I Suppose it Was Inevitable

There was never a chance we were going to make it through an entire season without this happening. There's just too much butthurt over grumpy interviews and short responses and unreasonable expectations for a Sun-Times reporter not to write at least one article comparing Johnny Manziel and Jay Cutler.

But I thought we'd make it farther than this. I thought we'd make it past literally Johnny's first appearance.

And of course it had to be Telander. He just can't figure out how to be nice to Jay. He tries so hard, but he only manages to sound condescending and bitter. Which, in a way, describes Rick Telander perfectly. So I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

And so the 2014 Fisking Season begins, as I lovingly open the box that contains my italics.
 

Seriously, Steve, another one?

I come at these columns pretty hard. I use a lot of words, and most of them are derogatory. But only Steve Rosenbloom has ever actually made me physically angry in a column before. And he's managed to do it twice in one week.


Now there are a lot of dumb things that get said about this football team by a lot of different people. Steve, though, is just an asshole. He's petty and mean, and when he can't find facts that justify that attitude he just plain invents fantasy scenarios to get angry about. Because he is a bad writer, he can't come up with 1,000 uninterrupted words that anyone would willingly read unless he's made them irrationally angry, whether it's at the team or at Steve himself.

I won't feign resignation this time, as soon as I read the headline I wanted to rip this pathetic pail of putrid and possibly plagued poop to pieces.

That alliteration is the last happy thing that will happen in this post. All the other pictures are of heads exploding.

This is just sad, even for the offseason.

Ahh the offseason. What's a football columnist to do without any football happenings? Make a total ass of himself. That's the answer.


This column by the Tribune's Steve Rosenbloom started from a reasonable enough standpoint for the kind of obvious waffle that fills up the time between the Super Bowl and free agency. Shea McClellin was a bust at DE, and now the best he can hope for is to compete to maybe earn snaps at linebacker.

But you can't write 1,000 incensed words about that at this point, so Steve had to try to take it a step further. Clearly, the lack of success on Shea's part is indicative of some horrible failure on Phil Emery's. Let me tell you, the result is not pretty. Usually I just kind of surf the Chicago newspapers until something catches my eye, but we actually got requests that I put this loathsome piece of shit out of its misery. And so, with a heavy heart, I dug out my italics.

We Missed You, David

There was a certain kind of resignation in the Chicago sports media in the second half of this year. They couldn't in good conscience say anything bad about the offense, and they even fell on the right side of the "quarterback controversy" ESPN kept trying to stir up. They didn't really know what to do when we were presented with pretty solid evidence that everything we'd asked for from this offense in the last five years was suddenly coming true, but we couldn't enjoy it because our defense just... stopped.

I should commend them, honestly. A lot of stupid things were said about this football team, and my usual targets weren't the problem. Sure, they talked about Josh McCown a lot... but if we're being honest, it was at least a subject worth discussing. There was clearly a right and wrong answer, but I won't pretend there was absolutely no cause to say the guy's name.

But they can't be held down forever. When there's football on and league stuff to talk about, they'll go that way. But now it's the offseason, and they still have columns to write. Remember, this is a crew that will invent controversies where none exist to get themselves to training camp.

With that in mind, David Haugh got an early start by writing a lovely column about how the reason the Broncos made it to the Super Bowl was the Jay Cutler trade in 2009. Not getting Peyton Manning in free agency, not acquiring two of the "Four Horsemen" and a good running back from sources that weren't the Chicago Bears, but getting two pretty good draft picks for Jay Cutler.

This article is such naked anti-Cutler drivel that Hub Arkush and Dan Berenstein called Haugh out for it, and I have it on good authority that those guys have wet dreams about Jay Cutler throwing a game-losing pick six in the Super Bowl.

Behold, David  Haugh:

Is Jay Cutler's Job in Danger? No. No It Is Not.

I know we get down on Bears fans for being dumb a whole lot, but I really don't think I've heard anything dumber in my time overreacting to fan and media opinions than the idea that Josh McCown should be the Bears' long-term starter.  Nevermind that he's older than Cutler and half as talented, the mere fact that he has only even played more than 10 games in a season once at the age of 34 should be a dead giveaway.

