Where’s Brian?

I’m a busy boy, but three things I wanted to tell y’all about:

1. I’m writing for a tri-city music blog, BemBang repping Chicago.  We mainly make fun of stuff.
2. My pet project — the Football-via-Teen Drama blog Gridiron Girl (co-written by Kenny, Matt and Rob) — will be getting a weekly column spot at Third Coast Digest as we start revving up for 09/10 football season.
3. Oh, Rob also writes a hilarious Milwaukee Brewers column for 3CD called Dear Ken Macha.  I highly recommend you check it out.

Oh Yeah.   FYI.  Brett Favre is OUT as a Viking.   Hellllloooo Mike Vick?!?!?!  That would be hilarious.

Favre is a Viking

Image Courtesy of Gridiron Girl

According to WISN in Milwaukee, B-Fav has agreed to terms with the Vikings. Best part:

An ESPN reporter asked Packers General Manager Ted Thompson if he was taking it personally that Favre plans to play for Minnesota.

Thomspon’s reply was, “No, no, no, no.”

Translation: Yes.

And for the fun of it, here’s some stats from last year:

• Brett Favre - Rating: 81.0, Int: 22, Sacks: 30, Pct 65.7
• Gus Ferotte - Rating: 73.7, Int: 15, Sacks: 29, Pct 59.1
• Tavaris Jackson - Rating: 95.4, Int: 2, Sacks: 14, Pct 59.1

Brett Favre to Re-Unretire

Just when you think he’s teared up at a press conference for the last time, yet ANOTHER rumor pops up that Brett “Journeyman” Favre now wants to play for the Vikings.  Hmmm.  Is it because he’s got “something left in the tank”, maybe, or maybe the economy is such that it’s too soon to open a car dealership.

Had to post this. Original is Law Blog RLHB.

Either way, he wants in, and Mike & Mike on EPSN seemed to hint that it’s purely to get revenge on his old team — the Green Bay Packers.  That should work out for everyone, as we all know through centuries of theater, books and movies — aging gladiators called into battle for revenge’s sake and fueled by blind ambition usually succeed without much difficulty, agnorisis, etc.

What’s sad is that Wisconsin has gone mute on the subject (not that is has a say anyway).  Scanning the most recent headlines on google The Frozen Tundra is frozen still.  There’s a national frenzy but Milwaukee is mum… there is NO mention of Favre on the Journal-Sentinel front page and BARELY even a mention of this anywhere on the sports page. Hmmm. This from the paper that would run a picture of Favre above the fold instead of  Afghan war coverage.

Maybe it’s a McCarthy-era strategy — don’t publish stories about him and maybe he’ll just go away.  Meanwhile, Chicago Sun Times and Tribune both had stuff to say about it.

A few other thoughts:

• Brett should look for a new shoe endorsement.
• Green Bay is not quarantined with swine flu — they just don’t have the will to get out of bed this week.
• Internet-friend Ryan thought: “If [this] … happens the NFC North will be land of the QBs with Cutler here, Stafford at Detroit, Farve at Minnesota and Rodgers in Green Bay, could be interesting.”  It’s true.  Would the NFC North not be the butt of jokes for once?  Maybe they could shake that guaranteed noon start time pattern.
• Internet-friend Kenny thought: “….if Brett Favre goes to Minnesota, his legacy will be somewhat tarnished. This is the guy that replaced Bart Starr as the face of the franchise historically, and he is going to go wear purple and play in a dome? Just stick to playing football with a posse of country folk at a field in the middle of nowhere while wearing Wranglers.

Five Stars Kenny.  Real. Comfortable. Blog.

Vikings and Bears NFC North Run-off

I’m not going to waste time talking about the Bears and Vikes games last week, but I AM going to focus on what happens now — with three games left apiece.

So far, all we know is that the Bears D is not good when playing other good teams.  They only appear to be good when playing games they’re expected to win.  It’s no coincidence their recent wins have been against the lousiest of the league — Jacksonville, Detroit, St. Louis – they remind me of a pouty Rec League group that plays in the lower levels just to feel good about themselves.

Lance Briggs said earlier this year that when the Bears defense wanted to play well they would play well.  Hmmm.  Well, sidestepping the most obvious question, (“As a professional athlete player, when do you NOT want to play well?”) question #2 is, “Do you find it odd that in games the defense SHOULD have been amped up, you actually played worse?”  Failures such as:

• A chance to beat an undefeated Titans team.
• A chance to claim first place in the NFC North by beating the division rival Packers at Lambeau.
• A change to reclaim first place in the NFC by beating the Vikings in prime time

Were they not pumped up about these games?

