MINNEAPOLIS - Think of the Minnesota Vikings, and what comes to mind?

The Purple People Eaters. Jim Marshall running the wrong way, or Fran Tarkenton running everywhere. Maybe even Joe Kapp. More recently, how about Cris Carter? Or Daunte Culpepper (before he was bad) throwing to Randy Moss?

All gone.

Even more thankfully, at least for those who live in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, is the fact that coach Mike Tice and the embarrassment of the 2005 season are also long gone. Booze cruises with ample amounts of "adult" entertainment on board have been replaced by tough practices, long meetings, demands of dedication by new head coach Brad Childress and signs that football success is returning to the Twin Cities.

It's not by accident that Childress' approach to rebuilding the Vikings resembles that of a certain stern-faced coach of the New England Patriots, who serve as the Vikings' opposition tonight at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (8:30 p.m.; Ch. 5, ESPN). "I think you model after the good things, throw out the bad things, things that you want to emulate," Childress said via conference call last week. "You'd like to model their consistency. I don't know if there's a formula for that.

"You kind of look into how they drafted, how they've taken players to fit their system, how they train them not that I get an insight at how they train them," he said.

Childress said he paid special attention to the makeup of the Patriots when he was scheming against them as the offensive coordinator of the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX.

"You get to spend time when you play them in the Super Bowl and there was a time where we played them twice in the preseason," he said. "You get to see kind of an evolution of players and how they develop those guys. I think that's the key, the development of those guys. You draft good football players, but then you have to develop them within the confines of your system."

That sort of growth is a long-term situation, of course. On a shorter-term scale, Childress also sounded suspiciously like Patriots' coach Bill Belichick in assessing the progress the 4-2 Vikes have made since the start of the season.

"The big thing is these guys come out and improve all of the time," he said. "I've seen improvement in different areas. I probably wouldn't include our Buffalo game (a 17-12 loss at Ralph Wilson Stadium) in that improvement, but I've seen them improve incrementally, and that's what it's all about, continuing to get better not flattening out, playing well at the end of the year, playing well in November and December."

The difference is discipline, Childress said - and while he wouldn't throw the previous coaching administration under the bus for its lax approach, Childress said it was clear to him that a new culture had to be established in Minnesota.

"I just believe that players are never going to tell you if they want discipline," he said. "They are never going to say, 'discipline me.' They may moan and groan, but if you're organized and you tell them how much your expectations are, and you hold them accountable and they're accountable to their teammates as well as their coaches as well as themselves, you've got a chance to go forward."

Childress turned over almost half of the roster from the 2005 Vikings in that effort. He turned to 38-year-old Brad Johnson for leadership at quarterback, brought in running back Chester Taylor, kicker Ryan Longwell and guard Steve Hutchinson to shore up obvious weaknesses, and all the while established an atmosphere in which teaching would not be shortchanged in the effort to create a more disciplined atmosphere.

"We're talking about Generation Y," Childress said. "They want to know 'why' you're doing things. There needs to be some rhyme and reason to it. You need to be able to teach, because guys are coming in and out, whether it's free agents or through the draft. You just need to be able to get them to buy in and you need a method to your madness." So far, the pieces have come together well.

Taylor, the former Baltimore Raven, is among the league leaders in rushing with 590 yards in 137 carries, including a 95-yarder against the Seahawks. Johnson is completing passes at a 62.9-percent clip, and his top four receivers (Troy Williamson, Travis Taylor, Marcus Robinson, tight end Jermaine Wiggins) have combined for 70 catches. Chester Taylor has another 21 receptions as an added bonus.

The Vikings' offensive line is big and strong and poses problems for any front three or four.

"This is the best offensive line we've seen this year," Belichick said, mincing no words. "(Bryant) McKinnie is outstanding. He can do it all. He's kind of like a freak playing out there, as big as he is and as powerful as he is, he's very athletic. There's a number of plays where he's 10, 15 yards down the field blocking linebackers, blocking safeties, just staying with them.

"The same thing with Hutchinson another really athletic player," Belichick continued. "They play side-by-side and handle gains and stuff like that. (Matt) Birk is very experienced guy, probably the smallest of the group, but real savvy. He does a good job of helping out in there, again, passing gains and their combination blocks and so forth."

Belichick also respects the Vikings' run defense, which he hopes to test to the utmost with Corey Dillon and Laurence Maroney. But he acknowledged that his backs will have to be at the top of their game to counter what these Vikings can throw at them.

"The best thing they do is they create a lot of negative plays," Belichick said. "It's almost 20 percent negative plays in the running game. It's like taking a sack once every five plays. When you call a running play you think you're going to gain yardage and against them you're basically losing yardage on one out of five.

"It's hard to block the tackles, (Kevin) Williams and (Pat) Williams," he said. "The ends are good. The linebackers are good. (Dwight) Smith and (Darren) Sharper are really smart guys that handle the force well. (Antoine) Winfield is probably the best run-force corner in the league, probably maybe the best tackler in the secondary in the league.

"They're pretty good across the board," he said. "You're not really excited about running inside. You're not really excited about running outside obviously, we have to find a way to make that go. We have to get more than 2 yards a carry, stay out of those long yardage situations on second and third down."

The Vikings know they don't have the pedigree of the Patriots. But they're the home team and will have a pumped-up crowd screaming at the top of their lungs inside their chummy dome, and they're hopeful that their improvement takes the next step up tonight.

"We feel good about the way we're playing but they're also 5-1," Johnson said. "The good thing about these guys is they won last week. They haven't lost two games in a row in 56 games, I believe, or something like that, so at least we have a chance."

MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle

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