Mark Potash of the Sun-Times disagrees with that idea, as well. But not as much as he should, apparently, because he let this nonsense see the light of day. "Josh McCown's Success Makes Jay Cutler Expendable" may be the single biggest concentration of stupidity in a single sentence ever written by a Sun-Times reporter, and it wasn't even somebody named Rick!

I had intended to do this column in customary point-counterpoint style, but there’s just not enough substance there to bother with. It’s just a few tepid arguments that kind-of-support the headline, it’d be like fighting a handicapped man. And not like that guy from Eagle vs. Shark that kicked the shit out of Jemaine Clement. 

Pictured: Not Mark Potash

Morrissey Must Get a Bonus if he Uses the Phrase "Team Cancer" This Season

A little over a month ago, after preseason game three, Brandon Marshall made some pretty straightforward remarks about not being back in top shape and learning a new offense. If you'll recall, the media flocked to it like kids flock to the house that gives out full-size candy bars on Halloween. I'm pretty sure Bernstein actually uploaded a video of himself having a hands-free orgasm at the thought of Brandon Marshall hitting a woman in a nightclub. Because the guy was feeling a little slow after someone stabbed his leg with tiny knives for a few hours.

This week, a lot of reporters asked Brandon Marshall a bunch of variations of one question: How frustrated are you with your production? Because he had two bad games in a row, one of which was pretty much Jay's fault for playing like dogshit until the Lions went to the prevent. Clearly, he must be ready to explode in a fit of rage and murder everyone in the locker room.

Really, it all comes back to the same thing as the first pointless media feeding frenzy: they want him to slip. They want him to give them something to talk about. They've more or less lost Jay now, he's played their game and kept his head down. Even Morrissey can only talk about him shoving a lineman for so long. But this, Rick can talk about. And talk he does. His article is in italics, my responses are regular text.

Bits and Bites: Week 1

Welcome to this week's edition of Bits and Bites,  where I'm being crushed to death by the number of people who somehow don't think the Bears' victory on Sunday counts. But we'll get to that on the podcast, I'm sure, so I'm not going to dwell on it. Instead, I bring you the glorious gift of stupid.

First, we have the time-honored tradition of Week One Power Rankings.  Mike Florio over at Pro Football Talk had a really baffling set this week, but his Bears entry stands out as particularly stupid. He has them ranked 12^th, which actually isn’t that bad. I would’ve put them ahead of the Lions and Saints, but certainly 12 is nothing to sneeze at considering it’s been one game.

It’s his description that got me. His one-sentence take on the Bears is this: “We won’t really know about this team until it encounters adversity and Jay Cutler shoves someone.”

I’m just going to tackle the first part of this statement calmly and logically and try to calm down before I get to the end.

“We don’t know” is absolutely a fair statement to make. They looked solid, they showed improvement in the most important areas against an opponent seemingly built to test their offseason improvements, but in the end it’s a single game and you can’t really know anything about a team’s seasonal prospects based on one outing.

But in what way is an 11-point second-half deficit against a stingy defense not “adversity?” Especially considering the offense had shown little inclination to pick up the pace, and Dalton had just executed an effortless TD drive. If that doesn’t count, what exactly does count as an adverse circumstance?

They got in the hole, made some adjustments, stayed calm under fire and fixed the situation. I won’t say they’ll never perform less admirably under pressure, but certainly Sunday built my confidence that they can deal with adversity.

But that’s not what Mike means. Because the last part of that sentence is there. “Until it encounters adversity and Jay Cutler shoves someone.” See, to Florio, “adversity” simply means “any scenario that gets me to see what I want to see.” They could play 14 flawless games, and in the 15^th Jay could shout at a lineman and the entire football media world will say “SEE WE TOLD YOU ABOUT DIS JAY CUTLER FELLA HE’S NOT A GOOD LEADER.”

“We won’t really know about this team until we see something that allows us to confirm what we are already going to say about this team” would’ve been an accurate statement. Note the not-entirely-subtle assertion that Jay Cutler will shove someone, it’s just a matter of time and “adversity.”

