Category: Minnesota Vikings

NFL Labor Talks Not Business as Usual and Other Points of View

Bears

  • John Glennon at The Tennessean updates the status of the Titan’s quest to fill out their coaching staff.  There’s been no comment from the Titans regarding the reports that they are interested in Bears offensive line coach Mike Tice. as an offensive coordinator.  It could be much ado about nothing.
  • The message is right but unfortunately the Packers aren’t the only thing that sucks in this video:

I will concede, however, that it’s better than I could do.

Elsewhere

  • Sports business analyst Rick Harrow tells ESPN that the labor negotiations are business as usual.  At the same time he contradicts himself by saying that NFLPA president DeMaurice Smith is inexperienced and doesn’t realize that its not a war with the owners.  That’s not business as usual.  That’s real trouble.

“According to sources familiar with the talks, last week’s negotiations between the NFLPA and the NFL broke off when the union characterized its documents as an “illustration” that NFL officials believed represented a proposal for revenue sharing between owners and players.”

“When the NFLPA characterized documents labeled “NFLPA Proposal” as something other than a collective bargaining proposal, the NFL ended the session, a source familiar with the talks said.”

Translation:  Misunderstandings aside, the NFL ultimately walked out of the talks because the union isn’t negotiating.  The owners were looking for a proposal from the union in response to their own.  They didn’t get it.

  • The Hall of Fame selection process is under scrutiny in the media, presumably in part because there’s not much else to talk about.  Toni Monkovic at the New York Times summarizes the arguments.
  • Mike Florio at profootballtalk.com provides a particularly interesting and thorough at the process.  He has suggestions for improving it.
  • Florio also points out the irony in the league assuming responsibility for the Super Bowl seating mess when it is, in fact, most closely related to the mistakes on the part of the Cowboys and owner Jerry Jones.  Jones is believed to be a strong voice in league meetings against more extensive revenue sharing:

“’Right now, we are subsidizing this market,’ Jones said in August 2009 regarding the Vikings and the place they currently call home.  ‘It’s unthinkable to think that you’ve got the market you got here — 3 ½ million people — and have teams like Kansas City and Green Bay subsidizing the market.  That will stop. . . .  That’s going to stop.  That’s on its way out.’

“So Jones doesn’t want his team to subsidize other teams by sharing revenues, but other teams will potentially be subsidizing the Cowboys by sharing in the expenses arising from his ultimately failed effort to cram 103,986-plus bodies into his new stadium for Super Bowl XLV.”

  • Brad Biggs, also writing for NFP, points out that the Williams Wall is crumbling, at least temporarily.  Both defensive tackles Pat and Kevin Williams have undergone offseason surgery.  They are also each facing possible four game suspensions and they are finally being forced to stand up and take personal responsibility for taking an illegal substance in the StarCaps fiasco.
  • Judd Zulgad at the Minneapolis Star Tribune interviews Vikings tight end Visanthe Shiancoe.  Shiancoe has looked closely at the Atlanta Falcon’s offense and likes what he sees.  Atlanta was the home of new offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave and they used the tight end a a primary target.  The bad news for Shiancoe?  He’s not Tony Gonzales.

One Final Thought

Zulgad says Shiancoe isn’t talking about a new contract as he enters the final season of the $18.2 million deal he signed as a free agent in 2007:

“The thing is that you don’t ever want to be that complainer.  You don’t want to bring any [problems] upon your team in any way, shape, form or fashion. It’s part of your job to know a when and where, a time and a place for certain things. That wasn’t a time or place to ever complain. That’s nothing you’ll ever see me do. I’ll never complain.”

Wide Receiver Seems to Be the Bears Issue of the Day and Other Points of View

Chicago Bears

  • David Kaplan and Fred Mitchell at the Chicago Tribune talk to former Bears and Colts general manager Bill Tobin about how he went about drafting two members of this year’s Pro Football Hall of Fame class: Richard Dent and Marshall Faulk.
  • Former NFL safety and current Chicago Tribune contributor Matt Bowen‘s needs for the Bears:  offensive tackle, cornerback, wide receiver.  The Bears surely do need all three but they probably see defensive tackle as a more critical need than both cornerback and wide receiver.  Probably.
  • Looks like Todd McShay agrees with me.  Maybe I should reconsider my position.  Via ESPN’s NFC North blogger Kevin Seifert.
  • Having said that, Brad Biggs, also at the Tribune, continues his excellent positional review of the Bears, this time with the wide receivers:

“The Bears continue to value their receivers more than others do. They lack a difference-maker at the position and if they want to see Cutler flourish, it’s a position that will have to be addressed.”


Elsewhere

Kevin Van Valkenburg, Baltimore Sun

Here is why there is no chance NFL owners and the NFL Players Association work out a new labor agreement by March 3: It takes only nine owners to shoot down whatever proposal both sides come up with.

