MINNEAPOLIS -- Brad Childress wasn't about to back down.
Two days after the Vikings coach was criticized for trading Sage Rosenfels to the New York Giants and keeping Tarvaris Jackson as his backup quarterback, Childress addressed the issue in his news conference Sunday and became a bit testy when the subject of rookie Joe Webb was broached.
"I'm not going to deal in hypotheticals," Childress said as a reporter attempted to ask him about the raw sixth-round pick possibly having to play if something happened to Favre and Jackson. "I'm done with the backup quarterback. I'm done with it. You guys, if that's all you've got to write, good Lord. We're talking about the two highest-scoring offenses (the Vikings and Saints) in the league last year playing each other. Let's talk about the game, instead of Joe Mauer's backup."
At this point, you're probably asking yourself what on earth Twins catcher Drew Butera has to do with the Vikings quarterback situation? Butera is the backup to Mauer and somehow ended up being part of the discussion at Winter Park. Childress got to that point by reaffirming that in his mind Jackson was a better option than Rosenfels to serve as Brett Favre's top backup.
"You have to balance the right now with the future," Childress said in his opening remarks. "I think also I consistently stated to you guys the development I have seen with Tarvaris and the camp that he had. I think he's probably positioned himself, with the progress in the system, working knowledge and athleticism, to give us the best chance to win should Brett get hurt.
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"I would talk about that in the same light that I would talk about and probably more so the catcher that plays behind Joe Mauer. I know Mauer has missed games. I don't think you have ever seen Favre miss that many. I know it's always the provocative thing to talk about the second quarterback on the roster. But maybe history has a chance to change. I doubt it. Tarvaris gives us the best chance to win."
The issue is it didn't appear that way in the preseason as Rosenfels outplayed Jackson. Rosenfels completed 31 of 52 passes for 402 yards with four touchdowns in four games; Jackson was 12-for-26 for 60 yards.
But Childress said the fact that Jackson played against different -- and in his mind better -- competition than Rosenfels made a difference.
"I would hope that if Tarvaris was in there going with the 2's, that he would have been able to light it up that same way," Childress said. "It's apples and oranges. . . . You earn those snaps on the merit of how you practice and what you do during the course of practices. It seems like those guys are graded every day. We look at every snap they take. We take copious notes on catches, drops, completions. Did Sage progress? He absolutely did in the year, to the point where he's worth a fifth-round draft pick. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