He did it one time, to a player that we were all angry at. That is pretty much the only thing Jay Cutler has ever done to earn his “hothead” reputation.

On Monday night, Philip Rivers pushed a referee while arguing about a clear-cut call and earned a familiar chuckle from Jon Gruden and his usual moniker of “a real fiery competitor.” Jay Cutler shouted at a man who allowed him to be repeatedly teabagged by Thor, and people are still pointing to it a year later.

Mike Florio says “we won’t really know about this team,” but what he means is “I already know, and no matter what happens on the field I’m sticking to my only real prediction: Jay Cutler is a bad quarterback.”

Up next is former offensive lineman Jamie Dukes, who gave a very confusing interview in which he said the offense “looked like the same old Bears” in a bunch of different ways and then not-very-subtly implied that Lovie Smith got fired and couldn’t find another job because he’s black.

The whole thing was dumb, but here’s the line that really stood out: “I didn’t see anything ‘wow!’ offensively, where a unicorn popped out of someone’s head and they did something miraculously. It was the same Bears.”

First, this team totally has a unicorn.

 

And furthermore, what?

I hesitantly assume that Jamie didn’t actually believe that Unicorns and exploding heads would feature prominently in Trestman’s offense. But that statement, coupled with the performance that he declares to be “the same old Bears” begs the question: What in God’s name was he expecting?

In a week when everyone is too busy stroking themselves while thinking about Chip Kelly to notice that the blur is just a spread where you call the plays really fast, it’s understandable that Trestman’s system isn’t exactly making waves. That does not mean that anything less than a total overhaul of the system is just doing the same old thing.

I mean yes, the quarterback still threw a ball to men who caught it with their hands and ran toward the end of the field. Yes, some men still attempted to hit him, and still more men pushed them away from him to help him throw. It seems to me like there are certain basic characteristics that can really only change so much before you’re playing a different sport.

But the offense that won Sunday’s game looked incredibly different from the offense under Lovie. They ran 30 plays out of the shotgun, targeted five different receivers, frequently checked down, used an I-formation with a lead blocker multiple times, and ran at least one package play.

I’ll admit, there was a certain deflating familiarity about the way they started the game on offense by scoring and then kind of fizzling for the rest of the first half. But here’s the thing: they fixed it. They made adjustments, stuck to the game plan, kept their heads cool and came back.

Lovie’s teams rarely, if ever, stayed cool and came back from a second-half deficit. Pretty much all the comeback wins that team got were either hard-won by the defense or came down to some Jay Cutler Fourth Quarter Magic, not a series of methodical 80-yard drives to get back on top.

See, offensive innovation, for this team, isn’t about reinventing the wheel. It’s not about using players in creative ways or running schemes that confuse the defense. It’s about taking the good things that we have and using them in safe, sensible ways to find the weaknesses in a defense and pick them apart. If that sounds like something Lovie’s Bears would’ve done to you, you might be the sort of person who implies that a nine-year head coach who missed the playoffs five times in six years was suddenly canned because his boss woke up racist one morning.

And of course we save the best for last. From seasoned dumbass and axe-grinder Hub Arkush comes this totally insensible piece of what seems to be English: “One area that should get better and will have to is that we did not see the multiple weapons we expect to on a regular basis in the new Marc Trestman offense. Of Jay Cutler's 32 passes against the Bengals aimed at a specific target, 30 went to Brandon Marshall, Martellus Bennett, Matt Forte and Alshon Jeffery. The only other wide receiver Cutler tried to find was Earl Bennett on his one catch of the day.”

I normally wouldn’t do a full paragraph here, but it just keeps getting better and better as he keeps talking.

I thought it looked plenty diverse, even without going to the numbers. He threw the ball to everyone on this team I currently trust to catch it, except for Marquess Wilson. Who else on this roster could he have gone to? Eric Weems? Tony Fiametta? Does he have to throw one pass to every eligible ball-carrier to satisfy Hub’s need for offensive diversity? Maybe so.

