Don't mess with curse of Chilly

PHILADELPHIA - If you were feeling sorry for Brad Childress, you have my permission to stop. The guy is getting his revenge.

You could imagine Chilly on Sunday, holding a play chart over his mustache as he talked to the TV displaying the results of the havoc he has wrought.

Childress is making like a combination of "Carrie" and Clint Eastwood, leaving those who dared oppose him stuck up to the neck in the quicksand of their once-fulfilling lives.

If you booed Childress when he coached the Vikings, prepare for your wife to run off with the IRS agent who is about to audit you. You crossed the wrong man.

Consider what has transpired since Zygi fired Chilly:

* Zygi Wilf, in trying to announce the firing, sounded not like a dynamic billionaire and savvy owner, but like a guy who had just swallowed a squirrel. A squirrel coated with LSD. The man could have made the Gettysburg Address sound like a tweet from Terrell Owens.

That was the first sign that the Curse of Childress existed.

* Randy Moss, The Fulcrum of Dysfunction (doesn't that sound better than "Jerk"?), has disappeared.

Moss, as much as anyone, got Childress fired, and now Moss is just another Greg Lewis, only not as explosive.

A superstar just months ago, Moss has become as invisible as Rice. Not Jerry. Condoleeza.

* Brett Favre, the pain in Childress' other cheek this season, did even more than Moss to get his boss fired. All Childress did for Favre was talk ownership into paying him about $28 million for about 10 months of work and coach him to the most efficient season of his career, and Favre treated Childress the way Moss treats caterers.

So what's happened since Favre scuttled Chilly?

In Favre's first game P.C. (Post-Chilly), he played like Gus Frerotte on Ambien, and took a hit that injured his shoulder.

In his second game P.C., he was injured on his first pass.

In his third game P.C., he missed his first start since 1492.

In his fourth game P.C., he suffered a concussion that could end his final season.

That's not all. Favre hates travel, and, after etching his reputation in the frozen tundra early in his career, has learned to despise cold-weather games.

So what happens to Favre, P.C.? The Metrodome collapses, he gets an extra trip to Detroit, he has to play a game scheduled to be indoors on the frozen turf of TCF Bank Stadium, and he gets to spend 4 days in a blizzard in Philadelphia, site of one of the most unsightly and costly interceptions of his career.

In return for all you did for him, Chilly stuffed your stocking, Brett.

* Chilly likes Leslie Frazier, his replacement, but may have cursed the position if not the man.

Frazier coached for 25 years to get his first shot as an NFL boss, and he winds up with: A hole in the roof of his home stadium; a three-game homestand played at three different sites; a starring role in the pilot for Tuesday Night Football; his backup quarterback injuring the knee of his star running back while trying to hand off; and Favre's Southern-fried craziness.

* Childress even seems to have cursed the Metrodome and the fans it once contained.

The Dome wasn't too kind to him. Fans called for his head many times there, and look where that got them:

The Dome is decrepit. Officials took a shotgun to the roof, allegedly to allow snow to fall through, but I think they were just trying to put it out of its misery.

And the fans who once mimicked Chilly, held play charts to their faces and ridiculed his "Kick-Ass Offense," are left with what?

No stadium. No quarterback of the present. Rumors of the team sneaking off to LA. No quarterback of the future. No full-fledged head coach. No playoffs. A bunch of underachieving players who seem intent on ruining the coaching careers of two good men in one season.

When Zygi fired Chilly, most people assumed Favre had won.

What do they think today, as Chilly sticks another needle in his Favre doll, and Favre chills in Philly? *

Jim Souhan is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. He can be reached at: jsouhan@startribune.com