This isn’t just a labor dispute in the eyes of some owners. It’s a battle for the future of the sport. Rich men do not like parting with their money, especially the richest and most eccentric of the bunch, and they can (and most likely will) block whatever proposal the two sides put together in the next three weeks until they get exactly the deal they want.

I get a kick out of it when people say that the people involved in this are “too smart” to let it go into the season next year.  If the baseball strikes of the seventies, eighties and nineties taught us anything, its that this is definitely not true.

  • Chris Mortenson at ESPN talks about the labor impasse.  Note that he thinks that the current labor deal has to be allowed to expire to get it out of the jurisdiction of the federal courts in Minneapolis.  Very interesting but not surprising.  The owners are not happy with judge David Doty.

Mortenson comes through with more details in this article.

“’Typically in the staff meeting after the season concludes, I pretty much a have the whole season laid out for our coaching staff,’ McCarthy said. ‘That’s not the case this year.’

“As a result, McCarthy said he and the staff have taken what he called a ‘prepare for the known’ approach to the offseason. Since the annual NFL Scouting Combine is being held as scheduled in Indianapolis in two weeks, and the 2011 NFL Draft is set for April 23-25, the staff is focusing on those set-in-stone events. McCarthy said the assistant coaches are off until Feb. 21, then will have some more time off after the scouting combine. They’ll then return to work to do their scheme evaluation work the first two weeks of March, another annual offseason ritual.”

  • ESPN’s Trent Dilfer thinks more of quarterback Cam Newton than I do.

I’ll give Dilfer his due as a former NFL quarterback.  But I think the guys at Scouts Inc., who have Newton as the 28th rated prospect and who have undoubtedly studied a lot of tape rather than simply judging him based upon a workout, probably have a better handle on him.

  • McShay talks about his mock draft below.

One Final Thought

The Sports Pickle reports that the NFL has made an interesting offer to those who were not allowed to sit in the seats they paid for at Super Bowl XLV.

Marshall Faulk Doesn’t Think Much of the Bears Receivers and Other Points of View

Bears

“On spending the bulk of his career in the NFC Central: ‘Playing in the NFC Central, the old black-and-blue division, people really didn’t throw the ball. .?.?. It wasn’t the NFC East, where they threw the ball a lot, or the NFC West, where they threw the ball a lot. I could’ve gotten more opportunities, but you have to take advantage of what’s there.’’’

“But those of us who had the privilege to see Dent play every week don’t need statistics or honors to justify his place in the Hall.”

“But every time I see Johnny Knox run a slant he goes behind the defender and you see an interception go the other way and everyone looks at Jay Cutler and says, ‘How did he throw that pass?’ That is going to be a mistake no matter who the quarterback is.”

“I see no pure wideout. When we ran [Mike] Martz‘ offense in St. Louis we had three or four pure wideouts. … If you are still teaching that stuff to your wide receivers then in this offense you can’t blame the QB.”

  • Corey Wooton goes over goes over the getting off the ball in this YouTube video.

  • Dan Berstien and Terry Boers at WSCR in Chicago – Lovie Smith is a Liberian?


Elsewhere

  • From Pro Football Weekly‘s Audibles.  This feature is a collection of anonymous quotes from NFL men around the league:

“Everyone got all excited about Michael Vick — and there was reason to be excited early — but if you look at how he finished the season, you see (that) teams started to figure out that if you make him play quarterback, he is not that good.  He’s not a great three-step, five-step, read-and-throw-to-the-open-receiver quarterback. And he takes more hits because he does not read it quickly. Look at the Indy game when (Colts MLB Gary) Brackett drills him. If his primary (receiver) is not there and he has to go through the thought process, he holds it for an extra second to second-and-a-half, and in this league, that is the difference between a  defender breezing by — like they do with Peyton Manning, barely touching him — or getting drilled. If I’m Michael Vick, I’m digging up every game that Steve Young played late in his career when he made his transformation, and I’m studying it.”

  • Death is not an option:  Carolina wins the Super Bowl or Big Foot is found in North Carolina.  From Tom Sorensen at the Charlotte Observer.
  • Joe Reedy at the Cincinnati Enquirer provides an update on the Carson Palmer situation.  Despite a change at offensive coordinator, Palmer apparently still wants out of Cincinnati.  And despite the owner stating that he won’t be traded he still apparently believes he will be.  He is selling his house.
  • Speaking of the Bengals, I can’t wait to see new offensive coordinator Jay Gruden run a West Coast style offense with a running back who flat out refuses to catch the ball out of the backfield.
  • Pat Williams says he’s done fighting the NFL over Star Caps.  Via Brian Murphy at the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
  • James Walker at ESPN.com reports that the Cleveland Browns have made some interesting roster cuts.  Included on the list of players is defensive tackle Shaun Rogers and former Bear – and Ram – offensive tackle John St. Clair.
  • The Sports Pickle thinks that the Packers Super Bowl title should be revoked over this video.  Sounds good to me.

