10/8 News and Notes
Phil Mackey, KFAN.com

- Antoine Winfield is good at football. Really good. And he was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week on Tuesday.

Winfield started the party by recovering a blocked field goal and taking it to the house for a touchdown. Minutes later, Winfield sacked Drew Brees, forced him to fumble, then recovered the ball. He also blew up a Saints screen pass that probably would have gone for a touchdown, as the Vikings were caught with their pants around their ankles on a huge blitz.

The Vikings have two wins this season, and Winfield has had monster games in both games (Carolina). It would be nice if Winfield would play like this every week, but hopefully the Vikings can win a few games when he doesn’t.

- Brad Childress said there are no significant injuries to note from Monday’s hard-hitting contest. He did, however, hint that Madieu Williams may have a shot at returning on Sunday.

- After the game on Monday night, Childress told reporters that Chris Kluwe was supposed to kick the last to punts out of bounds. Kluwe failed. Childress said if Kluwe can’t kick the ball out of bounds when he’s supposed to, they’ll find somebody who can.

Childress wasn’t nearly as scathing with his remarks on Tuesday, but he did elaborate on the importance of directional punting.

“You have to be able to do a couple of things,” Childress said. “You have to be able to kick the ball where you want to kick the ball. There is always a question about directional punting. Really why you directional punt is so that your gunners on the outside have an opportunity to be able to impact the play. If you can tell them the direction that you want to kick the football you can tell them which side to release to. If you tell them that you are just kicking the ball down the field, it’s a little bit of a crapshoot in terms of how they are going to relate to the football.”

Childress doesn’t normally throw his players under the bus like he did with Kluwe. But if the coaching staff told Kluwe to kick the ball out of bounds, he deserves to have his feet held to the fire following Reggie Bush going Tecmo Bowl all over the punt coverage team.

Plus, if the Vikings go on to lose that game in large part because the punter failed to kick two balls out of bounds, the Vikings fall to 1-4 and Childress may have been one step closer to losing his job. Childress has every right to call a spade a spade, even if it angers a few guys in the locker room. He’s in no position to take bullets while sitting on the hot seat.

- Aside from his one glaring drop in the second half, Bernard Berrian absolutely came to play on Monday night. He’s taken heat for his various minor injuries, and for his inconsistency through the first four games, but Berrian caught 6 passes for a career-high 110 yards and a touchdown that tied the game late in the 4th quarter.

That touchdown reception was indeed entertaining. Berrian and Aundrae Allison each ran post routes and collided in the end zone. Gus Frerotte saw that the Saints were bringing the house on an all out blitz, and he called a hot route. Or maybe two hot routes…

“It was a really heads-up play by Gus,” Childress said. “I’m not sure how he messaged it. [The play clock] was down to about three seconds as he went from right to left, so obviously a mixed message.”

Mixed message or not, Berrian hauled in the pass and Frerotte hung in there and took the blow.

- Speaking of Frerotte, how tough is this guy? How many times did Tarvaris Jackson sit in the pocket and wait, and wait, and wait for something to develop down the field. Also, how many times did Jackson come back only one play after getting knocked woozy?

Nothing personal against Jackson, but Frerotte is tough as nails, and he sure isn’t afraid to sit in the pocket until the very last second.

“I always say that the quarterback is a lot tougher than you give him credit for,” Childress said. “Everybody wants to think that that’s a prima donna-type guy, but those guys have to be mentally and physically tough to stand there in the face of what amounts to a big hit or a rush where they know that they’re going to get hit just to be able to make a play. The minute you trip your feet out of there or can’t step into the throw or step backwards, you can’t make those throws. It’s a tough thing to be able to do, to make those decisions and get knocked on your keister.”