The anti-Tice.

Wilf was swift in firing Mike Tice, who was plagued by a Super Bowl ticket-scalping scandal and his players' Love Boat scandal, and hiring Brad Childress, who insisted his players would be disciplined on and off the field.

Yet halfway through Year Three of the Childress Era, the Vikings wouldn't be too disappointed to finish 9-7, the record Tice posted in his final season.

Which begs the question: Would the Vikings have fared any better if they'd kept Tice?

Excluding the final game of the 2001 NFL season, Tice was .500 (32-32) in the regular season as Vikings head coach, and he led the team to one playoff run, winning a wild-card game over Green Bay at Lambeau Field in 2005 before losing in the divisional playoffs to Philadelphia. Childress is 19-24 as Vikings head coach, and he hopes to lead the team to the postseason for the first time this season.

It wasn't a secret that owner Red McCombs' frugality handcuffed his coach. Tice was forced to promote from within -- having offensive line coach Steve Loney doing double duty -- when offensive coordinator Scott Linehan signed a lucrative contract with the Miami Dolphins , and player spending hovered near the salary-cap floor every season.

It also isn't a secret that Wilf's generosity has empowered his current coach. Childress hasn't been constrained by the same salary limits in putting together his staff, and player spending pushed the salary-cap ceiling in at least two seasons, with free agents such as Steve Hutchinson, Jared Allen and Bernard Berrian among the league's highest-paid at their positions.

Tice, who became assistant head coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars shortly after the Vikings fired him, said one more victory could have been the difference in him returning to Minnesota for the 2006 season. But Vikings left tackle Bryant McKinnie said Wilf was determined to make a change.

"There was stuff going on that year, with the boat incident and then the ticket stuff," McKinnie said. "There was a lot of stuff that didn't look favorable toward him, so the new owners felt they needed to change the whole vibe of what was going on around here."

CULTURE CHANGE

To that end, Childress has accomplished one goal -- overhauling the roster.

Only 14 players on the 53-man roster played for Tice. That's excluding E.J. Henderson and Kenechi Udeze, who played for Tice but are on injured reserve.

Childress also changed the culture of the locker room, imparting stricter rules and emphasizing a more businesslike approach, straight down to the game-day dress code.

"Coach Tice was more like your Brooklyn-mafia type of guy," McKinnie said. "We were like his hit men."

For instance, Tice would be enraged if a player walked away from a teammate buried under a pile or harassed by an opponent.

"He would call them out," McKinnie said. " 'Why didn't you go help?' It was about protecting your brother."

Added cornerback Antoine Winfield, "He was real big about having each other's back."

Winfield was the only first-tier free agent signed under Tice, before the 2004 season, largely because the Vikings structured the contract to eat up considerable salary-cap space to spend the league minimum. But Winfield said one of Tice's endearing qualities was his push for players to "have fun" and his understanding that on-field mistakes were inevitable. He also was, in general, more relaxed, allowing veterans to regularly take on a lighter workload on Fridays.

That, former Vikings receiver Troy Williamson said, was one of Tice's strengths.

"Mike Tice played the game of Football, and he knew how players should be treated," said Williamson, who also plays with Jacksonville now. "(Childress) treats it more like a business."

But Winfield and McKinnie said Childress is more even-keeled and Tice was moody.

"You never knew what you would get with him," McKinnie said of Tice. "Coach Tice had his moments. It would switch back and forth."

Tice also wasn't afraid to lash out at players on the sideline or deliver a charged speech at halftime.

"Mike didn't hold his tongue," Winfield said.

PROBLEMS SHIFT TO OFFENSE

On the field, the Vikings' problems have shifted.

Under Tice, the Vikings had a dominant offense that could not overcome a porous defense. Daunte Culpepper and Randy Moss were one of the NFL's most dynamic passing combinations, Michael Bennett was a 1,000-yard rusher one year and Nate Burleson developed into a 1,000-yard receiver another year.

The Vikings did add defensive tackle Pat Williams and safety Darren Sharper before the 2005 season to help the defense as McCombs passed the team along to Wilf, but by then the offense was in decline. Moss was traded to Oakland, and Culpepper blew out his knee during the season, yet somehow the Vikings won seven of their last nine games and finished over .500.

"I think he did a good job in a tough situation there in Minnesota," said Jaguars head coach Jack Del Rio, Tice's current boss and former Vikings teammate. "I think he's a good coach.

"He has a strong personality, but I'm OK with that, because I have a strong personality."

Maybe aspects of Tice's personality were never going to work for Wilf, who wanted more of a disciplinarian. Vikings fans can only wonder if Tice would have fared any better than Childress with the type of money Wilf was willing to spend on the team.

Under Childress, the Vikings have a dominant defense that often cannot get enough points from an inconsistent offense. Childress said when he took over the Vikings that it was the best opening out there. But he also thought he was inheriting a franchise quarterback, one who generally had a strong relationship with Tice.

Issues over Culpepper's contract and rehabilitation quickly caused a rift between the quarterback and the new coach, and Culpepper was traded to Miami. The Vikings drafted Tarvaris Jackson in the second round as an eventual replacement, but stopgap successor Brad Johnson struggled in Childress' West Coast offense and the former Philadelphia assistant hasn't been able to develop Jackson as he had with the Eagles' Donovan McNabb.

Now the Vikings are hoping that journeyman Gus Frerotte, whose first stint with the Vikings was under Tice, can help Childress get to the playoffs for the first time.

Meanwhile, Childress has tried to help establish a climate of accountability under Wilf, who set out a code of conduct for his players in the wake of the Love Boat incident.

McKinnie said Tice took too much heat for that.

"He wasn't even aware of anything that was going to take place," said McKinnie, who pled guilty to disorderly conduct for his role in the scandal. "He didn't have anything to do with it.

"They look at it as he controls the team. But at the end of the day, everyone was grown, and it wasn't on the Football hours. It was on our bye week and our off time."

At today's game, Tice likely will be greeted warmly by several staffers and players.

"I like Tice," Pat Williams said. "I ain't got nothing against Tice. That's always my guy."