coaching gig he has landed since being fired by the Vikings in the middle of the 2010 season.

Us Vikings fans remember all too well how Childress had an affinity for bringing players to Minnesota that he was familiar with from his days in Philadelphia.  I can’t help but wonder if, despite the fact that he has a lesser role now, the same might be true now that he is in Cleveland.

Maybe fullback Naufahu Tahi or tight end Jeff Dugan will once again find employment under Childress.  Perhaps the Browns will show some sudden interest in trading for a guy Childress vouches for, such as Anthony Herrera who Childress developed a close relationship with as Herrera went through the process of gaining citizenship.

In Tampa, It Is Kind Of Chilly For This Time Of Year

January 8, 2012, by 9 comments

More than a year removed from the Brad Childress era of Minnesota’s football history, I debated whether or not this news was worth passing on.

The “Chuckle Factor” made me decide it is.

Chris Mortensen reports that Brad Childress is a candidate for the Head Coach vacancy in Tampa Bay.  The Bucs recently fired Raheem Morris, who interviewed on Friday for the Vikings unsettled defensive coordinator position.

Tampa wouldn’t be the worst situation to for a guy like Childress to fall into. 

Hey, as long as the guy isn’t coaching the Vikings, I wouldn’t mind being entertained by Brad Childress and his “streams of consciousness” for another couple of years.

Good Luck, Brad.