It began in the days before the start of the 2007 season, when Childress claimed Belichick called to ask him not to claim tight end Garrett Mills, so New England could get him through to the practice squad. Childress even claimed that Belichick offered to avoid picking up a player the Vikings cut as a reward. Childress declined — the Patriots responded by claiming linebacker David Herron. Neither player had any sort of long-term impact with their new club, but it was enough to stir some bad blood. “[Belichick] didn’t really care for that,” Childress told Minnesota’s WCCO-AM after everything went down. “He was trying to leverage, but you always find out who is honest and straightforward.”
(For what it’s worth, Belichick hasn’t been drawn in. In 2007, when asked about the Mills affair, he sounded indifferent. “I talked to a lot of people in the league over the course of the last few days,” he said. “That’s part of the whole process of player transactions and so forth. I’m sure that all of the coaches in the league are trying to get their team ready for opening day and the regular season, and I’m trying to do the same thing.”)
Things escalated in 2009 when Childress publicly crowed about the Vikings’ selection of Percy Harvin, telling reporters he beat New England when he took Harvin 22nd overall. (The Patriots were at No 23, but ended up trading down.)
“New England was right in there. They were right behind us [with the 23rd pick],” Childress later told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “No, they didn’t think we’d take him [because of off-the-field] issues. Remember, they have our receivers’ coach there now. So they thought they could hold … and he’d come to them. They were down there working him out the day after I was there. And [Harvin] wasn’t supposed to tell anybody, and I was trying to pull that out of him, who that was. So, it was a little cat-and-mouse game that occurred.”
