Mark Craig: Support your local coach

Unofficial research indicates that Vikings owner Zygi Wilf and Chargers President Dean Spanos might have given the earliest votes of confidence in league history this week.

Four games into the season and both teams slogging away at 1-3, Wilf voiced complete and utter confidence in coach Brad Childress. Ditto for Spanos and his coach, Norv Turner.

You know what this means, of course. Yep, both coaches officially are "On the Hot Seat." Welcome aboard, boys.

And none too soon, I might add. With Tampa Bay's Jon Gruden (3-1) and Jacksonville's Jack Del Rio (2-1) off to good starts and the Giants' Tom Coughlin and Cleveland's Romeo Crennel both 2-2, those snappy "On the Hot Seat" charts were starting to look a little bare.

Turner was a band-aid the Chargers hoped would hold until perhaps Bill Cowher got some R&R. Turner had coordinated the Chargers' offense and would agree to hire someone, Ted Cottrell, who wouldn't fiddle with Wade Phillips' defense.

But it took only four games for the safe plan to go horrendously wrong. Wrong to the point where Chargers fans who had their hearts broken by former coach Marty Schottenheimer in January were chanting his name at the end of September.

Bye-bye, Norv.

Childress, on the other hand, is trying to build something. I do think he needs more time to work things out with quarterback Tarvaris Jackson, but I also think he's 3-11 and tied with the Oakland Stinking Raiders for the league's worst record since Week 6 of last season.

So, um, Brad, T-Jack, Zyg, if you fellas don't mind. The time has arrived for at least a sneak peek at what it is y'all are tinkering with over there at Winter Park.

Otherwise, the few Vikings fans who haven't sold their tickets to the visiting teams' fans might want to remind you where that 3-11 mark stands in relation to 31 other teams trying to build long-term success while winning a game now and then.

For instance, here is some of what's happened around the league during that time:

• Three teams with coaches believed to the "On the Hot Seat" -- Cleveland, Tampa Bay and the Giants -- each went 5-9.

• St. Louis, winless this season, went 4-10. New Orleans, winless this season, went 5-8. Miami, winless this season, went 5-9.

• Detroit, pretty much awful since the 1950s, went 5-9.

• Houston, the most recent expansion team, went 6-8.

• Atlanta, a complete mess, went 4-10.

• Oakland is 2-2 this year.

• And, oh yeah, Green Bay went 10-4 overall and 3-0 against the Vikings, including last Sunday's humiliating home game in which Packers fans took over the Metrodome.

Being 1-3 at a time when Detroit, Tampa Bay, Cleveland, Oakland and Arizona are .500 or better, it's no longer acceptable to argue, as Wilf did this week, that the franchise was in disarray before Childress came on board.

Mike Tice, the previous coach, wasn't Bud Grant. But he was 8-0 against Detroit and 4-4 against the Packers. He was 3-2 at Lambeau Field, including a wild-card playoff game, and the game in which Lambeau was rededicated.

Tice also was canned about 29 seconds after finishing 9-7 in 2005. And, oh yeah, did you know Tice was 9-5 in his last 14 games?

Mark Craig • mcraig@startribune.com