Like a supportive counselor, Vikings coach Brad Childress is committed to 24-year-old Tarvaris Jackson. Through injuries, interceptions and other misjudgments, Childress is standing behind his second year quarterback. Jackson, who has only started five of nine games because of injuries this season, is expected to start Sunday’s home game against Oakland.
Childress and other team decision makers are invested in Jackson. The team moved up in the 2006 draft to select Jackson, considering him a promising talent with his strong arm and athleticism. He started the final two games of the 2006 season. In total he played in four games, throwing four interceptions and two touchdown passes. He completed 47 of 81 passes and had a 62.5 percent rating. This season his rating is down to 50.6. He has thrown two touchdown passes and five interceptions while completing 51 of 110 passes.
Childress wants to “evaluate him (Jackson) through a course of a string of games.” He will watch for “indicators” about Jackson the rest of this season but will do so with the perspective that this is his quarterback’s first full season. “I would just like to have a feel for a standard of performance,” Childress said. “What I am going to get, week in and week out. …”
Despite a knee injury last season, and 2007 troubles including groin and finger injuries, Childress wants to believe that Jackson is not as he said earlier this week a “China doll,” a fragile player susceptible to one hurt after another. He hopes Jackson can stay on the field, gain confidence and reach a maturity where he’s not thinking so much about the Vikings’ system but instead is focused on the other team’s defense.
A former NFL personnel evaluator told Sports Headliners earlier this fall he thought the Vikings could have developed Jackson more slowly. “They had Brad Johnson, a perfect quarterback to develop Tarvaris Jackson underneath, and (they) released him,” he said. The source also said Johnson, who became a Dallas Cowboy during the off-season, has such a high football intelligence he can offer valuable suggestions for the weekly game plan and is superior at changing plays on the line of scrimmage.
A better Jackson performance Sunday will boost a Vikings offense that ranks second to last in passing yards per game among NFL teams. With a 3-6 record, playing without injured running back Adrian Peterson and coming off a no-momentum 34-0 loss to the Packers in Green Bay, Childress is hoping for better results in the Vikings’ last seven games.
“There are seven weeks to go in this football season, five of which are NFC games, four of which are at home,” Childress said. “I just expect this football team to rebound and that will be a large part of our message as we head to the Oakland Raiders this week.”