One Final Thought

Mitchell quotes Dent further:

“I was very, very thirsty for (the Hall)… Once you play the game a certain way, people start telling you, ‘You know, you may have the opportunity to be in the Hall.’ A bunch of people don’t understand the (Hall) process. I don’t understand the process.”

“I was patient, didn’t care to call anybody out… My day has come.”

The video is from the Chicago Tribune website.

Bookies Take a Bath on the Super Bowl and Other Points of View

Bears

Elsewhere

  • Michael Wilbon at ESPN talks about watching the Super Bowl at the White House with Bears fan Barak Obama.  Oh, yeah.  He’s the President of the United States, as well.

“The worst-case scenario is the type of grudge match that wiped out the 1994 World Series and the 2004-05 NHL season. Although possible, there are too many billions at stake for the sides not to eventually come to their senses.”

Baseball fans said the same  thing in 1994.

I’ve gotten a definite impression that there are a least some owners who are more interested in breaking the union than getting an agreement.  I get the impression that DeMaurice Smith is more interested in making sure he doesn’t give much if anything in his first negotiation than he is in looking after the best interests of the game and, therefore, the players.  Its a bad combination.

I’m not holding my breath waiting for the next season to start.

“Chargers: Is this their last season in San Diego? They are the clubhouse favorite to relocate to Los Angeles, and the NFL will be looking to move back into the nation’s second-largest market once the CBA is resolved. If the Chargers can’t get a stadium deal in San Diego — and the prospects of one are looking bleaker by the day — they will be looking to exercise the escape clause in their Qualcomm Stadium lease.”

I know that the Chargers are only one of many teams that have talked of relocating.  But I think this one might be the real thing.  There’s absolutely no way they’re going to get a stadium in San Diego.

  • Mike Munchak in the Titan’s new head coach:

“With players, the way we look at it when we’re going to new teams is the city appeal, how we feel about the location, and then it’s, ‘What was it like when I played that team?’  Certain teams you play against, you’re like, ‘Them guys were soft. I don’t want to be part of that organization. I don’t want to play for them.’ Or, ‘They were arguing on the sideline, I don’t want to be part of that type of disruption.’

“‘I know there’s some teams that we played, some guys were like, ‘It’d be all right to go to war with those guys. They show up on game day. They show up to fight.’ And that’s what we do.'”

I think the NFC North as a group holds up pretty well in this respect.  The Vikings, perhaps, didn’t show as much fight as you’d like to see.  Other than that, the the division has some pretty tough, high football character teams.

  • Charlie Walters at the Pioneer Press thinks the Vikings are looking at last place next year.  I’m not so sure.  There’s a lot of talent on that team.  If Les Frazier gets them to play like they did in 2009 with the addition of even a decent quarterback, they’ll be as dangerous as anyone.
  • On the other hand, Jeremy Fowler, also at the Pioneer Press, points out that DT Pat Williams is unlikely to be back.  If DE Ray Edwards leaves via free agency and DT Kevin Williams actually has to serve a suspension stemming from the Star Caps case, they could have some trouble on the defensive line next year.  That’s the strength of their team.
  • According to Geoff Mosher at the Delaware News Journal, the Eagles have shot down a rumor making the rounds through cyberspace that Jon Gruden, a former Super Bowl champion coach and current ESPN analyst, would be replacing Andy Reid as Eagles head coach.  Via benmaller.com.
  • Those who claim that sports books always go with the spread that gives them a 50:50 split, listen up.  The Las Vegas casinos as a whole made less than a million dollars on the Super Bowl with some suffering rare losses.  The books who lost stuck with the “dead number” not moving thier odds despite heavy betting on the Green Bay Packers.  The strategy is risky but it maximizes profits if the initial number turns out to be the right one.
  • George Bretherton at The New York Times thinks the Steelers should have run the ball more in the second half of Super Bowl XLV.  I generally agree, especially as he has laid it out.  But more generally the Steelers made it very tough on themselves throughout the game with harmful penalties that consistently put them in holes they had to try to pass their way out of.
  • The Sports Pickle tracked the NFL’s official Facebook page during Super Bowl XLV.

One Final Thought

Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic can’t understand people who don’t watch the Super Bowl.  Its really simple.  They haven’t discovered television.  Or fire.

Fantuz Flakes Commercial and Other Points of View

Bears

  • But you know when you’ve really made it?  When you have your own dandruff shampoo (the video was made by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats).
  • Biggs continued his excellent positional analysis series with the running backs.  I thought this was an interesting choice of words:

“Harvey Unga faced an uphill battle to make the 53-man roster as an addition in the supplemental draft and the Bears found a convenient way to redshirt him with a hamstring pull in training camp.”

