Sports Notes, 12/31/06

It kinda feels like I haven’t been snarky in a while …

-- So it turns out that the Packers, despite the Giants win last night, still have a mathematical shot at the playoffs, if the results of virtually every other game involving an NFC team (and a couple that don’t) break their way. Even after all the years of Brett Farve completely bitch-ify-ing the BEARS, I would still be impressed if Farve, at his advancing age, could actually lead this collection of worthless “talent” to a playoff spot.

-- Just not impressed enough to actually root for him. Damn Cheesehead.

-- It’s a shame that Michael and Juanita Jordan are getting divorced. Considering that their marriage survived his very public affair and gambling addiction in the ’90s, I can imagine only one thing that he could have possibly done that would be more horrible: Stop winning championships.

-- Y’know, somehow two bags of white powder make a whole lot of sense out of the rest of Mike Tyson’s extensive mopery.

-- Minnesota gave up a bowl-record 31-point second half lead to lose to a Texas Tech team that came in barely above .500. Now, that’s the Big Ten football conference that I’ve been watching all year, the one that fattened up Michigan’s and Wisconsin’s records and made them so laughably overrated. This conference just might go 1-6 in bowls this year.

-- And anyone who says “But Michigan only lost to Ohio State by 3 points” will thereby forever forfeit her right to say “You can throw out the records when these two play,” from now until the end of time, in perpetuity throughout the universe.

-- In watching the other various college bowl games this week, one thing that I’ve come to learn for damn sure is that Lou Holtz is campaigning hard for the lead role if anyone ever makes a movie of Jerry Van Dyke’s life.

-- When more than two feet of snow falls in New Mexico, I start to wonder if there really is a god, and if he also doesn’t want Bob Knight to be the winnigest college basketball coach ever.

Sports Notes, 12/24/06

Very interesting sentence for Tank Johnson: He’s under home confinement, he’s only allowed to leave for work, and he must get court permission to leave the state even for work purposes. It’s a well-known fact, almost certainly known to any judge who serves in the Chicago area, that after Johnson serves his team suspension this week against the Lions the next road game the BEARS could possibly play would be Feb. 4 in Miami.

In other words, start playing by the rules or we won’t let you play in the Super Bowl. That just might get his attention.

Now, on the light-ish side …

-- I’m putting the over-under on the number of Lions fans who walk out of Sunday’s game in the second quarter at 8,900.

-- I couldn’t be happier about being wrong about Denis Savard as coach of the Blackhawks, who are now 8-3-3 under his leadership and fighting for -- ooh, I so don’t want to jinx this -- a playoff spot. The streak includes a game Friday night won on Peter Bondra’s 500th NHL goal. There’s a lot of good feeling in Hawk Nation right now.

-- I don’t know which is more disturbing: That Illinois trailed by two possessions, at home, in the second half against Div. XXXIV Idaho State, or that that game showed how badly this team needs Warren Carter.

-- On the other hand, the Illini did notch a nice win against Missouri this week. That’s eight in a row for Illinois -- the Tigers had better win one soon or I’ll run out of fingers. Still, it was more fun to beat them under the stewardship of the highly coiffed Quin Snyder, so we could throw it in the face of all the girls who would swoon over his dreamy locks.

-- To an old Illini we haven’t forgotten, here’s hoping nothing is too seriously wrong with UIC head coach Jimmy Collins, who is taking a leave of absense this week. Collins may or may not have had some bad feelings about being passed over for the Illinois job when Lou Henson left in 1996, but Illini Nation never felt ill will toward him.

-- Lastly, I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas! And if you don’t celebrate Christmas … well, you should try it. It’s really not that much of a religious holiday anymore, and people give you stuff just for being you! Pretty cool, huh?

BEARS 34, Buccaneers 31, OT: I Am Not Amused

Not funny, guys. Not cute, not impish, not daring. Blowing a three-touchdown lead against a woeful team while trying to tune up for a Super Bowl run is nothing but alarming.