And then Hub does bring up the numbers. Jay threw the ball 32 times to six receivers. In terms of targets, you had Marshall with 10, Jeffrey with eight, Forte and the Black Unicorn with six apiece, and Earl and Bush with one apiece. In fairness, Bush’s was that weird throw that got picked off, but it seems like he was the intended target and either he ran the wrong way or Jay though he was going the other way when he wasn’t.

People who can’t think have said the fact that Marshall got more targets than anyone else is worrying in itself. If him getting two more targets for a total of 31% of Cutler’s looks makes you worried, you do not understand what a number one wide receiver is.

The number of targets Marshall got is not the important thing here; it’s the situations in which he didn’t get targets that we should look at. Jay never forced one into double coverage for an easy pick because the pocket collapsed. He checked down to Jeffery and Forte, he used Marty B and Alshon as primary receivers on a number of plays, and he allowed Brandon to either draw doubles or punish the Bengals. The Bengals finally stopped doubling him and it cost them the clinching TD.

I have literally no idea how Hub could think targeting six, or even five receivers with such an even distribution of targets is anything other than “using multiple weapons on a regular basis.” It’s almost like he just has an axe to grind with the Bears over some ancient perceived slight and he’s going to see the worst in them whether the numbers agree with him or—

Oh. I get it now.

A New Challenger Approaches! (It's Tom Musick)

For a long time now, it's been pretty obvious how my usual media targets break out. Hub is sensationalist and needlessly critical. Bernstein cares more about snark than content, and it backs him into corners. Morrissey is just an asshole.

And then there's Telander. Everyone else's ridiculous assertions and criticisms are generally gross overreactions, but they at least have their origin in something real. Telander just kind of picks the least sensible direction and charges at it drunkenly.

For that reason, Telander has long been "the Stupid One" for me. After so many years of great coverage, after so many years of watching this team he loves struggle and suffer and fail, he just turned his brain off when it came to anything after 1985.

But now, a new darkness is spreading. I've already done one article from Tom Musick about something that was just ass-flappingly stupid. And I thought "Y'know it's training camp. It's dumb, but the guy has to write about something. He did it poorly, but he had to do it."

Not true. This is clearly going to be an ongoing thing. Because this baffling collection of phrases, entitled "Trestman's 'Great Value' Promise Checks Out," exists.

In accordance with the Old Ways, Tom's statements will be in italics.

Bits and Bites, Preseason Game 2

I apologize for the tardiness of this article, near as we are to the third game of the preseason. But I’ve been very busy this week and Kyle kept posting shit all the time. An orderly posting schedule is important to me, so I’ve left it this late.

Anyway, there were a lot of things to talk about concerning the Bears-Chargers game last week, and since the SKOdcast got moved we haven’t really talked about them much. I knew I’d find gold in the media reaction to the game, but when I got there I found something that I have never found before: there are too many stupid columns for me to do them all. Three stuck out in particular.

So I thought this was a good time to bring out an idea I had tossed around last year but never really moved on. There’s really one particular argument that irks me about any given story, and then I go back and make fun of the rest of it. But I figured I’d just take that one argument from those three columns and talk about it at greater length. Kyle must be rubbing off on me.

And so, without further ado, the first edition of Bits and Bites.

The Dumbest Thing I've Ever Read

We've all spoken at length about the tendency of reporters to fill the preseason with empty conjecture and pointless speculation. I've done more than my fair share of mockery of exactly those things. But let's be honest: that's just the way it has to be. They can't not report on team happenings, but nothing really worth talking about is guaranteed to happen. So sometimes they have to dig pretty deep to even find something they can write an article about. 

I'll mock them for doing it poorly, but I get it. You've gotta report on something, but there's nothing really to report on.

Then there's this. On Tuesday, as everyone in Illinois knows, we got our monthly test of the tornado siren system. I don't know if it's the same way in every state and I can't be bothered to look, but this is something that has happened in Illinois literally every first Tuesday of every month I've been alive. 

