Can we all agree that Bud Grant was the best head coach in Vikings history? Good. Can we also all agree that Les Steckel was the worst head coach in Vikings history? Perfect.
Can we also remove from discussion new guy Leslie Frazier and Norm Van Brocklin, who helmed the expansion Vikings before most blog readers were born and was apparently a wacky guy per Reusse.
Because somewhere in the middle of all that, there is a fun debate ranking the remaining four Vikings coaches from best to worst. Those four are, in case you forgot: Jerry Burns, Denny Green, Mike Tice and Brad Childress. All four had their faults. All four had their strengths. All four won at least one playoff game. Three of them (Burns, Green, Childress) went to at least one NFC title game. The other (Tice) beat the Packers in the playoffs.
In terms of regular-season winning percentage, the descending order goes Denny (.610), Burns (.547), Childress (.527) and Tice (.492). In terms of mitigating circumstances, Denny gave us the knee, 41-donut and other such calamities. Burns gave us a foul-mouthed defense of Bob Schnelker. Childress gave us a steady rise, a desperate grab for Brett Favre, more heartbreak and a mighty fall. Tice gave us the Randy Ratio, that playoff victory (including the Moss fake moon), plenty of scandals and memorable talk radio, all under the penny-pinching gaze of owner Red McCombs.
In our minds, the order of best to worst goes starts with Denny and then goes to Burns. We had a spirited debate with Rocket on the Great Baseball Road Trip about whether Childress or Tice comes next. We argued that Tice did more with less, and that Tice coaching Childress' players (and with Zygi's resources) would have fared better than Childress coaching Tice's players (with Red's resources). Rocket argued Tice was overmatched and over-emotional, causing the collapses of 2003 and 2004. He said Tice should bring up the rear because like it or not, Childress almost brought this team to a Super Bowl.
We look forward, though, to reading your rankings in the comments.
