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• The Trials of T-Jack
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Well, things are getting really nasty now, aren't they?

Today, Minnesota Vikings head coach Brad Childress demoted his quarterback, Tarvaris Jackson, opting instead to start 15-year veteran Gus Frerotte against Carolina on Sunday. Okay, two games is a little bit of a quick hook, but Childress had hinted this might occur earlier this week. The move is neither indefensible nor unexpected.

But the story here isn't the decision but the ungracious manner in which it was made--the vigorish Childress added to the act, the turns of the knife the coach deployed. You see, Childress wanted to make clear that this wasn't a temporary demotion this year--barring injury, he is naming Frerotte the starter for the rest of the season. Then there were the scapegoating comments that are attributed to Childress on ESPN and other sites (I wasn't at the press conference).

"I'm just not seeing right now the aggressiveness from Tarvaris that I saw throughout the off season, training camp, the two preseason games he played in. And part of that may be experience," Childress said. Later he added, "I know there's many other plays, there's a lot of other people that have to step up. But when you go back through and look at the tape, and most importantly be able to sit across from the young man and want to be able to verify what you're feeling--it's kind of like looking in your kid's eyes and saying one [thing] and feeling another."

Got that? Brad Childress just told us that he stared into the eyes of his prized quarterback and found him wanting. This is the same Childress who has been bum-rushing this unprepared kid almost from the moment he plucked him out of a Division II college. It was Childress, against all logic and reason, who anointed T-Jack to be the Vikings field general during the final two games of his rookie season. It was Childress who ignored the obvious, that Jackson was the weak link on a team that might well have qualified for the playoffs last season, Jackson's second year in the league, if they'd had a more experienced and capable play-caller. It was Childress who resisted the need to go out and get a starter-caliber QB to complete what would then be a roster capable of contending for a Super Bowl. And now that Jackson has predictably come up short, Childress is trying to spin it as Jackson somehow making a significant regression in his "aggressiveness" and showing through his eyes, the proverbial "windows to his soul," that he's missing some key ingredient that compels Childress to pull the plug. What a despicable machination on the part of the head coach.

Little more than a week ago, I wrote that if the Vikings underachieve due to Jackson's lack of talent or readiness, "it won't be Tarvaris Jackson's fault--the dude is doing the best he can." Who doubts this? Who doubts that T-Jack is far less culpable for this wretched situation than the coach who grossly overestimated his readiness, his upside, while arrogantly believing that he could mold Jackson like "a piece of clay" in a manner similar to the way he supposedly molded Donovan McNabb?

What we didn't hear today is Childress admit he was wrong and apologize both to his quarterback and to Vikings fans for his colossal misjudgment. Instead, the coach likened Jackson to his own child--and then fucked with his confidence and psyche by scapegoating his lack of aggression.

The motivation for this is obvious: Childress himself is on the hot seat. Ownership has gone out and gotten him a boatload of quality players. The combined ability on the Vikings' offensive and defensive lines is matched or exceeded by at most one or two other teams. Running back Adrian Peterson is arguably the best in the NFL, and certainly among the top three or four. And tens of millions of dollars were spent on free agent receiver Bernard Berrian. But at the all-important quarterback spot, Childress was steadfast in sticking with the inexperienced, outclassed Jackson.

Now that that strategy has predictably blown up in his face, Childress not only demotes Jackson, he crushes him. It is certainly not implausible that Frerotte will get injured during the next 14 games--the guy is 37 years old and not very mobile. So if it comes to pass that Frerotte is being helped to sidelines and Childress turns to Jackson to bail him out, I hope the young QB has cleared his head enough to know that his NFL seasoning has been ass-backward from the start. And if he's able to come through for this team for a game or two, let's remember that he overcame rather than was enabled by his head coach.

In the meantime, with this talented roster, Childress has got to at least get to the playoffs to hold his job. And now, thanks to his earlier misjudgments, he must do it with an aging quarterback who has been a backup more often than he's started (especially the past two years) and has a career quarterback rating of 74.3. Through the first two games of this year, T-Jack's rating is 70.8.

The pink slip that is coming to Brad Childress in the not too distant future will be poetic justice.