Brad Childress losing locker room support?

Fresh off of what should be a lull for his team, head coach Brad Childress may be losing his credibility with some of his players. Yahoo! Sports Jason Cole posted a great article discussing this topic last night.

Before Brett Favre announced his return to the Vikings, Childress had sent a trio of players (Steve Hutchinson, Jared Allen, Ryan Longwell) to drive to Mississippi and woo the quarterback into returning for another season. The fact that Childress chose to send some of his players may suggest that he wasn’t confident in his own ability to lure Favre into returning but non-the-less he got Favre to return.

Problems arose when reporting began asking other coaches about the whereabouts of the missing players to which coaches responded by saying that the players where in fact at practice despite no one seeing them at all. Childress had instructed his coaches to lie about the whereabouts of the players despite the fact that the media covers every possible aspect surrounding Brett Favre during this time of the year. If anyone should have been aware of this, it should be Childress.

A Vikings player was quoted as saying “Chilly can’t even tell the truth about that,” the player said. “I mean, how ridiculous is that? What’s the big deal that he has to lie? Worse, he has to tell other guys to lie for him?”

Several inside sources have mentioned that the offensive players have little respect for Childress and one player in particular is Brett Favre. These sources have even suggested that Favre has a disdain for Childress. One Vikings player said “Brett thinks Childress has no clue about offense,” while another player suggested that “Brett just doesn’t trust him.”

Because the Vikings owner and team president both reside in New York, Childress basically has free reign over the organization while they are away. One of main problems with Childress may be his lack of football knowledge, mixed with his unwillingness to take suggestions from others. We saw signs of this last midway through the season with him and Favre.  With all things considered, the Vikings may have become the largest Super Bowl or bust team in recent memory.