“Kevin Colbert, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ director of football operations, noted that nearly three-quarters of Pro Bowl players were selected in the first three rounds.

‘‘’So it’s very important that you get those players right,’ Colbert said, ‘and we really emphasize making sure we don’t make mistakes on the 1’s, 2’s and 3’s. If you get lucky on the later rounds, great. But the 1’s, 2’s and 3’s, if you miss on them, they can set you back for some years.’’’


Elsewhere

  • Pittsburgh defensive end Brett Keisel has been growing his beard for seven months.  He thinks it gives the Steelers’ “Super Bowl powers”.  From Sam Farmer at the Los Angeles Times.
  • NFL commissioner Roger Goodell addresses the negotiations with the Player’s Union in this video as he answers a queston from Chad Ochocinco:

One Final Thought

I am not going to pick the Super Bowl game, especially against the spread, because I think its too close to call.  But in what I consider to be a good sign for the Steelers, most of the money in Vegas is coming in on the Packers.

Most of the bets aren’t in yet.  But MGM Resorts International, which operates 10 sports books on the Las Vegas Strip, said about 70 percent of the money bet so far in its casinos is for a Packers victory.  Bookies aren’t in the business of losing money.

Player Says Seventy Percent Are in the Game Only for the Money and Other Points of View

Bears

  • Eric Washington has left the Bears to become the defensive line coach for the Carolina Panthers.  He held the same position with the Bears but I’m sure everyone knows that, title aside, Rod Marinelli really hods that position here.  Via Neil Hayes at the Chicago Sun-Times.
  • Hayes also reports that the Eagles have requested permission to interview Jon Hoke, the Bears defensive backs coach, for their defensive coordinator position.  this is all well and good but let’s see these teams show a little love for that wonderful Packer defense by raiding their staff.
  • Dan Pompei answers you questions:

“Please tell me that you would not prefer any of [the backup quarterbacks on the free agent market], simply because of their experience over [Caleb] Hanie as the Bears backup QB. Tim Flynn, Denver”

“Look, the market for backup quarterbacks is not a pretty one. There aren’t enough good players go around to be starters, let alone backups. I wasn’t suggesting any of those players. I was just stating they may be available, and they may be fits for the type of players Martz is looking for. My suggestion would be to make Hanie the No. 2. He is as good an option as the Bears could find.”

Pompei is probably right.  But you never know.  Offensive coordinator Mike Martz obviously likes the veteran back ups…

“It’s not a story that is going to disappear for Cutler — it can’t after so many peers throughout the league kicked him while he was down. That was the bigger issue. It wasn’t that the Chicago Bears quarterback’s toughness, which is well-established, was questioned. It’s the fact that given an opening, so many chose to pounce on him, crossing unwritten lines in doing so.”

  • But not all of the players are jumping on Cutler.  Broncos right offensive tackle Ryan Harris, who played with him in 2008, had some nice things to say.  Via Vaughn McClure at the Chicago Tribune:

“I know him from my experience with him, and my experience was that he was always tough and always focused on the game.”

Harris is a free agent this offseason and the Bears are widely believed to be shopping for offensive linemen.  Coincidence?  I think not.

“Sometimes it’s considered hidden yardage, and Cutler sure supplied plenty of it with his legs. He rushed for 232 yards, 35 behind Chester Taylor for the second-most on the team.”

  • Biggs rates the draft/free agency priority as “low”.  But that depends upon your definition of “low”, I think.   Assuming they’ll end up settling for Hanie as the number 2 (a big assumption) I’d think the Bears might look to draft a quarterback to develop as the number three.  Angelo has said in the past that ideally he’d like to take one every year.
  • Matt Forte speaking to profootballtalk.com about whether he’s heard anything from the organization about an extension.  “I’ve expressed my interest.”  Via Sean Jensen at the Chicago Sun-Times.

Elsewhere

“However, not everything about broadcasts is moving forward. When the NFL moved the umpire this season, bumping him from the middle of the defense to a spot behind the quarterback, it was a huge setback for TV.

“Why? Because the umpire wore a microphone in games, allowing him to pick up the sound of the quarterback and defensive players making their calls at the line of scrimmage, and get the ambient noise of bodies colliding.

“Broadcasts, [NBC’s “Football Night in America” producer,Fred] Gaudelli said, “took a 20-year step backward when they moved the umpire… From a pure television technological standpoint, right now we’re so handcuffed that we’re putting out sounds that are not remotely close to being state of the art in 2011. We don’t have any sounds.”

One Final Thought

Player X, an anonymous player turned blogger, writes for ESPN about “pay check players” in the NFL:

“It’s Super Bowl time, which means right now there are 30 NFL teams whose seasons are over. In other words, almost 1,600 players are sitting at home watching. (Okay, or maybe on vacation somewhere.) And guess what? Most of them couldn’t be happier.

