Leslie Frazier, football analysts and Donovan McNabb

Unless another coaching job opens up, it looks like Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier will be back next year.

That's good news. He has a reputation as a good tactician. The Vikings also became a complete defence this season under his command – an elite unit capable of stopping the run and the pass. Frazier accomplished this even though he didn’t have middle linebacker E.J. Henderson for most of the season and top nickleback Charles Gordon for half the season.

So with Frazier sticking around, there will be no adjustments necessary for the players. And with the same group of players back, Frazier will have another year to tweak and improve the defence in an attempt to make it even more dominant.

I must say though that if Frazier had left for a head coaching job elsewhere, I wasn’t about to panic. The Vikings defence has a great collection of talent and it seems hardly coincidental that the pass defence got good the year Jared Allen arrived. Unless Brad Childress had picked some boob to replace Frazier, I would have expected the Vikings to continue to have a dominant defence even without Frazier.

I shit on Childress fairly regularly at this blog. But he has had a good track record in picking defensive coordinators. He hired Mike Tomlin. Then he hired Frazier to replace Tomlin. And if the Philadelphia Eagles had let Steve Spagnuolo out of his contract, Childress would have hired Spagnuolo as his first defensive coordinator instead of Tomlin.

Childress might not know how to manage the clock. But he seems to know how to spot talent that would make for good defensive coordinators.

Wanting more from Troy Aikman, et al.
I try to avoid being critical of sports announcers because everybody complains about them. But after watching Troy Aikman work the NFC Championship game Sunday, I eagerly await the day when a football analyst actually provides viewers with some, well, analysis.

For example, as I was watching the game I kept wondering how Arizona's offence was able to pick apart what had been a dominant Philadelphia defence in the first half?

Besides Larry Fitzgerald’s brilliance, it appeared to my untrained eyes that Arizona used Philly’s aggressiveness against them. Kurt Warner made a point of releasing the ball quickly before the Eagle blitzers got to him and when they did get to him, it seemed that was the Cardinals plan. Warner calmly lobbed screen passes to J.J. Arrington over Eagle defenders for long gains.

But what do I know? I’m just a fan who never played the game. This is where I expect a guy like Aikman to come in. He played in the league. He knows the technical aspects of the game. He’s studied film and spent a lifetime in the sport. He should be able to spot schemes, trends, the subtle strengths and weaknesses of players – you know, insider stuff.

But you never get that from Aikman. And you never get that from most football analysts. Ron Jaworksi tries. But he’s usually trying to talk over another Tony Kornheiser rant about Brett Favre. Fox’s Tim Green is good at it, but he’s buried with the network’s #4 announcing team, so most fans never get to hear him.

So instead of real analysis what we get is a three-hour conversation between Aikman and booth partner Joe Buck. Or between Al Michaels and John Madden. Or between Phil Simms and Jim Nantz. It's never about anything substantial, just breezy chit chat.

Paul Zimmerman has often complained that the producers of football telecasts probably encourage this. They don’t want ex-players mumbling footballese on the air. They think they will lose their audience.

But I think they are underestimating the intelligence of that audience. I think most football fans want to learn more about the game. They want more insider knowledge. They want something that will enhance their enjoyment of the sport.

They just aren’t getting it now from most football analysts on most Sundays.

Over and out, Donovan?
In a game where he was so-so, then great, then so-so again, it will be worth paying attention to Donovan McNabb’s situation over the next month.

Despite a nice playoff run, McNabb is now 1-4 in NFC Championship games and 0-1 in Super Bowls. That doesn’t cut it in Philadelphia. Expect some questions to be raised about his future with the team.

If Brad Childress is finally serious about doing something substantial to improve the Vikings quarterback position, he’ll have Rick Spielman making calls to the Eagles management in a week or so inquiring about McNabb's availability.

The Eagles would be dumb to trade McNabb away and I don’t expect them to do so. But teams do stupid things all the time.

The Vikings traded Randy Moss.