Tom E. Curran • E-mail

“Those interested in winding up as collateral damage in the strange twilight years of Brett Favre’s career, please line up over here. No, Mr. Mangini, you cannot go through twice. Yes, Mr. Childress it is still your turn.”

And to Mr. Childress, we address this question best posed by none other than Vince Lombardi: “What the hell’s going on out there?!”

We get that you, as coach of the Minnesota Vikings, have to win now. Cautiously poking the ground for landmines before each step is not an approach you can afford.

We understand that, because of your talented defense and having of the NFL’s best running back, you must make bold moves or move quietly out of your office.

And if Brett Favre can still be a facsimile of the Brett Favre from 2007, he’s got more talent than Sage Rosenfels and Tarvaris Jackson.

But the ongoing display of smarminess mixed with exasperation garnished with bemusement over a dalliance that you and your franchise entered into? It’s a little much, Chilly. It’s a little much.

Thursday, looking positive Al Goreian, Childress addressed the media after a Vikings practice.

Asked if he wanted to see Favre, you know, throw the football at some point, Childress said, “That’s down the road stuff. The guy is retired right now and you’d have to talk to him about that.”

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Really? No interest in checking to see if the guy you might stake your future to can throw like a big boy? And we oughta check with Favre to see if you or the Vikings want to see him throw? Hmmmm.

The signals ... they’re a little mixed. Especially since, on Wednesday, calling in to the “Power Trip” morning show on KFAN in Minnesota you expressed a desire to see “exactly what (Favre) has left in that cannon arm.”

So, given that the Vikings have an interest in Favre and that he had biceps surgery, wouldn’t the simple answer be, “Yes”?

And this doesn’t even get into the deadline/non-deadline/ultimatum/have-it-your-way deal from earlier in the week when two ESPN reporters said the Vikings imposed a deadline on Favre. He was to be in camp this week or else.

“Don’t know where that would have dropped out of the sky from,” Childress clucked to KFAN. “I don’t know how you guys go about your sourcing in that industry. A source said that a source said ...”

So let’s get this straight. You’re a Poynter Institute satellite campus, lecturing on sourcing, yet when asked directly if you want to see the guy throw you can’t answer the question?

On Wednesday you tell the radio fellas that Rosenfels and Jackson have been spoken to about l’affaire Favre … and on Thursday, you’re asked if you talk to them and it’s “I really don’t.”

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Now, Brad Childress is not a fool. And he doesn’t take his job lightly. He’s got a great head for the game, is a likable enough man and has been a good enough communicator to have risen to the heights he has.

But damned if this Favre stuff isn’t making him sound like he’s either out of the loop or flying by the seat of his pants and not treating the situation (i.e.. adding an injured, aging football icon that to his team in July and inviting in all the distractions and promise that come with it) with the respect it deserves.

Let’s be honest. Brett Favre sells tickets, newspapers, ads and creates Web hits. He also helped cost Eric Mangini his job as coach in New York last season and — given the thin ice on which Childress stands heading into 2009 — could go 2 for 2 at the close of the decade.

It’s understandable that Childress feels he needs to get involved in the Favre circus. But does he have to be the lead clown?

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