Sports

Tuesday Morning Quarterback (Week Fourteen)

Actually more like Wednesday Morning Quarterback this week, but oh well.

Well, I won my first fantasy playoff game, so now to the second round, which is going to be real tough. And I knew the Bears winning streak couldn’t last forever, but I’m not as worried as some other Bears fans I’ve chatted with, and I’ll tell you why in a little bit. But first.

Well it may have seemed ridiculous at the time, but I may have been on to something with Miami. Now they pretty much have to win out to even be in the playoff hunt, and even then they would basically need KC, San Diego, and Pittsburgh to all completely fall apart, but they are still mathematically in it, as weird as that sounds.

Freakin’ Vikings. It was so wonderful watching them suck earlier this season, and now they’re actually good (though do note that there’s only one legitimate team they’ve beaten in that streak). If the Bears win the next two games against Atlanta and Green Bay, they should clinch the NFC North, regardless of what Minnesota does (that’s assuming the Bears have the tie breaker, which with beating Green Bay, they should), so that might be my ideal matchup for the last game of the season: Bears have clinched the north no matter what, and the Vikings have to win to make the playoffs, giving the Bears the chance to crush them and knock them out of the playoffs. I’m hoping that’s the reason God has allowed the Vikings to do well, so they can be crushed like Gomorrah.

Now this week there were two different games that were quite entertaining because of how pathetic they were. They were like watching Roger Corman movies, they’re so bad that they’re almost kind of fun to watch.

First there’s the Titans and Texans. The Titans only touchdown is on a punt return, and other then that, they can’t move the ball to save their lives. Then they hit the go ahead field goal with six seconds left, leaving the Texans to have to pull of a circus play to win it, which, since it’s the Texans, let’s face it. But they always seem to make their losses interesting. Mathis runs the ensuing kickoff back to the Tennessee 20 or something, but time runs out. But wait, there’s a personal foul by the stupid Titans, allowing the Texans to setup the potential game tying field goal, which Kris Brown misses so badly, you have to kind of wonder if it was on purpose (Reggie Bush anyone?).

Then there was the most entertaining pathetic game I’ve ever seen when the Packers and Lions played Sunday night. Usually when two teams that really suck play each other, the game is boring as hell. Not this one. First off, the Lions jump out to an early 13-3 lead, and then don’t score again (classic Jauron). But let me just fast forward to the 4th quarter. Lions have it first and goal, and like me at a party, they can’t score, can’t score, can’t score . So it’s 4th and goal at the 1/2 yard line, and they decide to go for it. Gutsy call, I like it! But then they apparently lose track of time while chatting in the huddle (possibly talking about how Grammy nominations have gotten worse and worse every year) and have to burn a time out. They spend a few minutes chatting on the sideline, so they can come out and run what? A QB sneak with Jeff Garcia. Wow. What a horrendous call. As if that wasn’t enough, then the following events take place:

– Lions get a safety on the next play, which gets changed by the Refs ten minutes later to a call that will no doubt be reviewed in the off season, and we’ll have another rule next year. Regardless, it should have been a safety, and Jauron (his ever emotionless self) doesn’t even argue, doesn’t even get mad, in fact, I think he had “Girl from Ipanema” playing in his headset.

– With about 3 minutes to go in the game, we see 4 more punts before the end of regulation. Neither team has any clue what they’re going to do, and acts accordingly

– At the start of OT, the Ref can’t find his coin, and he turns to the other refs who say “Oh, I don’t think I…” as they search through their pockets. They then go to the sideline asking various officials there, before finally finding someone who has a quarter.

– Green Bay starts with the ball in OT, marches part of the way down the field, then Sean Rogers commits the most bone head personal foul penalty, basically putting Green Bay in field goal range, which they eventually hit, winning the game.

Wow, what a pathetically entertaining game. Lions should be ashamed of themselves, as if they aren’t already. And Roy Williams needs to learn how to catch the freakin ball. Yeah it looks impressive when you make some miraculous one handed grab early in the first quarter, but when you are wide open basically to run all the way for a touchdown in the fourth quarter when the game is on the line, and you drop an undefended pass, that’s unacceptable.

Now onto the Bears. First off, since everyone else is talking about the Grossman/Orton debate, I’ll cover that first. The thing is, Orton is doing fine. Considering the weather in Pittsburgh, he played a pretty good game. But basically this game said, we have to have an offense that can occasionally score more than 10 points, or we are going nowhere in the playoffs. Our defense had a very tough game, and our offense wasn’t able to do anything to keep us in the game. However, will Grossman make that big of a difference? What irritates me with the Bears management, is that they make me feel like we’re talking about some proven veteran who is brilliant at commanding a passing assault. We’re talking about Rex Grossman! He has proven nothing. So that’s my argument against making the change.

Here’s my argument for making the change. If Grossman goes in, it’s not like our offense is going to suddenly pass like crazy. It’ll still be a primarily rushing offense, using the play action and whatnot, just like it has been. However, maybe Grossman doesn’t overthrow the couple open guys downfield that Orton has been overthrowing. Just a thought. For right now, I think Orton deserves to be the starter, but the thing is if we don’t make the change against Atlanta, we shouldn’t make it for the rest of the season. It’s just too late to hand the keys to a guy who hasn’t played at all. So this Atlanta game will completely determine the QB situation, in my mind. Start Orton, if he’s looking terrible early, throw Grossman in there. If it’s up to me, I think I’d prefer to just see Orton in there, and hopefully our offense can get something going without needing a personnel change.

Orton
He’s done more than we could have ever asked him to do this season, but can he keep going?

And in regards to our defense, I’m not worried. They were bound to have a bad game one of these days, and missing Chris Harris and Mike Brown hurt. We should have both of them back this week, so I think we’ll be okay. Our d-line has done so well this season, they were bound to have a set back, and with the weather and the type of team that Pittsburgh is, we were really setup to have that setback this week. However, I think this can only fireup our defense and our offense, to know that we can’t just take it easy and assume we can shut every team out. So the Bears in general should come out strong at home against Atlanta, and get that confidence back quick. But we have to see some improvement from the offense, or bigger question marks could come up.

Go Bears!

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