Enter Tom Musick, a man who somehow wound up working under Hub Arkush. In terms of sportswriter career progression, this is pretty much the version of giving a defeated sigh and agreeing to do an Uwe Boll movie. I used to wonder how Hub even got these guys to come work for him, in fact I believe there is audio evidence of me wondering that exact thing in episode 11 of the SKOdcast.

But after today, I know exactly how. This piece is called "Siren Fails to Slow Down Bears." And it is literally the dumbest thing, Bears-related or otherwise, that I have ever read. In it, Musick marvels at the fact that a routine test of the state's tornado warning sirens did not cause the Bears practice to break down into a screaming orgy of confused violence.

I just... I don't even know where to begin. I'm sorry, Italics, but you must bear the burden of his words.

The Chicago Sun-Times, the Gift That Keeps on Giving

You know when I said in last week's column that the hack writers would come out firing, I didn't realize that I was going to be handed a twofer by the Intrepid Ricks of the Sun-Times.

Not to be outdone by Telander's vague ramblings and misapplied talents, Morrissey stepped up to the plate to remind us all that you can never be sad if you just don't hope for anything. Don't let the title "MORRISEY: Bears look like an 8-8 team" fool you. This column is not about the Bears. This is about Rick Morrissey's inability to feel joy until at last an intrepid adventurer returns the Casket to its ancient home.

As is our custom, Rick will be in italics.

The Further Adventures of Ace Reporter Rick Telander: At This Point, It's Almost Impressive

As the sun rises on a world that is once again warmed by the presence of football, so too do we who talk about the Bears rise from our ancient slumbers. Rejuvenated by the healing rays of training camp, we seek out fresh news. Even throughout the offseason, I'll admit that I checked the big sites almost daily in the hope of fresh news. Seeing as you're reading this, I assume that you too care about Bears news.

And so we turn to the reporters. Those who can swing by training camp every day. Those with access to players and coaches. And they come out of their caves firing; making wild conjectures about the most simple training camp occurrences and laying down bold predictions for the entire season based on an errant pass or stiff exchange between players.

This year is no exception. In fact, furious over the death of his beloved Pro Football Weekly, our ancient nemesis Hub Arkush launched his very own website more or less dedicated to overreacting to Bears news. And I fully intended to bring you a fresh offering from him today.

But as is his wont, Rick Telander just will not go down without a fight. Where there is baseless conjecture to be made, they say he will never fail to appear. In our direst need for totally irrelevant and almost certainly inaccurate coverage, he comes forth into the light. And so, Hub must wait. For Telander has spoken.

The Ghost of Lovie Smith, Apparently

I apologize for our lack of content in recent weeks, but after the draft there just isn't much to talk about until actual football starts happening again. Fortunately for me, this doesn't stop the good folks of the Chicago sports media from trying.

Before I start this one, I want to say that I actually respect Dan Bernstein. His radio stuff is pretty good, despite his sometimes inflammatory opinions, and he always offers sources and numbers to back his shit up on air. Plus, his defense of Jason Collins and gay rights in general on the day Collins came out was truly inspiring. He seems like a standup guy and a solid radio host. Unfortunately, whenever he sits down at a keyboard, terrible things happen.

Today's drivel is titled "Briggs' Response Shows Bears' Identity Challenge." And let me tell you now, it is extremely difficult to follow. The essential thrust of the column, if it has one at all, is that Lance Briggs' refusal to answer questions about Brian Urlacher not being signed means half of the team doesn't respect Marc Trestman and will play poorly.

And so, with a heavy sigh, I turn on the italics.

Rick Morrissey's Second Apparently Weekly Mental Collapse

Let me first take this opportunity to gloat over the fact that I, and not Rick Morrissey, was totally right about the Bears' first-round pick. However, I can do better than that today because Rick apparently is determined to crank out an even stupider column this week. And he just may have succeeded! 

This week's cannon fodder is entitled "Heredity Made Long Easy Choice for Bears." If you couldn't gather from the title what it's about (in which case, thanks for reading, Telander!), Morrissey is boldly claiming that the only thing Emery saw in Kyle Long was his dad's last name. As ever, his disjointed thoughts are in italics. 