“That’s because the majority of the guys — I’d say probably close to 70 percent — are in the game only for the money. They don’t care about winning. The editors showed me the story on Super Bowl rings, and, man, I couldn’t disagree more: Most players don’t care about championship bling. Sure, in interviews, 100 percent of them will say it’s all about winning championships. But they know that’s what the public wants to hear. I’m telling you, most of them are lying. They couldn’t care less about getting a ring.”

We can only hope this is just a cynical jerk popping off.  I’d hate to think that these guys are throwing their bodies around and away every week for a pay check.

Key Obama Aid Betrays Country and Other Points of View

Bears

  • Neil Hayes at the Chicago Sun-Times answers your questions.  This dead on response came to a fan who wanted offensive coordinator Mike Martz to be fired.   Here’s part of it:

“The other key is continuity. I can’t stress this enough. Talk to quarterbacks who have had multiple offensive coordinators and they will tell you how much of a disadvantage it is. At this point of his career, Cutler needs to continue to learn and mature in one offense rather than switching to another.”

“Hell no I’m not rooting for the Packers in the Super Bowl. I have a ton of respect for that organization and the head coach, but I don’t want them to win the Super Bowl. They’re in our division, I want them to lose.”

Couldn’t agree more.

Summary: The Bears nailed one of the top sleepers in the whole draft, when seventh-round pick J’Marcus Webb was thrown into action and performed pretty well. Suddenly, a draft that didn’t see any picks until No. 75 overall (Major Wright) found some decent value. Corey Wootton also looks like a keeper as a defensive end out of Northwestern. The Bears saw value in him as a local guy who wasn’t at 100 percent during his final season in Evanston, and it should pan out for them. There wasn’t major impact, but given where they were forced to pick, Chicago did well.

Draft grade: B | Current Grade: B

  • Don Banks at SI.com has released the first of many mock drafts he will put together in the coming weeks.  He has the Bears taking Derek Sherrod, an offensive tackle out of Mississippi State:

“The Bears have decent options when their turn comes around. They can get help for the offensive line that caused them so many headaches, particularly early in the season, or address their needs at either defensive tackle, receiver or cornerback. Sherrod is the highest-rated remaining tackle, but Texas cornerback Aaron Williams and LSU defensive tackle Drake Nevis would also make sense.”

  • NFL Live’s Trey Wingo, Tom Jackson, and Trent Dilfer at ESPN give the Bears their season report card:

  • This fan has obviously recovered from the loss:

  • Barak Obama‘s special assistant and personal aide Reggie Love has betrayed his country:


Elsewhere

  • James Walsh at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports the facts behind former Bear and current Vikings wide receiver Bernard Berrian‘s law suit against a California couple who found his Blackberry.  The couple say they were “negotiating a reward”.  Berrian’s lawyers and apparently the FBI have called it “extortion”.  I would simply call it “unethical” regardless of what the law says.
  • Guard Logan Mankins told Karen Guregian of the Boston Herald that its highly unlikely that he will be back with the Patriots unless they use the franchise tag on him.  He will be the best guard available to the Bears in free agency.
  • Ray Lewis comments upon the honor of playing in the Pro Bowl as players around the league, including the Bears’ Brian Urlacher, back out due to “injury”:

“When you look at a guy like Peyton [Manning], when you look at a guy like Tony Gonzales, they appreciate it.  When you get over, there’s a certain brotherhood. The guys you went to war against, now you come here and it’s all about family and sharing and understanding.”

  • The NFL players union says the average number of injuries has risen during the 2010 season.
  • ESPN‘s Outside the Lines reveals the results of a scientific study, that for the first time reveals the level of prescription painkiller use and misuse by retired NFL players.

  • Scouts Inc. ranks every single player on both Super Bowl rosters for ESPN.
  • It seems that green Bay nose tackle B.J. Raji has taught the world a new dance.  This new step was inspired by his now famous belly dance in the end zone:

One Final Thought

Rachel Cohen writes about the NFL’s soaring television ratings for the Associated Press.  Fox Sports chairman David Hill had this to say about a work stoppage:

“With the sport reaching heights that Pete Rozelle would never dreamed of, we want to keep it that way.  We know what happens to sports after a strike or a lockout; people turn away and it takes a while for them to come back.  It would be a great tragedy if both sides weren’t able to reach an agreement.”

In the case of baseball, some of us never went back.  And the game has never been the same.

