AaaaOOOOOOOOGA! The horn blows for Childress.

It’s been easy to place blame on Brad Childress for the astonishing collapse of the Minnesota Vikings this season. Blame could also be shared by Brett Favre, an inconsistent-at best receiving corpse (hey, let’s just leave that typo in there, it fits), rapidly aging lines on both sides of the ball, and a secondary that has some very questionable pieces.

But the real culprit for the Vikings mess is owner Zygi Wilf. And he’d better figure out quickly that he needs to change the basic organizational structure of the team, or it’s likely to be in exactly the same place in a year or two. Or sooner.

Wilf did not have a lot of football know-how when he bought the team. And it has showed. With no strong general manager, Wilf pushed most of the power and decision-making to the head coach, and that has been a disaster.

Childress may actually be a pretty good coach on some levels. After all, he had two pretty good seasons with the Vikings and was one-increadibly-boneheaded-I-can’t-believe-Favre-did-that-again-does-he-have-a-death-wish interception away from taking them to the Superbowl.

But then the wheels came off this season. And why? One word: personnel. Childress went for the short-term glory of bringing in big stars like Allen, Favre, and infamously, Moss, rather than cultivating a deep bench of players who could step in if the starters faltered. And falter they have. This team peaked big time last year and clearly Childress had nowhere to go when players like Williams and Rice either got hurt or lost a step.

And just as a side note: what message does it send to the rest of your team when you go for a star player and tacitly tell the world he doesn’t have to play by the same rules as everyone else? Doesn’t have to come to training camp? Gets special treatment. Yeah, Farve’s a legend. But the psychology of this team was dysfunctional from the day Childress played chauffeur to Favre at the beginning of last season. It was festering all along, and the dam burst this year with Moss.

A strong general manager who could avoid the impulsive, go-for-broke decision-making that doomed Childress’ tenure is needed badly by the Vikings. I don’t know if Wilf will be able to figure out how to right this ship. But firing Childress is just the first, and easiest, step.