THESE are the games you have to win, THESE are the games you win if you deserve to be the Division Champs — Tough games, DIVISION games.   It’s because the Bears can’t win to save their own hides that having to root against the Vikings is just maddening. 

If the Bears won games they were supposed to, we shouldn’t have to watch the scoreboard to see if Detroit is going to beat them (Or Arizona, or Atlanta, or New York) in the next few weeks.  Larry Mayer’s ChicagoBears.com Chalk Talk made it painfully clear what needs to happen for the Bears to make the playoffs:

There are two ways for the Bears to win the NFC North: They go 2-1 and the Vikings go 0-3, or  the Bears go 3-0 and the Vikings lose at least two of their final three games. Minnesota can win the division with two victories regardless of what the Bears do.

So, if I must, here’s who they both play in weeks 15, 16 & 17.

• Vikes (8-5): Arizona* (8-5), Atlanta** (8-5), New York* (11-2)
• –  combined record (27-12) .692
• Bears (7-6): New Orleans** (7-6), Green Bay (5-8), Houston (6-7)
•  – combined record (18-21) .462

(*Clinched Playoff Birth, **Wild Card Race)

So,  at first blush, The Vikings have a more difficult schedule. But you have to consider both Arizona and especially New York have nothing left to play for, so their only real difficult game is Atlanta.  Based on Mayer’s comments, I find it very unlikely that Minnesota — with the playoffs on the line, will manage to lose to the Cards and Giants; both disinterested teams.

Chicago, though their win% looks favorable, has to first play a New Orleans team with a matching record, healthy Reggie Bush, and a serious bone to pick with two losses in the last two years against the Bears — one a NFC Divisional Playoff upset.  Next up, Green Bay — historic rivals who, no doubt, would love to spoil a Bear playoff run.  Finally, you have a Houston team which the Bears should not even THINK about until they have beat both Green Bay and New Orleans and the Vikings have lost to Atlanta.

So… speculate all you want, they don’t deserve to win the division.  Why?  Because they’ve had TWO chances to do so within a month, and they’ve failed.  WHY DO WE WANT TO MAKE THE PLAYOFFS ANYWAY?

To get blasted by whomever we play?  To give the Bears Franchise an excuse not to make any major shake-ups in the off season? To get a higher draft pick?  Seriously, why?

Packers versus Bears

Using the term “versus” denotes that one team plays another, I should change this headline to “Packers Pwnd Bears”

My God, my brain cannot function in ways to comprehend how badly the Bears were beaten yesterday. In a 37-3 route, the Pack CRUSHED the Bears in every possible way. As my frontal lobe cannot put together words, I’ll just copy-and-paste some comments in email conversation I had this morning with friends from both Chicago and *gasp* Wisconsin

• On behalf of the Packers, I apologize… I didn’t expect that and I won’t gloat, beyond the SCOTT STAPP text I sent.

• You gotta give the Pack credit for playing a great game all-around, and running 200+ on a team that usually “shuts down” the run.
• That was the most pathetic Bears game I’ve ever seen. (Well, recently)
• I missed Rex Grossman’s magic
• I did see Mike Brown’s hit on Ryan Grant. I was surprised Grant was able to come back in the game, it looked monster
• Did you see the Slo-Mo of Grossman warming up and the ball flipping backwards out of his hand?!?! Hilarious!
• I say for the remainder of the season, STAY with the run-stopping… make teams beat you through the air. We may be one-dimensional, but as of last week our one-dimension had us leading the division with our only losses coming to two division leaders (one undefeated), and two playoff-bound teams – all of which by a touchdown or less
• That’s a good point…Even the first game against the Colts was against a very rusty Manning.
• I think as much as the defense is regressing, the offense needs to do something. Either Orton’s ankle is still bum or Grossman is watching game tape from the early 00’s Bears and boycotting passes longer than 10 yards.
• Shoop time baby!
• Orton’s definitely still hurt (sidenote: the Aaron Kampman cheap-shot didn’t help)… maybe 70%.
• Was Kampman’s hit late? I only a saw a replay of it, but I couldn’t tell if he was diving for Orton and hit his ankle or if Orton hurt his ankle again when he was trying to move away from Kampma
• The ball was well out of Kyle Orton’s hand, the play was over and Kampman was on the ground… and he reached AROUND Orton’s good leg to get a shot at the bad one. I’m trying to find video.
• Ew. That sounds like a fine to me!
• The Bears were just lousy. I don’t mind (as much) losing a well-fought game, but that was just embarrassing.
• If you listened to the radio last night, oh man, people were pissed.
• It turns out that the Bears defense IS terrible, and the whole “good at stopping the run” thing was just a way of hiding the fact our entire defense is subpar.
• We could “stack the box” against teams with average QBs (Matt Ryan, Kerry Collins, Gus Ferotte, effing Dan Orlovsky) but when you play a team with good WRs and a good QB like the Packers, we had to play honest, and it really showed how fucking miserable this teams defense is.
• The crazy thing is that we were all oblivious to how bad the team was, when ALL those teams with mediocre/rookie QBs – Falcons, Titans, Vikings, Lions were all throwing well against us, even though only two wound up being losses.

