INDIANAPOLIS — Minnesota coach Brad Childress knows one way to get a definitive answer from Brett Favre about next season: Wait.
"I'm not going to put him in any box," Childress said Friday at the NFL's annual scouting combine. "Four weeks and change, he's still healing up from that game [the NFC championship]. He's kind of earned that latitude."
Childress isn't pressing the issue. He spoke with Favre twice this week, but football was not the primary topic. Instead, the three-time league MVP was busy putting down fresh limestone on a road that leads to his mother-in-law's house, which is on Favre's property in Mississippi.
"I couldn't give him any landscape-architecture ideas or anything of that nature," the soft-spoken Childress said, drawing laughter. "So the conversation didn't last very long."
The next move is Favre's — again.
After missing all of Minnesota's offseason workouts and all of training camp, Favre, who turned 40 in October, still had one of the best seasons of his career. He led Minnesota to a second straight NFC North title and had the Vikings in position to reach Super Bowl XLIV until a late interception in the NFC Championship game at New Orleans forced overtime and sealed the Vikings' fate.
But the gritty quarterback has never done things by the book. Childress doesn't expect that to change now.
"I just think it's important to manage a guy's resources, particularly a 41-year-old," Childress said. "There's really not a manual on that, just like there's not a manual for raising kids, there's really not a manual for 40, 41."
The coach who got into a sideline squabble with his starting quarterback last fall is now in the position of being Favre's full-fledged supporter — whenever Favre makes his decision.
"I hope he doesn't jackhammer his foot or something while he's out there pouring limestone," Childress said. "Would it be nice to know sooner rather than later? Yeah, but you have to be able to deal with ambiguity in this business whether you're a coach or a player."