I don’t want to minimize the work that Bears general manager Phil Emery and his staff did in preparation for the draft, the hours they put in and their lack of anything resembling a personal life the last year or so. 

“But I’m going to.”

Rick Morrissey's First Annual Pre-Draft Mental Collapse

The draft is upon us! In just a few short hours, young men from around the country will gather in hilarious suits, and together go forth unto their destiny. Rick Morrissey is so excited, and also so, so stupid, about tonight’s events. This is actually a rare insight into Rick’s personality, because he spends the entire article spelling out exactly why and how he wants the Bears to fail for his personal and professional delight. It’s a schizophrenic mess, and I just had to get this out before the draft happened.

As ever, he is in italics.

I don’t normally start these things with the title, but in this case I’m going to because…

Draft Manti Te’o? Bears Should Take Him or Leave Him

Yes. Those are the two things it is possible to do with a player in the draft. Well done, Rick.

SKO vs. Telander 4: The Pastening

When the news came out that Brian Urlacher was leaving Chicago, I was sad for a number of reasons. First, a player who had been synonymous with the idea of “Bears Defense” for a decade was leaving us to (maybe) play for someone else.

And second, because nobody at the Sun-Times was flailing around like a lunatic about it. Even Morrissey wrote a sensible, well-measured column about how this was the right decision, no matter how painful it was.

But then, like a light out of the darkness, came Rick Telander. Riding his high, high horse and holding a jar of the finest French paste aloft, he seemed to say, “Fret not, Erik. For just as I prophesied in August that the Bears could, and should, cut Urlacher for maybe having a hurt knee, so too shall I now overreact in the complete fucking opposite direction because I have the short-term memory of an earthworm.”

And lo, Telander did open his mouth, and forth spilled italics.

It Was Only a Matter of Time, Rick.

I knew when I took this gig that it wouldn’t be long before I crossed swords with two-time Highlights magazine Contributor of the Month Rick Telander. He has a well-documented history of ass-flapping lunacy when it comes to these Chicago Bears, and Monday’s column “Bears Offense Needs to get on the ‘D’ Level” is no different.

Right off the bat, the title is steering into classic Telander waters. What he’s saying is that, in order for the Bears to win games (the 7 Deserved Losses negate their existing wins), the offense needs to perform as well as the defense. The defense that is currently performing at an unparalleled level both within franchise history and, potentially, league history. The defense that is currently on pace to absolutely shatter the pick-six record and has already broken several defensive scoring records this season. The defense that is ranked in the top 5 in the league in nearly every category but yards which, as we’ve discussed before, are not points and are therefore of little concern.

Anyway, to the meat of the column! He’s in italics, as always.

Anybody who thinks the Bears’ defense could win a game by itself doesn’t need to read the rest of this column.

Anybody who wants to see me eviscerate Rick Telander and wear his innards as a jaunty chapeau, however, should stick around.

Hey, David Haugh Gets Paid by the Word, Alright?

Today, I plan to carry on a proud SKO tradition by mocking a Chicago Tribune reporter’s outright idiocy in debate form. For my first foray into this territory, I’ve chosen my personal least favorite, noted scribe David Haugh.

In his column, “In the Wake of the News,” on Thursday, Haugh took on the futile and seemingly unnecessary task of defending Jerry Angelo’s tenure as GM for the Bears. The most outstanding question about this, in my opinion, is “why bother?” but that’s beside the point.

 As is custom, Haugh is in italics, I’m in regular font.

Why Do They Hate Jay Cutler?

Good morning everyone. Or afternoon depending on your time zone, I suppose, but as I just woke up I'm calling it morning. Those of you who frequent the Shoutbox know me as Erik, because that's my name and I'm the kind of guy who posts under his real name. So keep that in mind when you go to make death threats.

The good folks here at SKO have invited me to contribute to the site occasionally, so I'll be popping up now and again with cutting insight into just why the sports media is so stupid (and sometimes other things). I'm a writer by trade, so forgive me if I tend to rant. I'm doing it now, aren't I? Damn. Well, without further ado, enjoy or despise my first attempt at matching SKO's quality:

Why Do They Hate Jay Cutler?

