Our Minnesota Vikings, amazingly, are tied for first place in the NFC North Division. I wrote in a column or two back that the North Division didn’t need a great team to win it, only a good team. Now, I’m not so sure it even needs a good team.

Quarterback Gus Frerotte tried mightily to live up to his previous erratic years in the NFL and give the game away, but Adrian Peterson wouldn’t hear of it and put the Vikings on his back to beat the Green Bay Packers by one point and a three-foot missed field goal.

The Vikings defeated a team that has a first-year starting quarterback, a nonexistent running attack, a bottom-dwelling run defense and managed to squeak out a one-point victory. The Pack does have a good secondary as we saw by the three interceptions. But I don’t know if they were that good or Frerotte was that bad.

The coaches did not seem to be on top of their game although Brad Childress did get out of the way and let Peterson win the game for him. Peterson seems to be running the team anyway. Did you see Childress change his mind and go for the fourth-and-1 after Peterson barked at him.? Pretty sad, I thought. The days of Bud Grant and Vince Lombardi are long gone. Maybe we could pay Peterson an extra million or two and let him run the team.

It makes you wonder how much decision making Childress does. The offensive coordinator runs the offense, the defensive coordinator runs the defense. What exactly does Childress do besides meet the press? At least he has gotten better at that. He is now portrayed as a good guy, improving his image of a defensive, closed personality in the mold of Tom Landry, only without the success.

However, when you think about the Viking-Packer game you realize that it was won by the team whose coach made the fewest mistakes. I read that after the game coach Mike McCarthy of the Packers said that the last second, 52-yard field goal was in their game plan. I find it hard to believe that the very lengthy field goal was on purpose. Either McCarthy has an unusual game plan or he is trying to cover up the inept play calling prior to the attempt.

Another call by McCarthy I didn’t understand was his decision to kick the extra point, which put the Pack ahead by 27-21. That decision enabled the Vikings to win 28-27.

Why didn’t McCarthy go for the two-point conversion that would have put them up by seven points. If they had missed it, I don’t see how it would have hurt them. The Vikings would still have to score a touchdown to win. Granted, the Vikes had to convert their point after touchdown following the Pack’s PAT, but that is pretty much automatic. If the Packers had made the two-point conversion the best the Vikings could do would be to tie or gamble with their own 2-pointer. I doubt if they would have taken that gamble, knowing Childress and the game would have gone to overtime. I must be missing something, for no one has talked about this, but it still makes sense to me.

It could be that McCarthy was following the conventional wisdom of that’s the way it’s always done and he was worried about catching heat for doing something out of the ordinary. Not a good reason. One thing I liked about Bud Grant and baseball’s Ron Gardenhire is that Grant was not afraid to use common sense and Gardy still does.

I’m afraid McCarthy is not what Green Bay needs for the future.