Childress defends QB hit by Edwards

Vikings defensive end Ray Edwards certainly will be fined by the NFL for his late hit on Buccaneers quarterback Jeff Garcia in Sunday's 19-13 loss. But Vikings coach Brad Childress said Monday that he thought Garcia should have been called for intentional grounding on the play.

Edwards drilled Garcia after an incomplete pass into the end zone in the second quarter, drawing a roughing-the-passer penalty. Garcia stayed on the ground for a moment and needed stitches to close a cut on his chin.

Edwards said he thought Garcia still had the ball. Asked if he talked to Edwards about the play, Childress said he believed Garcia should have drawn a penalty.

"I know that Garcia had run around there, so everybody was in kind of a chase mode," Childress said. "My general thought on that is when you slow things down and look at it on HDTV, football is a full-speed game. It happens at full speed, and you're trying to make snap judgments at full speed.

"... On that particular play, [Garcia] had come back into the pocket. I actually felt like that was intentional grounding. If you look at exactly where it happened, it happened right between the hash marks and the ball was thrown out of the back of the end zone to try and avoid a sack, in my estimate. Ray is trying to make estimations too, in terms of, 'Is the guy going to run some more?'

"Again, the flag went down and it was a personal foul. But I think you get a different sensation when you look at it in regular speed. I look at it on my coaches' copy."

Tampa Bay coach Jon Gruden had a different viewpoint. "It was a late hit," he told reporters. "That's too bad. Jeff's OK. We were very concerned about him after that play."

Childress said a heated exchange between running back Adrian Peterson and running backs coach Eric Bieniemy caught by television cameras late in the game was overblown.

"That's par for the course for those guys," he said. "I think it looks a little overdramatized when I see it run in a [TV] loop 16 times in a row. Wouldn't you say?

"It wasn't the same. It wasn't that repetitive. It was kind of a one-time deal. Football is an emotional game and [Bieniemy] is an emotional guy and so is Adrian. I appreciate both of them for it, but that's how they communicate with each other. I don't think that there's any disrespect intended or felt."

Cornerback Antoine Winfield didn't exactly give a ringing endorsement when asked Monday on KFAN (1130-AM) whether Vikings coaches make second-half adjustments as well as other teams.

"I'm not really sure," Winfield said after the Vikings squandered a 13-6 halftime lead. "We go in at halftime and coaches get up there and say a few words. 'We're going to do this if they do that.' But we just didn't do a good job of doing what we needed to do the second half to win the game."

Childress was asked later in the day if he and his staff make many adjustments at halftime.

"You do at times," he said. "If somebody is pretty much giving you a steady diet of what you expected, you are basically in there recounting the fact, 'Hey, it's just what we expected.' If not, if there are some unscouted looks then you are covering some of those things as well."

• Childress said the coaching staff still is considering a few personnel changes, notably at right tackle (Ryan Cook has been plagued by penalties and inconsistent play) and kick returner (Maurice Hicks had a costly fumble late in Sunday's game).

• The Vikings-Bears game scheduled for 7:15 p.m. Nov. 30 will remain the Sunday night contest that week and be aired nationally by NBC.