Vikings' Childress has emotional holiday; remembering my brother

A special holiday edition of MMQB! Print it out, take it to the beach, share it at the cookout, read it on the Blackberry on your way home.

A preamble, first:

Thanks to all for your Tweets, e-mails and notes of sympathy on the passing of my brother Bob, who died of a heart attack doing what he loved so much -- bike-riding on the backroads of northern Connecticut -- 15 days ago. Your words have been great comfort to me, and I won't soon forget the outpouring of condolences you've all sent my way. I'll have a few words on him later in this column.

I hadn't planned to write this weekend, but I wanted to talk about Bob a bit among some other things. Thanks, by the way, to Oakland cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha and Jacksonville running back Maurice Jones-Drew for their prescient columns while I was covering the World Cup, and to Texans tackle Eric Winston for doing such a great job filling in for me on short notice last Monday after Bob's death. I loved their columns.

Guest MMQBs:
ASOMUGHA: Advice for rookies on life in NFL
JONES-DREW: Separating great players from good
WINSTON: Five ways to change the NFL

I hope you like who will be pinch-writing the next two weeks while I'm on vacation: Matt Ryan, the Falcons quarterback, and then NFL Films czar Steve Sabol. I'll be back in this space on July 26, the week I begin my annual training-camp trip.

This holiday week's headlines:

• Drew Brees and Sean Payton are at literary war. In a good way.

• Brees has a relatively strong opinion on who the opening-night Vikings quarterback will be.

• Brad Childress had the most emotional holiday weekend of any NFL person.