In fact, the need for overtime to finally dispatch of the 3-11 Tampa Bay Buccaneers despite second-half leads of 21-3 and 31-17 belies a disturbing trend in which the BEARS defense lets up after the team builds a three-touchdown lead.

It happened twice last week against St. Louis, but both times it was covered up, once by an offensive TD drive and once by a Devin Hester kick return. You have to go all the way back to the San Francisco game (Game 7) to find the BEARS’ last three-touchdown lead, but remember that he 49ers outscored the BEARS 10-0 in the second half of that game.

Fast-forwarding back to this week, you can blame Hester’s fumble at 24-10 for letting the Bucs back in the game, but if the defense shuts the door on the previous drive there’s no kickoff to fumble. And only the defense is to blame for a 95-yard drive with a 64-yard catch-and-run touchdown play, or the 44-yard scoring play on the next drive. The BEARS allowed more yards on those two plays than they did in the first 40 minutes of the game (80), for crying out loud.

You’ll notice the Patriots didn’t let up after building a 40-7 lead on Sunday, and you also may notice that the Patriots have won three of the last five Super Bowls. There is a correlation.

I’d like to think the defensive problems are nothing more than a result of the jaw-droppingly long list of missing players. But on the other hand, Ian Scott, starting in place of troubled Tank Johnson, had three batted passes, two tackles, two assists, and one fumble recovery in overtime that should have been the game-defining moment.

On the other hand, the 49ers’ two long touchdown plays in the fourth quarter were in large part because rookie Daniele Manning -- who probably wouldn’t be starting if Mike Brown OR Nathan Vasher OR Todd Johnson was still healthy -- got flat-out outplayed.

All of this overshadowed a monster game for tight end Desmond Clark, whose seven catches for 125 yards included two touchdowns, one while getting bulldozed. It overshadowed a gritty touchdown to restore a late 14-point lead by Cedric Benson, who earned the score for the pass protection he gave Rex Grossman on that drive. And it overshadowed a 300-yard day for Grossman, who started out looking shaky by ended with an All-Pro-quality line: 29-for-44 for 339 yards, 2 TD/0 INT.

OK. I got that out of my system and a feel a little better now. And with the win, no matter how harrowing, the BEARS did clinch home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, which makes them the heavy favorite to come out of the NFC. But I remain very concerned that despite the inability of any of the other 15 teams to establish themselves as a worthy competitor, the BEARS will go out and beat themselves in the playoffs.

Sports Notes, 12/17/06

Yeah, I know, there were no notes last week. I was really busy; don’t yell at me.

-- I had a line all picked out to make fun of Tank Johnson and the gun charges against him. But after his friend/bodygaurd was shot to death Friday night, it didn’t seem funny anymore. Johnson is now forced to stare down the dark side of a gun obsession, which is that guns are the only weapon manufactured strictly for the purpose of killing and that as long as there are guns, people will get shot and killed.

-- Will the Devin Hester fans please just shut up already? Of course the BEARS should use him on offense, and of course his mere presence would open things up. But it occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, the coaching staff thought of that already and is trying to downplay this scenario to take defenses by surprise in the playoffs. I mean, do you really need to blow your load to beat 2-11 Detroit?

-- For all the big talk about how spooge-a-licious Drew Bress is this year, Rex Grossman’s team is still the one leading the conference in scoring.

-- The Bulls beat Indiana by 15 on Monday night. Yes, I’m aware that they’ve won the other three games they’ve played since then, but I felt it necessary to point out Monday’s result because nobody in the entire city was watching any sporting event that night other than the Rex Grossman Moment Of Truth Show.

-- Dominik Hasek, who is roughly 178 years old in pro-athlete years, still looks like the same goaltender with a Slinky for a spine who the Hawks never should have given away 15 years ago.

-- Like I should talk. I’m so old that when I was watching that Bulls-Sonics game the other night, I kept looking for Shawn Kemp.