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PTI Word on Potential Obama Super Bowl and Other Points of View

Bears

  • Having just watch ESPN’s NFL Matchup show, I’m glad Michael David Smith at profootballtalk.com took the time to note down some of the interesting and unique analysis of the Bears-Packers game by Ron Jaworski and Merril Hoge.  You can find it here.
  • The village mayor basks in the big city spot light as he wagers with Mayor Daley  on today’s game.  Via the Chicago Sun-Times.
  • Earl Bennett‘s wife just had a baby boy.  I guess he was involved somewhere in the process as well.  Via Neil Hayes at the Sun-Times.
  • Five year old Jack Lawyer won the Bears game face contest by ripping the head off of a Packer Christmas ornament.  Via the Sun-Times.

“It’s a risk to send pressure at [Green Bay quarterback Aaron] Rodgers. He has shown the ability to get the ball out of his hands quickly and accurately. With the Packers using a six-man protection (the running back stays in the protection scheme), there is no guarantee the Bears will get a hit on Rodgers. Therefore, the coverage and tackling in this scheme are crucial to the Bears’ success”

“‘I think if he gets under pressure, he’ll just start slinging that sucker around like free loaves of bread in the hood, man,’ Strahan said during an appearance on the ‘T.Ocho Show.’ ‘I don’t think he’s going to sit back there hold it and be cool with it.'”

  • Pompei also got this comment from Saints safety Darren Sharper regarding the leadership ability of both quarterbacks in this game:

“You talk about body language — Aaron’s might be 10 times better than Jay’s.  Jay’s body language sometimes just kills you.”

“It so happened the college kids were playing the defending NFL champion Packers.

“‘It’s an all-star game and they came out to pounce our ass,’ Buffone said. ‘I remember what Jimmy Taylor’s first words were: ‘You guys didn’t come up here to play football, you came up here to count your money.’ I told him as he was screaming at me, ‘Look you (jerk), I was drafted by the Bears. There is no money.'”

“Under [Bears offensive coordinator] Mike Martz, the Bears have not attempted to get Olsen the ball downfield as much. In fact, they have not attempted to get him the ball as much, period.”

Its worth noting that Olsen was not Cutler’s primary receiver even on that play.

  • PTI debates Barak Obama going to the Super Bowl.  Couldn’t agree more with Tony Kornheiser on this.

Elsewhere

  • Dan Le Batard at the Miami Herald writing about the Dolphins.  But he could have easily been saying the same thing about the pre-Jay Cutler Bears.

“A slew of alleged Dolphins leaders have been run through this rinse-repeat car wash since – a cornucopia of alleged offensive minds, defensive minds, culture changers, hot candidates and legends. And all have left here varying degrees of exposed or diminished. It isn’t a coincidence that the organization’s descent began when Dan Marino’s did. You don’t need greatness and stability atop your organization as much as you need it atop your huddle.”

“Ideally, find a young guy, build around him, know you’re going to have him for the next nine, 10 years as your starting quarterback. Those guys are sometimes hard to find.”

A former Bear ought to know.

“I called him up, interviewed him on the phone. I said, ‘Hey, man, you want to come out here and help me out, help us win a championship?’ That was his interview.”

“Asked about the 18-game season by Judy Battista of the New York Times, Steelers chairman and American ambassador to Ireland Dan Rooney said, ‘I’d rather not have the money.’ I say the NFL needs this guy more than Ireland needs him.”

“Mike McCarthy will need to win about five Super Bowls before most Packers fans will elevate him to Vince Lombardi‘s exalted status, but I say he’s already a better coach.”

“With two picks in every round for the first four rounds, the Patriots will not have enough roster spots available to ensure those players will make the team. As a result, I can see them being aggressive in the draft to ensure they come away with the specific players they need. They have depth, they have youth, but they need an impact defensive player who can be impactful right away — not down the road.”

  • The New York Jets did well keeping their mouths shut this week.  But they finally exploded Thursday.  Here’s Jets safety James Ihedigbo‘s message to Jets fans.  Via Steve Serby at the New York Post:

“Stock the refrigerator full of champagne and get ready to celebrate.”

One Final Thought

Rod Marinelli on his visit to Charlotte, NC with coach Lovie Smith to recruit defensive end Julius Peppers to play for the Bears.  Via Vaughn McClure at the Tribune:

“One thing I wanted to make sure he knew was how important it was for me to be there,” Marinelli said of the meeting. “He was important to us.

“You have to know the guy. He doesn’t want to hear someone in his ear yakking. I understand players. I have a good beat on a person. And one thing I really wanted to express to him was that I really wanted to coach him.”

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Aaron Rogers Refuses Autograph to Dying Child and Other Points of View

Bears

  • Steve Rosenbloom at the Chicago Tribune:

“’As you go back to the preseason,’ Lovie Smith said, “no one really saw us being in this position.’ Raising my hand.”

Mine too.

“When. The. Bears. Have. The. Ball. Shut. The. Hell. Up. Already.”

This leaves hometown American Idol winner Lee DeWyze to sing at halftime instead of the anthem (via Jeff Dickerson at ESPNChicago.com).

