Mark Craig's Tuesday Insider: Childress is not alone

An embattled third-year coach goes to .500 on the season and 18-24 overall as angry fans begin chanting for his ouster in the second half.

The masses leave the stadium and pour themselves into local sports talk radio. They gripe. They scream. They vomit.

I'm talking about Sunday at the Metrodome, right?

Wrong.

This was Nov. 21, 1993. The only thing missing was the vulgarity of the Internet.

So who was this wretched, godawful coach who needed to be fired ASAP 15 years ago?

William Stephen Belichick.

Congratulations, Brad Childress. You now have something in common with one of the best head coaches in NFL history: An angry mob that wants your head on the next flight out of town. Whether the rest of you follows is purely optional.

I was in Cleveland Stadium on Nov. 21, 1993 when Browns fans aligned against Bill Belichick. I was at the Metrodome on Sunday when Vikings fans ganged up on Childress as he was improving to .500 on the year and 17-21 in his third NFL season as a head coach.

Childress said Monday that Vikings fans are becoming "more like Philadelphia fans, I suppose, a little bit more mean-spirited." I won't question him on that one. After all, they don't raise them any meaner than the folks in Philly.

But the "Fire Childress!" chants that grew throughout the second half of Sunday's 12-10 victory over the Lions can't compare to the venom released by Browns fans chanting "Bill Must Go!" back on Nov. 21, 1993.

The logistics of dumpy old Cleveland Stadium added to the intensity of the situation. Fans knew Belichick's only route from the Browns' locker room to the interview room was a short walk through the concourse. So hundreds of them camped out, waiting for Belichick to make that walk in plain view.

Belichick had done more to these people than go 6-10 in 1991, 7-9 in 1992 and lose three consecutive games to fall to 5-5 in 1993. Two weeks earlier, he had cut quarterback/local hero Bernie Kosar. The wound was fresh and this was the first home game since Kosar's release.

Belichick was escorted to the interview room by stadium security. Fans went berserk. They chanted "Bill Must Go!", "Bernie! Bernie!" and "We Want Belichick," although not in a good way. They yelled unprintable words about Bill's mother. They beat on metal garbage cans.

Belichick never flinched. He stepped on the platform and began to mumble on about the five turnovers that day.

He raised his voice when it became obvious that few if any of the reporters in the room could hear him above the fans just outside the door. When one of us asked Belichick what he thought about the fans going nuts, he just smiled.

"To quote Buddy Ryan, 'If you listen to the fans, you will be up there with them,'" Belichick said. "I have to do what I think is right, and I've been doing that. I know this team is headed in the right direction. I am confident in the long run we are going to be OK."

Belichick and his posse of security personnel made their way back past the fans and into the locker room.

The Browns finished 7-9 that season. They went 11-5 and made the playoffs in 1994. They went 5-11 in 1995, moved to Baltimore and became the Ravens.

So to recap, two years after fans chanted "Bill Must Go!", the Browns moved because of an awful stadium situation. Hey, speaking of awful stadiums, doesn't the Vikings' lease with the Metrodome expire soon, as in 2011? And aren't the local and state politicians doing, well, nothing?

If my memory serves me correctly, that would put the Vikings somewhere else in 2012 and Childress leading someone else to a Super Bowl victory in about 2016 or 2017.

Farfetched? Yeah, but no more farfetched than that other scenario was 15 years ago.