Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Childress: Brett Favre can take as long as he needs

Brad Childress says if Brett Favre decides he wants to return for another season, the Minnesota Vikings coach is comfortable waiting as long as he did last summer for Favre to join the team.

"We've been able to see at what point he's been able to enter the situation and still be productive," Childress said Monday in an interview with ESPN's Rachel Nichols at the NFL owners meetings in Orlando, Fla. "Obviously with that as a known with a 40-year-old quarterback -- there wasn't a big book on that before we started, now we have at least a pamphlet -- we have an idea of where that's at."

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As a coach, you're a mother hen, you'd like him to be there for all of it. But I'm enough of a realist to know that's probably not going to be the case.”-- Vikings coach Brad Childress

Favre signed with the Vikings on Aug. 18 last year -- after the team had already broken its training camp in Mankato, Minn., and had already played its first preseason game.

Favre signed and then played three days later in the Vikings' second preseason game, against Kansas City.

"As a coach, you're a mother hen, you'd like him to be there for all of it," Childress said. "But I'm enough of a realist to know that's probably not going to be the case."

Childress visited Favre in Hattiesburg, Miss., early this month and said their talks did not focus on the upcoming season.

Childress said he didn't "think for a minute he's trying to hold us up. I think he's got to mull it all over and chew on it."

Lotina extends Depor dealReport: Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Childress pays Brett Favre visit in Hattiesburg, Miss.