“So we didn’t win a couple of years there. That’s not Lovie’s fault.  It wasn’t because we weren’t coached well or weren’t prepared. And this is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately league, so, yes, I think Lovie should get an extension now.”

So whose fault is it?

Step carefully, Brian.  Perhaps you should stick to talking about the Packers.

“At the same time, we know the Bears can do better. Would the Bears be playing for a playoff berth today if they had had the injuries the Packers’ have dealt with this season?”

“A small, but not insignificant part of the improvement of the Bears running game is Greg Olsen’s improved blocking. The Bears always insisted Olsen was a true tight end when it was pretty clear that his ineffective blocking made him a wide receiver playing tight end. Tight ends coach Mike DeBord gets credit for improving Olsen’s blocking to passable for an NFL tight end.”

Olsen’s blocking has improved and it was down right good against Seattle.  But I don’t think one good game makes it “passable”.  I don’t think he’s ever going to be a good blocking tight end.

  • Dan Pompei at the Chicago Tribune puts his finger on the problem that the Bears have with defensive tackle Tommie Harris, who they may have to pay as much as $5 million next season if they don’t cut him.  Harris did well against the Seahawks last week:

“And it would be foolish to make a multi-million dollar decision based on one game. But if he plays against the Packers the way he did against the Seahawks, hold everything.

“What needs to be defined is what Harris is, and why he is what he is. Is Harris the player you don’t notice because he is getting blocked or is he the player you can’t see because his feet are quicker than the eye?”

“’There’s no question Mike could be a coordinator, if he wanted to,’ Billick said. ‘But he should be thought of as a head coaching candidate going forward.’”

I would agree.  Tice strikes me as a leader but I’m not sure how he’d do calling plays.

“ESPN.com columnist Rick Reilly took [Jay] Cutler to task last week for not working hard enough to be, in his view, likable.

“‘Cutler could own Chicago if he wanted … (and) have his name on half the billboards,’ Reilly wrote, connecting dots to produce a portrait of a sullen brat who dates a former MTV reality star rather than the strong, silent type others might see in Cutler, especially if he manages to actually win a Super Bowl.

“‘Mr. Reilly wasn’t very happy with me,’ [Cutler] said, grinning slightly after last weekend’s divisional playoff victory. ‘There are a lot of distractions, especially the situation we’re in now. We’ve just got to focus in and do our jobs.’

“There’s plenty of time to pose for billboards and tape commercials later.”

Yes, but Cutler won’t be doing any of that.  Because its not important to him and simply he doesn’t want to do it.  And, as is evident particularly when he deals with the media, Cutler doesn’t do things he doesn’t want to do.

“’The first couple times we went up there, it was easy to be impressed, especially if you were a young coach. There was all this history and tradition, Vince Lombardi and all that,’ Ryan said. ‘But after they rubbed it in a few times, it gets under your skin.

“’So, yeah,’ he added, ‘there were some games when we were more interested in making points than scoring them.’”

“The question for the NFC championship game this week is whether Smith’s game plan Sunday will be more like the teams’ first meeting in Week 3, when he sat back in Cover-2 zones and gave up big yardage but kept the Packers from putting up many points in a 20-17 win at Soldier Field. Or will he play it more like the regular-season finale three weeks ago, when in the Packers’ 10-3 win Smith played mostly with a single safety deep and, very un-Cover-2-like, used extensive man-to-man coverage that included pressing receivers at the line of scrimmage?”

I’d say both.

  • Rob Demovsky at the Green Bay Press Gazette got this interesting comment about the last regular season game when the Bears played the Packers:

“At least one player on the Packers’ side questioned whether the Bears really did go all out in the season finale. To injured running back Ryan Grant, from his perspective on the sideline, something seemed amiss that afternoon.

“’Honestly, it didn’t look like necessarily that they might have been giving it their all,’ Grant said. ‘But who knows? This is a different atmosphere. They’re going to want this game.’”

I don’t know about the coaching staff but if the Bears players were giving all out effort during that game they sure had me fooled.

  • Most of us took note when it was announced that Terry McCauly, the referee when the Packers got called for 18 penalties in Week 3, would be officating this game.  But Demovsky makes a key point:

“But it won’t be the exact same officials. During the regular season, the referee works with the same crew. But at this point in the playoffs, the NFL compiles what it believes to be the best officials at each position.”

