Antoine Winfield and Brad Childress have mended fences and are now best buds. This is fantastic news for Viking fans who were worried the two might not have had the warm, fuzzy relationship we thought they did.
All right, so I’m being sarcastic – they never had a warm fuzzy relationship, and we never cared. Unfortunately, in today’s touchy-feely world, players sometimes make an issue about this kind of stuff. They want to be coddled and told they’re special. Sometimes they even want a hug.
No, Brad Childress did not hug Antoine Winfield – at least not literally. Figuratively, however, it appears Childress was required to embrace his disgruntled cornerback. Said Antoine’s agent Ashanti Webb:
"The lines of communication are more open now. Antoine is a quiet and reserved guy, and Brad was in his first year as coach last season. They both just needed to know how to communicate with each other. The main thing is they were able to build up a relationship over a certain amount of time, which is needed in the player-coach relationship."
In a word: bull-pucky.
I’m sorry, but Antoine Winfield needing Brad Childress to “communicate” with him personally is a load of hooey. Childress is the head coach – he communicates with the team as a whole. Why does he even need to speak one-on-one with his players except on special occasions (like when they’re being cut)? Isn’t that what assistants are for?
Apparently, Antoine needed special attention. So Brad had to “establish a consistent dialogue” with him via phone calls, text messages and face-to-face meetings. I can just imagine some of those text messages too:
"Brad: How U feeling Toine?Antoine: Lttle down coach.Brad: What happnd?Antoine: My cat died.Brad: I’m so sorry. anything I can do?Antoine: I’ll be ok. I don’t know if I can make OTA tmrow though.Brad: That’s ok. Take couple days off. You need to be there for you right now.Antoine: Thx coach. U always understand.Brad: 🙂"
See? All Childress needed was to work on his people skills. Now everything’s copacetic.
Gag.