Is Longwell signing overlooked?

Taking a morning look around the NFL, with a first stop in Winter Park ...

As long as the Vikings keep winning, we'll be dishing out praise to the Brad Childress regime. (Warning: This exercise could end extraordinarily abruptly with a first-round playoff exit).

Childress and the organization has gotten well-deserved credit for the Jared Allen trade. Chasing and catching Brett Favre. Doing its background work on Percy Harvin (so far, so good). Etc., etc.

But watching the Texans fall to 5-5 last night when kicker Kris Brown missed a last-second field goal for the second consecutive week made me think about one of Childress' first decisions as a Vikings coach: Ryan Longwell.

Remember how bad the Vikings' kicking situation was under Mike Tice? Even Tice has admitted that kickers were his Achilles' heel.

Well, Childress came in before the 2006 season and on Day 1 of free agency, one of the players he locked up was Ryan Longwell, the Packers' career scoring leader.

Longwell has a career field goal percentage of 82.7, third best in NFL history. He's 85.9 percent since he joined the Vikings, which makes sense because of the Metrodump.

Brown is -- or at least was -- one of the league's more reliable kickers. But he's missed six field goals in 10 games this season. That's two more than he missed in the 2007-08 seasons combined.

Now, a look around the league ...

. Jets coach Rex Ryan says he feels "disrespected" by Patriots coach Bill Belichick's decision to throw deep in the waning seconds of a game the Patriots already had in hand. What did he expect? He stoked the already-testy Jets-Patriots rivalry after he was hired. Then he beat Belichick earlier this season. Belichick isn't concerned about coaching etiquette. Ryan normally isn't either. If the Jets turn things around, this will be a great rivalry in the years to come.

. Titans running back Chris Johnson, the NFL's leading rusher, ran for 151 yards last night. It's his fifth consecutive 100-yard rushing game. There isn't much sense in arguing who is better: Johnson or Adrian Peterson. They're great in different ways and any team would be thrilled to have either one of them. But the more I watch Johnson, the more it makes me wonder if I need to write down Johnson's name when it comes time for All-Pro selections.

. How strange it is to see Tampa Bay playing so bad defensively that its defensive coordinator, Jim Bates, had to be fired. New head coach Raheem Morris, who praised Bates just a week ago for his work during the close loss to Miami, seems completely overwhelmed. This once-pathetic franchise was salvaged and brought to the brink of the Super Bowl by Tony Dungy. His reward was being fired the year before his replacement, Jon Gruden, won the Super Bowl. Now, the Bucs are pathetic again. They sure could use a guy like Dungy to turn things around again.

Schottenheimer, of course, went on to great REGULAR SEASON success with the Browns, Chiefs and Chargers. He's been out of coaching a few years now, but he's now being mentioned as a possibility for the head coaching job in Buffalo.

Give the Bills credit. They knew firing Jauron wouldn't help them this year. But by canning him during the season, the Bills get the first crack at talking to the several out-of-work former coaches who figure to start jumping back into coaching after this season. The Bills already have approached Bill Cowher and Mike Shanahan. Cowher said he won't be talking to teams until after the season.

Heck, I think the Browns should just pull the plug on Eric Mangini after 10 games and try to get to the front of the line on some of these guys. Marty going back to Cleveland would be interesting. Fans had tired of him by the time he was fired after the 1988 season. He couldn't win the big one, but the guy always found a way to put his team in position to get there.

. Could the Titans be the first 0-6 team to go on and make the playoffs? And if they do, would that be enough to save Jeff Fisher's job? Remember, the team is 4-0 in its last four games mostly because Vince Young has played well in his return to the starting job. And he's the starter only because owner Bud Adams forced him publicly to bench Kerry Collins and go with Young.