Ordinarily, the NFL’s most riveting post-game handshake is New England coach Bill Belichick and New York Jets coach Eric Mangini, who will meet Thursday night on NFL Network. But they now have a challenger.

Minnesota head coach Brad Childress did not shake hands with Green Bay head coach Mike McCarthy when the two teams met in the Monday night opener at Lambeau Field. Childress downplayed it, said it was accidental and that he was looking for his quarterback, Tarvaris Jackson, but multiple people from both teams are awfully suspicious.

For starters, when do head coaches not shake hands after games? Unless it was Belichick and Mangini in the past, they almost always do. Even Belichick and Mangini recognized that skipping the post-game handshake makes the issue even more of a story than it already is.

The rivalry between Childress and McCarthy is, without understating it, heated. Childress was not happy that McCarthy and the Packers accused him of tampering with former Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre. The Packers are not happy that Childress claimed he once was offered the Green Bay job that went to McCarthy during the year each coach was hired.

Asked about the two men, one person from one of the teams said, “It’s ugly right now. There’s bad blood.”

And what might make it worse for Childress is that he has an 0-5 record against McCarthy and the Packers.

With the attention Childress has started to get over his missed handshake with McCarthy, it would be an upset if it happened again Sunday.

Posted in: Adam Schefter  | comments  |