Squibgate

I’ll be brief.  In the final quarter of an otherwise yawn-fest of a game, the Atlanta Falcons beat the Chicago Bears with a field goal with 1-second left after Kyle Orton led the Bears in multiple late-quarter drives.  As a Bears fan, I will be succinct, but I must ask:

1. Why a squib vs a regular kickoff?  Is Robbie Gould a good squib kicker — it didn’t look that way. 
2. Are we supposed to have the best Special Teams coverage in the league?  Isn’t a game with 11 seconds left a time to expect them to perform.
3. Was there a fear of avoiding a real kickoff because of what happened against the Vikings last year, when Adrian Peterson returned a kickoff into Bears territory that lead a Minnesota 3-point victory?
4. Why stick to the Cover-2 when a short pass or running the ball would’ve ended the game?
5. How do you allow a reciever to get even CLOSE to a sideline when the team has no timeouts with 6 seconds left?
6. With all this recent referee criticsm, isn’t it bullshit that Atlanta’s game clock operator gave their offense a 1-sec or so cushion on the secon-to-last snap? (The same second that allowed Elam to kick the winning field goal).  A similar question was fielded in Larry Mayer’s Bears Q&A “Chalk Talk” yesterday:

Can the Bears file a formal protest of Sunday’s loss based on the clock operation in the Georgia Dome? It appeared that the clock conveniently started late on both on the Bears’ squib kickoff and on Atlanta’s 26-yard pass play that set up the field goal.

Will S.
Chicago

Well, whatever.  They say good teams find a way to win — what does that say about a Bears team whose every loss has been 3 points or less? I’m going crazy just thinking about this.  Also note: Jason Elam blew a gimmie field goal earlier in the quarter, and we blew a 4th and goal attempt so… we can’t complain, the Bears had plenty of chances to score and shouldn’t have allowed it to come down to the last second.

Relive the terror (or the glory if you’re reading this in Atlanta / Green Bay).
 

Take Heart Brett…

you could’ve wound up in Minnesota.

Bears Begin Rebuilding Decade

(Originally found on URChicago here.)

Plans to visit the Super Bowl every 11 years or so is underway for the Chicago Bears franchise. With savvy off-season non-moves, they’re well on pace to make the playoffs again by 2017 – their scouts are scouring adolescent Pop Warner prospects as we speak.

Bears management have opted not re-sign our top two receivers — Bernard Berrian and Muhsin Muhammed. On the official Bears depth chart, this leaves Rashied Davis and Mark Bradley as the two guys that are supposed to catch balls by Grossman or Orton (whoever’s preseason play is less disappointing). Scared Yet?

Maybe the Bears are going to focus on the good ‘ol strategery of “running and defense” — an antiquated philosophy the Bears have always held dear. This plan of attack last year led to the third-worst rushing offense and the fifth-worst total defense in the NFL.

You’d think the Bears would have some interest in Pro Bowler to-be, Michael Turner. You’d think. He was a premier free agent — a classic, bruising, power running back… you know, the type that Cedric Benson was supposed to be. Turner had expressed interest in playing for Chicago and was prettymuch waiting for an offer. Bears looked the other way, Turner signed with the Falcons and so far, the Bears’ biggest off-season move has been a large, exaggerated, collective shrug.