Childress Down on Gus

Gus Frerotte has been taking the brunt of the abuse from Vikings fans who weren’t terribly impressed by yesterday’s gift-wrapped 30-12 victory over the hapless Jaguars.  The line on Gus:  12/20, 120 yards, 0 TDs, 1 pick.  But the stats don’t really tell the story of Gus’s bad day – it was the overall decision-making that had the faithful throwing their snacks at the TV screen, in particular the ill-advised scrambles leading to sacks.  And it turns out Brad Childress wasn’t that fond of Gus’s play either, as he conveyed during his Monday press conference:

I feel like a lot of that [Frerotte getting beat up] was self-inflicted.  I think when you get out of the pocket you’ve got to throw the football away. I told him so.

Childress reportedly “told him so” in a somewhat animated “one-way” conversation.  “[Childress is] the ultimate leader of this team and he’s got to tell me what to do,” Gus said afterward.  Yeah – but Gus also knows that Childress doesn’t have a lot of other options.  Is he really going to go back to Tarvaris Jackson in the middle of a playoff race?  Or John David Booty?  I don’t think so.  Regardless of whatever some may feel about Gus – and right now he deserves a lot of the criticism – the fact is that he’s what we got.  We either ride him into the postseason or we don’t go.  If you want to hammer someone, hammer Childress for not getting a QB who would give this veteran team a chance to win now.  Jeff Garcia?  Chad Pennington?  Who needs guys like that.