FanHouse BradChildress

For some reason, head coach Brad Childress thought letting Brett Favre and his 40-year-old arm sling the ball all over the yard gave the Vikings the best chance to win against the Steelers Sunday. He was so sure of this, in fact, that the Ole Gunslinger ended up doing it 51 times.

On two occasions in the fourth quarter that decision led directly to Steelers points. Defensive end Brett Keisel stripped Favre as he dropped back and linebacker LaMarr Woodley took the fumble to the house. And with just over a minute to play and Minnesota trailing by three, a Favre screen pass skipped off the hands of Chester Taylor, into the lap of linebacker Keyaron Fox, and 82 yards later, ball game.

Here's a question: why not give the ball to Adrian Peterson more than 18 times? Since, you know, he came into the game leading the league in rushing, and fresh off hanging 143 rushing yards on the Ravens. Didn't happen, and instead of seeing Purple Jesus tread defenders all afternoon, we only got to see it once.

Video hit-and-run after the jump.

NFL Coaches Fight Club: the Tournament. Because we have nothing better to do than predict what might happen if head coaches started punching each other in the face.

As Round 1 of our single-elimination fight tournament involving NFL coaches nears its end, let us recap the action we've seen so far. To view the entire bracket or learn what we're talking about, kindly click on the links below.

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NFL Coaches Fight Club: the Tournament. Because we have nothing better to do than predict what might happen if head coaches started punching each other in the face.

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Things seemed pretty elementary for the Minnesota Vikings through much of their game Sunday afternoon. They held a 14-0 lead over the Baltimore Ravens after a quarter, a 14-3 halftime lead, and then a 27-10 margin early in the fourth quarter -- margins that likely inspired tons of confidence for the Vikes. Who would have thought they would need to be bailed out by a missed field goal as time expired in order to escape with a victory?

Yet that's exactly what happened, because the Ravens, behind explosive plays from Joe Flacco, Ray Rice, Derrick Mason and Mark Clayton, used just 11 offensive plays in 6:24 to score three touchdowns and take a 31-30 fourth-quarter lead. The Vikings did drive down and kick a field goal with 2:00 left in the game, which made the score -- the eventual final -- 33-31.

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NFL Coaches Fight Club: the Tournament. Because we have nothing better to do than predict what might happen if head coaches started punching each other in the face.

Consider this hypothetical: what if two coaches met in a dark alley and threw down in a no-holds-barred brawl? Who would emerge victorious?

First, some background: back when I was in high school, when my friends and I were pretty creative in finding ways to avoid actually paying attention in class, we'd create brackets (think NCAA Tournament) where we'd pit our teachers against each other**. Whoever we thought would win in a fight advanced to the next round. It always ended with our offensive line coach against our wrestling coach in the finals and a huge argument as to who would come out on top.

Anyway, last week, the Back Porch staff somehow ended up discussing whether Rex Ryan or Tom Cable would win in a old school playground scrap. I passed along the above information, and shortly after that, an idea was born -- NFL Coaches Fight Club: the Tournament.

The final tally on Brett Favre's one year with the New York Jets now reads nine wins, 22 interceptions, one broken playoff dream and $12,100,000. A $100K add-on came Wednesday when the NFL fined the Jets and general manager Mike Tannenbaum for not listing the aging Wrangler model on their injury report after Favre tore his bicep last season.

For anyone who missed this episode of As The Favre Moans, here's a recap: The quarterback claimed last week that he told the Jets to bench him because of his injury, triggering a NFL investigation because his name wasn't on injury reports for a bunch of games he ended up playing in anyway.

MINNEAPOLIS -- The best quarterback on the field Friday night played for the Vikings, but he didn't wear No. 4 and he's nowhere near 40 years old. The best Vikings quarterback in this game was Tarvaris Jackson, who lost his chance to be the starter when the team signed Brett Favre earlier in the week, who might still get traded before the season starts and whose performance was summed up by Vikings coach Brad Childress with a single word.

"Perfect," Childress said. "Look up the numbers. It was perfect. That's what the numbers say. He was perfect."

And indeed he was. Jackson's quarterback rating for the game was a 158.3, which is the highest number attainable by the byzantine formula that calculates that statistic. He completed 12-of-15 passes for 202 yards and two touchdowns, including a 64-yarder to Darius Reynaud in the third quarter. And if teams were looking at this game to see if they might want to trade for Jackson, he didn't do anything to hurt his case.

MINNEAPOLIS -- He had butterflies, which Brett Favre took as a good sign -- that a creaky quarterback on the precipice of 40 could still feel nervous before a preseason football game. And as he played on the Metrodome turf in the home purple jersey of the Minnesota Vikings on Friday night, the former Packer (and Viking nemesis) had to shake his head.

"It felt a little odd, after so many years being on the other side," Favre said after the game, in which he was 1-for-4 for four yards on two get-your-feet-wet first-quarter series. "But I thought it was a welcome reception. It was a little loud when we were on offense, but I think this place is just loud, period."

They were loud for Favre on this night -- a preseason crowd of 62,782 showing up to watch and cheer a quarterback who signed with the team just three days earlier and whose goal was, basically, to not screw up.

Some of the concerns are legit. Brett Favre is going to be 40 this year. He did break down in the final five games of last year. His whole, dramatic, soap-opera act is undeniably annoying, and it's entirely possible that some of his new teammates are among the annoyed. But when assessing the impact Favre will have on the 2009 Minnesota Vikings, it's important to remember that he doesn't need to have much impact at all.

The Vikings were going to be one of the favorites in the NFC with Tarvaris Jackson or Sage Rosenfels at quarterback. Signing Favre doesn't make them much more of a favorite, and it certainly doesn't make them any less of one. Favre and the Vikings will be at their best if the veteran QB can play to and work within his new team's strengths, of which there are plenty.

The Minnesota Vikings finished the 1998 season with 15 wins. The offense averaged almost 35 points a game (best in the league) with a 35-year-old Randall Cunningham under center, two big-play receivers in Cris Carter and Randy Moss, and a steady run game led by Robert Smith and Leroy Hoard.

And Brian Billick was the brains behind it all. He would parlay his successes as the Vikes' offensive coordinator into a head-coaching gig with the Ravens. Billick's offensive philosophy in Baltimore never produced anything approaching what he was able to accomplish in Minnesota, and by the time he was fired nine years later, he was known as much for his inability to develop a franchise quarterback or find a deep threat at wide receiver as he was for the organization's 2000 Super Bowl win.

So it is with some irony that the man behind Kyle Boller weighs in on the Vikings' current stable of quarterbacks now that Brett Favre has temporarily* announced his retirement.