While the rest of the sports world focuses on the NFL Conference Championship games and the upcoming Super Bowl, I’m going to break the trend and discuss the most exciting sports topic to hit the scene in years: The Australian Open.
Ok, now that you’ve stopped laughing (or crying), let’s talk some football…
After Rex Grossman turned the ball over four times in a loss to the New England Patriots, Lovie Smith responded to media criticism of Rex by simply saying “Rex is our quarterback…We’re 9-2 with Rex leading our football team.” After Rex Grossman turned the ball over four times in an uninspiring win over the Vikings, Lovie Smith was repeatedly pestered about a quarterback change by the media. He succinctly responded, “Rex is our quarterback…we’re 10-2 with Rex.”
Bears struggle to beat doormat Tampa Bay: Rex is our quarterback. We’re 11-2 with Rex.
Bears lose to Green Bay in the season finale: Rex is our quarterback. We’re 13-3 with Rex.
And on and on it goes…
As the fans and the media cried out for a mutiny, Lovie Smith remained confident in the mercurial – heck to say Grossman is mercurial is an insult to mercurial. We need a revised volatility scale to adequately describe Rex. I think it should go Mercurial, Erratic, Volatile, and finally, Grossmanial – but talented Grossman. Even as I felt myself compelled to doubt Lovie, I felt that I truly understood his decision and think it is one to which all of us can relate:
Rex Grossman is just like your super drunk friend.
You all know who I’m talking about. The guy who’s either the life of the party or starting a fight with the group of big guys at a club when he’s too drunk to stand. You love the guy, because he morphs into the ultimate party stud, but you’re always worried that he’s going to fire off eight too many Vodka shots and wind up sprawled on the center of the dance floor. He’s a great guy, but you never know which guy’s going to come out: the party stud who’s quick firing rounds of Jager shots and bringing scores of hot girls to your table, or the guy who ends up vomiting on himself in the bathroom while ripping the sink off the wall. Everybody loves the guy, but you’re just a little nervous about bringing him to formal functions. Now, with the Bears headed to the Super Bowl, critics continue to pile on Rex. Some even suggest that Rex is “the worst quarterback to ever play in a Super Bowl”. But he’s not, he’s just your super drunk friend. And with that in mind, what do I have to say to the doubters who say the Bears can’t win the Super Bowl with Rex Grossman?
Rex is our quarterback. We’re 15-3 with Rex.
Championship Weekend Thoughts…
Bears vs. Saints
Does it get any sweeter for Rex Grossman, then sharing a knowing smile with 4-time Super Bowl winner Terry Bradshaw as he talks about the screaming fans? “Listen to them,” Bradshaw said. “The're loving you now!"
Reggie Bush effectively ended this game with that stupid, stupid finger wag at Brian Urlacher en route to his 88 yard touchdown catch. After that point, Bears 23 – Saints 0.
After the game Bush had this to say about his immature celebration. "I know I made a mistake. I apologized to my coach and my teammates," Bush said. "But I'm not going to kill myself over it." Don't worry Reggie, Urlacher will handle that for you.
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In classic Urlacher form, Brian offered this glib gem when asked what he thought about Bush’s actions. "I think we're going to the Super Bowl."
I also couldn’t help but laugh when Urlacher was asked “How fast is Reggie Bush.” He donned his quintessential Urlacher scowl and said “He’s fast. Not fast enough.”
Say what you want about Rex Grossman, but he went 4/4 as he led the Bears on an 85 yard drive, in which he completed passes of 12, 13, 20 and 33 yards.
Sunday’s game was like a “Best of Grossman” game. We got to see Bad Rex (QB Rating of 39.9 in the first half) and Good Rex (QB Rating of 105.4 in the second half). Are we sure he doesn’t have multiple personalities disorder?
Lovie Smith, master of perspective: “I'd feel even better to be the first African American coach to hold up the Super Bowl trophy”
After the game, Senator Barrack Obama summed up exactly why I respect Lovie so much and why he’ll be getting my vote for Presdient. “Obviously, to see two African-American coaches go to the Super Bowl…is terrific. But you know what makes it even better is that they are both men of humility, they are both men of God…It is a wonderful story, not just for African-Americans but for all Americans to see men like that who are good fathers, who are good leaders, who do things the right way, succeed."
The NFL recently decided to make hovering a penaltyBernard Berrian can fly. Literally.
After last season’s bitter playoff loss to Carolina, where the Bears failed to adjust their defense to stop Steve Smith, I have held the belief that our coaching staff was incapable of making good half-time adjustments. After watching the Bears absolutely dominate the Saints after giving up two long touchdown drives, I’m here to say mea culpa.
