Final thoughts about you-know-who and you-know-what

I promise to leave the Jay Cutler thing alone after this post. However, before I do that, here are some thoughts about the situation a week after Cutler was traded to division rival Chicago.

No one outside the Vikings organization knows exactly what the team would have had to give up to get Jay Cutler. But it’s clear the Vikings did ask the Broncos what it would take and then seriously considered Denver’s asking price.

That the Vikings didn’t pull off the deal means this: head coach Brad Childress feels that his team – as currently constructed and with a full allotment of its first-day draft picks in 2009 and 2010 – is better off with either Tarvaris Jackson or Sage Rosenfels at quarterback than it is with Cutler.

This is a career-defining decision by Childress. Since taking over as head coach in 2006, Chilly’s Vikings have amassed a nice collection of talent – except at the quarterback position. The problem with that is quarterback is the most important position in the sport and just about everyone who follows the NFL agrees that quarterback play is what is holding the Vikings back from challenging for a Super Bowl.

So when a not-so-popular head coach, who happens to be employed by a team that has recently had trouble selling out home games, decides to pass on the chance to acquire a young Pro Bowl quarterback, regardless of the compensation required, that coach needs to be right about his choice. Or he won’t be the head coach much longer. Chilly is entering the fourth year of a five-year contract. Coaches who last this long typically are either signed to an extension before they reach the final year of that contract or they are fired sometime during the season preceeding the final year of the contract.

I suspect that if the Vikings fail to make the playoffs in 2009 and the play of Jackson or Rosenfels (or both) is perceived as the reason why, the bald guy with the mustache wearing a headset on the Vikings sidelines will take the fall. And rightly so.

Do you like Zygi?
Interesting piece in the National Football Post by Robert Boland where he ranks the NFL owners. And he has some nice things to say about Vikings owner Zygi Wilf (although he gives Wilf an incomplete grade, because, I guess, Zygi’s only owned the team for four years.)

Boland’s piece points out that strong ownership is an important component of a successful NFL franchise. Teams with bad owners tend to be bad. Which makes me feel better about the Vikings future because I happen to like Wilf. He’s involved and engaged in the team, but not so much that he’s damaging the on-field product by meddling in personnel matters (Exhibit A: Al Davis.) He’s willing to spend money to get players the coaching staff really wants. He’s done some things (like bringing tailgating on-site to the Metrodome) to solidify what Boland describes as the “compact with customers.” Finally, Wilf has also shown consistency and some determination in sticking with Childress and his coaching staff - even if it's caused fans like myself to grind our teeth in our sleep. Childress is not very popular among the fan base and his presence on the team (and the brand of football he believes in) probably hurts ticket sales. But Wilf has stuck with him and in 2008 Childress got him a divisional title.

I think the Vikings have a good owner. But what say the rest of you out there?