YoFuggedaboutit
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« on: March 31, 2006, 11:11:25 am » |
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Here's a piece written by my friend Ray from Phinatics:
CHILDRESS ACTS LIKE A CHILD
You'd think that Vikings coach Brad Childress has better things to do. The draft is less than a month away. Minicamps are coming up. Potential free agents are still floating around.
But yet Childress still has time to continue to pick at the scab on his butt otherwise known as Daunte Culpepper.
Although Childress previously has vowed that he was done talking about Culpepper, the rookie head coach can't help himself, it seems. This time around, Childress is dissing Daunte's decision to rehab his shredded knee in a location that, in Brad's apparent view, isn't good enough for an NFL quarterback.
"He's rehabbing in a HealthSouth place in Orlando. . . . I close my eyes. I'm seeing a Chinese restaurant, a HealthSouth place, a laundromat. Basically a strip mall that he's rehabbing himself at. And I'm thinking, what did they have in there? They had a StepMaster and some other things. In other words, all the modalities we have in our training room, all the different things [he didn't have]. . . . I just thought it would be better [to train in Minnesota]."
Childress said that, when trainer Eric Sugarman went to Florida in February to check out Culpepper's progress, the quarterback agreed to attempt some basic movement drills. To do the drills, Culpepper led Sugarman out of the rehab facility -- and into the parking lot of a Wal-Mart.
"So you can understand where I'm coming from," Childress said. "The Chinese restaurant, the laundromat, then he's in an alley, out the back door and into the Wal-Mart parking lot. I'm like, 'What's wrong with this picture?' . . . This is our franchise quarterback. . . . Is he better served here in the fieldhouse or in the Wal-Mart parking lot?"
In our view, Childress is better served shutting his yap about Culpepper, and then sticking to his vow to do so.
But, you see, the problem could be that the Triangle of Authority is feeling more than a little nervous about the possibility that Culpepper will make them look like a Circlejerk of Fools for trading him away for a second-round pick in the April draft, and so Childress naturally feels compelled to continue to explain in March, April, May, and June the basis for a decision that could end up coming off as a very bad one come September, October, November, December, January, and/or February.
Really, do you think it's a coincidence that Childress broke his promise to not say anything more about Culpepper the day after the NFL announced that Culpepper's new team will be playing in the national spotlight on the two biggest Thursdays of the league year?
We sure don't.
And we also think there's a strong correlation between a man's ability to hold his tongue and his ability to lead others effectively.
But what, you ask, should Childress have done differently? If, as it seems, Culpepper was making poor decisions about the process for rehabbing his surgically repaired knee, how should Childress have made it known?
The answer is easy, friends. The coach, or others in the organization, should have leaked the information on an off-the-record basis to the media. That way, the story would have gotten out, without Childress having to say another public word about the situation.
One last note on this. Moving forward, Childress needs to keep in mind that Culpepper is now the property of another team. Under league rules, Childress really shouldn't be saying anything at all about him. So maybe the league office will do us all a favor and remind Brad that the time has come to zip his lip regarding the guy that he traded away.
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