Shortly after the Vikings' 27-10 victory over Detroit on Sunday, coach Brad Childress let it be known he did not agree with the third-quarter unnecessary roughness call on defensive end Ray Edwards. In his postgame news conference, Childress said he already had placed a call to NFC vice president of officiating Mike Pereira.
Well, today Childress toned it down quite a bit when asked about the call by referee Walt Anderson's crew in which Edwards was penalized after a helmet-to-helmet collision with Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford that was caused when Edwards was upended by Lions running back Maurice Morris and went flying through the air.
"I thought it was a good play [by Edwards], thought it was a good play," Childress said. "I'll just leave it at that. [My opinion] hasn't changed from yesterday."
While the Edwards play was a hot topic on Sunday, a call that has come into question today is one that wasn't made. Replays seemed to shows that Lions cornerback Phillip Buchanon should have been called for a horse collar on the second-quarter play in which he caught up to Adrian Peterson and punched the ball out of the running back's arm as he neared a touchdown. The Lions recovered the fumble in the end zone.
Childress, asked if it was horse-collar tackle, said: "It appears that way and it kind of continued but I'll let somebody else figure that out."
The Vikings certainly are going to send film of the plays involving Edwards and Peterson into the league in an effort to make their case that in one instance a penalty should not have been called and in another a penalty should have been called.
"We always have a number of things we send in," Childress said.