-- Congratulations to Northern Illinois running back (and Holy Cross High School alum) Garrett Wolfe, who was named a third-team All-America. Wolfe ran for 1,900 yards in 12 games and led the country in all-purpose yards with 179 per game. You’ve made Crusaders everywhere proud, even those of us who attended Holy Cross many, many years before you did.

BEARS 42, Rams 27: These Guys Must Really Love Rex

This may have been the most total team effort of the season for the BEARS.

On a night when the defense was considerably less than perfect, Rex Grossman’s backfield and receivers refused to let him lose -- the game or his starting job -- and special teams came up big as well.

Bernard Berrian made a nice run after a catch for the first offensive touchdown. Cedric Bensen set it up with a couple powerful runs from scrimmage. Thomas Jones, who had 76 yards on only 11 carries, got 30 of them on his determined touchdown run. Muhsin Muhammed made a tremendous lunging catch for a score. Even Adrian Peterson had a touchdown. Admit it -- you had no idea Adrian Peterson was still on this team.

But the two best plays of the night belonged to rookie sensation Devin Hester with his two kickoff returns for touchdowns, his record-setting fifth and sixth of the year. Two TD kickoff returns is an outstanding season for most returns; it’s a phenomenol game for a rookie! On top of that, his first return took all the momentum away from the Rams after they put the first points of the game on the board.

As for Grossman, 13-for-23 for 200 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions isn’t All Pro material, but it’s a solid line. It's the kind of line this team needs from its quarterback to go all the way, and for that very reason, it's the kind of line some fans were hoping to see from Brian Griese.

As for that defense, well, it wasn’t horrible. They clearly missed Mike Brown for downfield coverage and Tommie Harris for pocket pressure, as Mark Bulger picked them apart at times. In fairness, Bulger is currently the second best quarterback in the NFC (if you throw out the injured Donovan McNabb), but the Bulger-vs.-BEARS-defense matchup was intriguing because of the growing liklihood that the BEARS will meet the top dog, Drew Brees, in the playoffs.

Overall, the defense looked shaky in the first half but played well enough to preserve the lead. In the decisive third quarter, the defense gave up one first down and 31 total yards, and didn’t allow St. Louis across midfield. To be certain, 27 is more points than they wanted to give up, but half of that came in extended garbage time.

So the bottom line is, the BEARS are 11-2 and still the class of the NFC. With two more victories against three teams who have a combined 10 wins, the BEARS will lock up the No. 1 seed and make Brees try to do his thing in Soldier Field in January. I still like their chances of coming out of the NFC.

BEARS 23, Vikings 13: Griese Pool Heats Up

It seems like I’ve written this game recap before. Let’s see -- defense is Super Bowl caliber, team will go only so far as Rex Grossman can … yeah, we’ve definitely been here before.

So it’s true that at one point in the third quarter, Grossman had as many interceptions as completions, with three of each. So it’s true that BEARS receivers had only two more catches (six) than did BEARS defenders (four interceptions). So it’s true that Grossman’s passer rating on Sunday looked more like an earned-run average.

I still say Brian Griese is not the answer. Griese may actually be a better pure quarterback than Grossman. But the problem is, Griese has not spent the last 12 games working with the first-team offense. And it has shown in his rare mop-up duty this year. The only solution is to fix Grossman -- which should be possible, considering that he looked like an All Pro for the first five games of the season.

But then again, I might be biased. As longtime readers know, before the season I set up a pool on when Griese would supplant Grossman as the BEARS starter. Believe it or not, this pool was a hot topic of discussion in the bars and parties as was at with my friends this weekend. And I have the entry that pays if it doesn't happen.

As a service to those in the pool, I’m posting all the picks that are still alive at the end of this recap. But first, some random thoughts about Sunday’s NFC North-clinching victory:

-- Hey, guess what? Sunday’s victory clinched the NFC North. The way this town wants to tar and feather Grossman, you’d think they were 3-8 right now. The BEARS are in the playoffs, people, and they only need three wins against four sub-.500 teams to clinch home-field advantage.