  • Tim Hasselbeck at ESPN thinks the Bears are overrated:

  • ESPN’s Ted Bruschi thinks the Bears defense will stop Aaron Rogers:

  • ESPN’s experts this Heinz Field is worse than Soldier Field.  Warning, Skip Bayless is in this video.  Be prepared to scoff:

  • They also debate which defense is better.  I note that there are no debates about which is the better offense.
  • Mel Kiper has completed his first mock draft for ESPN.  Here’s the relevant video for Bears fans. The sharp fan will note that Kiper has the Bears picking THIRTY-FIRST:

  • Demovsky avoids autograph seekers.  At least he didn’t blow by a cancer patient:

  • Green Bay center Josh Sitton talks about the problems that come with preparing to play an opponent for the third time this season:

  • Here’s a little lesson in etiquette for those Packer fans who plan to attend the game at Soldier Field:

Elsewhere

  • Hasselbeck thinks that the Jets became more conservative on defense as the season wore on and that has made them more unpredictable:

  • Vince Young makes a vain attempt to convince the sporting world that he’s a grown up:

  • Here are the Kiper picks that everyone who isn’t a freak like me cares about:

“According to a report released this week by the Association for Applied Sport Psychology, more than 86 percent of NFL wideouts became receivers as a way to compensate for the lack of things thrown at them during their childhood.”

“Pittsburgh police issued an arrest warrant today for Jets wide receiver Santonio Holmes, who allegedly racked up nearly 200 felony charges that were accidentally misfiled during his career with the Pittsburgh Steelers.”

They’re also supplying Ben Roethlisberger with police women to have sex with.  True story.

“Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers created a controversy today while shopping at a grocery store near his home. Witnesses say Rodgers purchased his groceries and left the store without once acknowledging a child in the store who will one day die.”

Eventually….

One Final Thought

This fan apparently wants everyone to know what he’s doing in the dark upper deck seats near the rafters.  Like the people who know him wouldn’t have guessed it already.  From the The Sports Pickle:

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“Vince Lombardi” Motivates the Teams for Wild Card Weekend and Other News

Bears

“I don’t even know why that is even important to anybody,” Angelo said. “I’ve heard it. … It’s no big deal. … I am very fortunate to be here, and as long as I am blessed with health, I continue to do what I love to do, and that’s being a part of football.”

I haven’t seen a transcript of the press conference so I don’t know what else was said.  But that’s not a denial.

“Maybe [Angelo] was referring to his litany of personnel mistakes when he admired the team for overcoming ‘all it has been through.’

“What?

Angelo would be correct if what he meant was that not fielding a professional offensive line can be an obstacle. It also is problematic that he plopped an eternally mortal cast of receivers in Jay Cutler‘s lap.

“Did you ever dream you’d be thinking “Man, we gotta get Earl Bennett back” as you were after the Bears’ 10-3 loss in Green Bay on Sunday?”

To be fair, the column should be balanced against Dan Pompei‘s more positive article yesterday.

“A No. 2 seed is usually a solid team, a team people feel is a favorite to win everything,” said John Avello, director of race and sports book operations at the Wynn. “But that’s not the case with the Bears.

“Eleven-to-1 to win the Super Bowl for a second seed is the biggest number I can remember putting up. But once you get to this point, we’ve seen the Giants run the table, and the Steelers too.”

For what its worth, the Bears seem to have beaten the odds all season.

Elsewhere

“In any event, the Panthers had better choose wisely [in the draft]: They have the first pick for a reason, and that reason is that they were the worst team in the league this season. Oh, and they don’t have a second-round pick because they traded what turned out to be the 33rd pick in this year’s draft to the Patriots to acquire the 89th pick in last year’s draft. They used that pick to draft Armanti Edwards, a wide receiver who played in three games and didn’t catch a single pass as a rookie.”

  • Florio says that Miami GM Jeff Ireland was breaking the unwritten rule that says that you don’t interview people for head coaching jobs that are currently occupied, in this case by Tony Sparano. In fairness, Jay Galzer at FOX sports said last night on the Tony Bruno Show that Ireland has been pushing owner Stephen Ross to retain Sparano. Its more than likely that Ross, who is less likely to understand or care about such niceties, is the one who wanted to interview Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh without firing Sparano first.
  • Former Bear Adam Archuletta is reportedly engaged to this:

  • “Vince Lombardi” opens Wild Card weekend with words of encouragement for the teams involved in Saturday’s playoff games. (I wish I could have embedded this video into the page. It’s absolutely beautiful.)
  • The Vikings are reportedly interviewing Josh McDaniels for offensive coordinator and Mike Singletary for linebackers coach (via Seifert). McDaniels is likely a candidate in Kansas City as well, where he’d be a better fit. But it might depend upon whether he wants to work with head coach Todd Haley.
  • Mark Schlereth at ESPN thinks the Packers will beat the Eagles this weekend by blitzing Michael Vick:

One Final Thought

Isreal Idonije on Brian Urlacher (via McClure):

“He hasn’t changed. He’s the same guy. He worked tirelessly to get back to the player he was after last year’s (wrist) injury. Adversity never got him to the point where it changed his attitude. Through everything, he just has been an incredible leader.”