Childress Takes a Risky Gamble By Depending on Favre

No matter what else he does, Brad Childress' head coaching career is going to be all about his decisions at quarterback.

Two seasons ago, the Vikings had one of the league's better defenses and the NFL's best running back. They were a quarterback and a pass rusher away from being a Super Bowl contender. But it was Childress' misguided decision to turn the offense over to Tarvaris Jackson that doomed the Vikings to a disappointing 8-8 finish. A year later, the Vikings added Jared Allen to fix the pass rush problems and they still had Adrian Peterson at tailback, but the decision to depend on Jackson and Gus Frerotte came back to bite Childress when the Vikings faced the Eagles in the playoffs.

Now Childress is heading in an entirely different direction, thanks to an on-again, off-again, now on-again flirtation with Brett Favre. Childress is willing to turn over the team to a 40-year-old quarterback who said just three weeks ago that he "didn't feel like physically I could play at a level that was acceptable." Now we know what he really meant is that he didn't want to have to go through two-a-days like everyone else.

If we were talking about a 35-year-old Favre, it would be time for Vikings fans to celebrate. But he's now 40. For all the talk about how Favre loves the game and his Hall of Fame career, there's a lot of reasons to think that the Vikings would be better off in 2009 with Sage Rosenfels under center. As a study here at Fanhouse showed this summer, the chances of getting a full season out of a 40-year-old quarterback is about as rare as an Oakland Raiders victory.

This is a short-term decision--by acquiring Favre, the Vikings will almost assuredly get rid of Tarvaris Jackson--he's in the final year of his current deal and will be a free agent if a new collective bargaining agreement is reached, and now there's no chance that he'll get to battle for playing time. That's not all that bad, and the Vikings have spent the last couple of years thinking long-term at quarterback with a team built to win in the short-term.

But by doing it now, the Vikings have tied the 2009 season's success and Childress' coaching career to the hope that Favre will stay healthy and manage to succeed in December and January. That's a lot to ask of a quarterback who has won one playoff game since 2003, and one who has 17 touchdowns and 31 interceptions in December and January since 2005.

Considering his age, his lack of offseason conditioning and his decision to skip much of training camp, there's a very good chance that age and injuries will sideline Brett Favre at some point this season. And when it happens, it's hard to know how Sage Rosenfels will respond to a coach who has twice told him that he's not good enough.

A year ago Jets coach Eric Mangini was thrilled to turn his team over to Favre. After the season, he was fired. Don't be surprised if the same thing happens to Childress this year.