-- Home-field advantage will assure the BEARS a spot in the Super Bowl, even if Rex Grossman’s grandmother is playing quarterback. For one thing, Tony Romo and Drew Brees aren’t going to look like Hall of Famers while trying to throw through 17 feet of snow into a minus-40 wind chill at Soldier Field in January. For another, the second-best team in the league -- Dallas -- needed a last-second field goal to beat a Giants team that the BEARS beat by 18. And the BEARS got them when the Giants were riding high on a five-game winning streak, whereas Dallas played them with turmoil ripping the team apart. Advantage, BEARS.

-- None of this excuses Lovie Smith’s empassioned defense of Grossman. Before Sunday’s game, he said he had never seen such criticism of a quarterback who had gone 9-2. Excuse me? Was he here last year? Because I’m guessing Kyle Orton has seen something similar.

-- I’m starting to think the real starter controversy should be Cedric Benson over Thomas Jones. And I want to like Thomas Jones more than Benson. I really, really do.

-- It looks like the extreme cold made footing difficult for the defenses Sunday, as if the ground were frozen, judging by the multiple missed tackles on both sides. It makes sense that the defense would suffer more than the offense, because it’s easier to run than to chase. An offensive player knows which way he’s going to juke and can shift his momentum accordingly, whereas a defender has to be poised to go in either direction and must simply react to the offensive player. You can’t do that without proper footing.

-- Here are the Griese pool picks. For the unitiated, the deal is that if Griese starts the game you have, you win the pot.

Dec. 11 at St. Louis (MNF) -- GLENN
Dec. 17 vs. Tampa Bay -- KEVIN
Dec. 24 at Detroit -- MARK
Dec. 31 vs. Green Bay -- DON
Any postseason game -- PAM
Griese does not start -- KEVIN

Good luck to everyone still in it!

Sports Notes, 12/3/06

Some things just aren’t important enough to get around to until now …

-- Can I call ’em, or can I call ’em? Loyal readers might remember that I predicted only three Big Ten teams would be favored in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge: Wisconsin, Michigan, and maybe Purdue. Well, here’s the list of favoreds: Wisconsin, Michigan, Purdue (by a scant 1.5 points!) and my beloved University of Illinois Fighting Illini. I knew I missed my calling to be an oddsmaker in Vegas!

-- Speaking of Illinois … Saturday’s game against Arizona was billed as a rematch of the 2005 Regional Final in which Illinois erased a 15-point deficit in the last five minutes to storm into the Final Four. It looked to me more like a rematch of the 2001 Regional Final, between the same two teams, in which every single play for all 40 minutes ended with a foul called against Illinois.

-- I don’t see why Ben Wallace can’t take the stupid headband off. Then again, I really don’t see why the Bulls can’t let Ben Wallace wear the stupid headband.

-- Just in case there’s anyone left who doesn’t see the parallels between these BEARS and the 1985 team, the Giants just resigned 172-year-old punter Sean Landeta. With the Giants currently in playoff position, things are lining up for a repeat of the legendary phantom punt from the playoffs of that much-storied season.

-- Dan Monson resigned as coach of the Minnesota Golden Gophers basketball team after a 2-5 start. I think the obvious question here is, why is Minnesota still in the Big Ten?

-- No, seriously. There have been 11 teams in the Big Ten for over a decade now. If we show one of them the door, it would actually be the Big Ten. We can’t kick out Northwestern because all the Big Ten faculties share academic resources. Plus, it’s funny to beat up on Northwestern. Minnesota has no athletic, academic or comedic value. It’s been nice knowing you, you frostbitten hillbillies, but your bar clock is striking 2 a.m.

-- Awfully nice of the Hawks to man up and scratch out two third-period goals to make Denis Savard a 2-1 winner in his coaching debut Wednesday night. And it’s fitting that Tuumo Ruttu, one of very few players on this team who consistently gives as much effort as Savvy did in his playing days, scored the game-winner. They’ve won twice more since then. I might have to go to a game.