Here to further that point is Defensive Coordinator Ron Rivera: "We said we first had to identify the positions [Bush] was in, who he was in the game with and where he was aligned.” Ok, the Bears can make adjustments.
And you thought you and your friends were excited after the Bears won? Charles Tillman had 23 Text Messages and 17 missed calls after the game.
Don’t believe that the Bears are the most well rounded team (Offense, Defense, Special Teams) in the NFL? You might want to take that up with Brad Maynard, whose seven punts boomed for a 47.4-yard average, including three inside the 20.
I don’t know why the NFL insists on only staging the Super Bowl in warm weather climates. The snow added an almost magic quality to the game. Truly football, as it was meant to be played.
Colts vs. Patriots
I hate to say I told you so – Who am I kidding? I love saying that – but the AFC Championship game was freakishly similar to my prediction. In fact, the game was a near mirror image of the Yankees-Red Sox series in 2004. The long standing favorite (Patriots / Yankees) got out to an incredible lead (21-3 / 3 games to 0) against their bitter rival (Colts / Red Sox), only to watch hopelessly as their rival made a historic comeback to win (Overcoming 18 point deficit / Overcoming 3-0 series lead). After Asante Samuel picked off Payton Manning for a touchdown, one of my good friends, who is a die-hard Colts fan, couldn’t watch any more and went outside. When the Colts kicked the field goal at halftime to close to within 21-6, I was able to convince them to come back inside by assuring them that the Colts we’re about to repeat history and stage a historic comeback.
I know Tom Brady gets a free pass for his three Super Bowl rings, but if Manning and thrown that interception at the end of the game, we’d all be calling him a choke artist.
Manning displayed a new face!
Why don’t people like the Patriots? Maybe it has something to do with the classy way that Bill Belicheck blew off Payton Manning after the game and refused to credit him for his performance in the post-game press conference.
I know that LaDanian Tomlinson thought that the Patriots displayed a lack of class when they celebrated on the San Diego logo after their defeat of the Chargers, but I thought that the Patriots showed a lot of class by not crying on the Colts logo after the loss.
Going in to this game, what were the chances that Patriots and Colts lineman outscored the entire Saints team? (21-14)
Either Reche Caldwell has a thyroid problem or someone needs to switch to decaf.
Since my parents are Hawkeye Alumni, I am obligated to point out that the two biggest non-Payton threats on the Colts vs. Patriots were graduates of the University of Iowa. Big Hawkeye salute to Dallas Clark and Bob Sanders.
Now where is that Adam's apple?Say what you want about Tom Brady’s Super Bowl rings, calmness under pressure, and Hollywood dating credentials, but Gisele is a MAN, baby!
Say want you want about the infallible Patriots front office, but Deion Branch would have caught those two dropped passes and the Patriots would have been in the Super Bowl.
We need a name for this instant classic victory. The 49ers' 28-27 win over the Cowboys was dubbed “The Catch”, the Broncos' 23-20 overtime win over the Browns in 1986 gave us “The Drive”, maybe one day, we’ll refer to this ultimate comeback as “the Heimlich”.
Touching Payton Manning’s helmet is what constitutes roughing the passer these days? What’s next, illegal glaring?
Random Thoughts
Not only do we now have two African American coaches in the Super Bowl, but both of them thoroughly out-coached their Caucasian counterparts.
Feeling like an idiot that his never occurred to me, but Brick from Anchorman is thusly named for being “dumb as a brick”.
Happy 19th Birthday Greg Oden. In the words of Tony Kornheiser: “Greg Oden has just gone from the oldest looking 18 year old to the oldest looking 19 year old.”
Congratulations, Jonathan Joseph! You’re the ninth member of the Bengals to get arrested in as many months. Let’s see if we can make it an easy 10 out of 10.
Seriously, 9 out of 52 members of the Bengals were arrested this year? If that happened at my job, it would be the equivalent of 260 out of 1500 bank employee getting arrested in the past nine months.
Apparently, Bill Belicheck learned his class from Bill Parcells, who decided to steal the headlines from the deserving Colts and Bears by announcing his retirement the day after the championship games. Good riddance.
Microsoft just announced that LeBron James will became the first basketball player to promote a Microsoft product, the upcoming Windows Vista. Microsoft felt this was a perfect match because both are largely over-hyped products that will score points with style, but won’t defend you from any threats.
Most recent sign of the Apocalypse for the Raiders: Even I turned down the Raiders Head Coaching job.
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