Favre Is no Longer the Answer in Minnesota, unless the Question Is: why Did Childress Get Canned?

It isn’t surprising that the Minnesota Vikings fired head coach Brad Childress this week. It is downright shocking that Brett Favre is still the team's starting quarterback.

Now the Vikings are 3-7, good for third place in the relatively weak NFC North. One can make a good argument that the only reason the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers are 7-3 is because they have the good fortune of facing Minnesota and the Detroit Lions every so often... but that’s an argument for another day. The bottom line here is that Minnesota was well within its rights to let go of Childress because the results weren’t there. Seems simple enough.

"Don't worry Chilly. I'll get you soon enough."

However, that same sound logic can be used to successfully make a case for Favre being relegated to back-up duty after what has by and large been a drop-back-down-to-earth kind of season. At 40 years old last year, he played like he was still 30. Now at 41, he’s playing like the grandfather he is, minus the walker he should by all accounts be using with that broken ankle of his.

Brett Favre may be completing 60.2% of his passes, which isn’t that bad (unless you look at the 69.5% Drew Brees is completing to lead the league), but his passer rating is only 69.6, which is second-worst in the entire NFL. I mean, he’s fallen on such hard times that he’s recently had to settle for groupies his own age. It sucks to be him is all I’m saying.

Now, it’s been argued that Childress being fired was justified and he’s now had to learn the hard way that time actually moves forward in a linear-like manner. Really, he didn’t have to get fired. All he had to do was pass kindergarten and get to know how to read his watch – realize that time was ticking down and not up on Favre’s career. 

As great as Favre played last year, his skills degrading to this point eventually were a foregone conclusion. It probably just happened faster than anyone wanted to admit, least of all Childress, who probably has yet to figure out that waiting for Favre to play like he once did is about the same as expecting hovering cars to hit the market any day now. Sure, it’s all fine and dandy in principle (everyone wants a hover-car), but unless you have a time machine at your disposal it actually happening is about as likely as a professional athlete remaining faithful to their wife. And Childress didn’t have to look that far to find that out.

"OMG! He didn't get picked off!"

You’d think Minnesota would want to take a long, hard look at him now that the playoffs are a mere pipedream now and a high draft pick is becoming more and more likely. And, yet, Favre is still the team’s starter. It’s gotten to the point that one has to believe the only way back-up Tarvaris Jackson is ever going to get a lasting shot at handling a pigskin is if he takes a sabbatical from football and turns to farming instead. He is still making $1.176 million so he can’t complain too much, but raising actual pigs has at least got to be more rewarding than being a glorified human-sized insurance policy. 

So now the team’s former defensive coordinator, Leslie Frazier, has been tasked with righting the ship, which makes perfect sense considering the team is third-last in points scored in the entire league. Who knows? Maybe a defense-first approach may work out for the best, seeing as Favre continues to lead the league with 17 interceptions.