After their most recent attempt to bait Jay Cutler into saying something outrageous, it’s become clear that, as tired as everybody else is of hearing about it, the sports media world is sticking to their guns on the “Jay Cutler is an asshole” thing.

For those too lazy to click the link, basically what it boils down to is this. Phil Simms recently said something to the effect of “I like Jay Cutler. He’s got a strong arm and he gets mean. Being mean is an important part of being a good NFL quarterback.”

Reporters at a press conference Wednesday asked Jay what he thought of Simms saying he was mean. To his credit, Jay responded by telling them to stop taking things out of context, but they’ve clearly crossed the line from stringing a narrative together to actively writing it.

In a column he wrote on October 9^th, poet laureate David Haugh wrote about Lovie Smith’s success in Chicago. One of the things he pointed out was Lovie getting rid of Martz and transitioning to Tice, a move pretty much everyone agreed with because Martz was never going to run an offense that worked with the talent he had on the field and Tice will. What Haugh said instead of that, though, was that Tice’s “flexibility and affability made him ideally suited to run an offense impetuous quarterback Jay Cutler leads.”

Why did he need to bring Jay into it at all? The problem with Martz wasn’t Cutler’s attitude, and Tice hasn’t had a whole lot to say about his “impetuous quarterback.” So why is it that even the home team feels the need to tear Jay down at every opportunity? Well, as a journalist and a rabid Cutler supporter, I may have a few answers.

1) He doesn’t need them

As a writer, it can be one of the most frustrating things in the world to have an uncooperative interviewee. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to write “The police officer who responded to the call was unavailable for comment because he’s a big sack of dicks,” but that’s not being professional.

Sportswriters, however, are the big pampered babies of the journalistic world. They have regular access to some of the biggest celebrities in the country, and they’re used to those celebrities taking every opportunity they can to please the crowd and, indirectly, the writer.

They’re used to Tom Brady, who puts on a handsome smiley face and laughs for the camera, but calls his teammates “fucking bitches” on the sideline when they settle for a field goal. The idea that a quarterback not only doesn’t want to talk to them, but actively resists presenting a media-friendly image is unconscionable to them.

So instead, they tear him down. They turn him into a media pariah and have a feeding frenzy every time he looks grumpy on the sideline so that, someday, he’ll come back to them looking to revamp his image and they’ll get what they wanted in the first place.

2) He doesn’t fit their model

This one is more applicable to the Chicago crowd (Haugh, Telander, Morrissey) than ESPN as a whole, but it’s ESPN’s fault in the first place. They started the “elite quarterback” conversation that has made it so hard for a number of young QB’s to get the recognition they deserve.

When it comes to “elite quarterbacks,” writers tend to cherry-pick their stats to fit that image. Take Eli Manning, who has okay-to-bad first halves all the time and looks like he’s about to crash, but turns into the Incredible Hulk in the fourth quarter and brings it back. That’s his story, right? That’s what makes him elite.

Well then, would it surprise you to know that Jay Cutler is the best 4th-quarter QB in the league right now?

But he doesn’t have a ring, and that’s become one of the defining characteristics of the elite QB, so nobody talks about it. Five years ago, Eli was “the other Manning.” I’m not necessarily saying that Jay is better than Eli, just that the sports media will actively rewrite the story on the field if the person throwing the ball has won a Super Bowl.

Want a better example? How about Brett Favre, a man whose every flaw was on painfully public display for literally his entire career. But once he got a ring, his attitude and his inconsistencies became part of the legend. The “gunslinger attitude” people criticize Cutler for was Favre’s signature “greatness.” Not only did the commentators praise him for it while he was winning, they’re still praising him for it today.

They’ve convinced themselves that not having a top-5 quarterback makes you a bad team, even though 27 teams have to play without a top-5 quarterback every year. The 49ers and the Texans are the toast of the NFL this year, and neither of their QBs is even close to the top 5. But until he wins a Super Bowl, Cutler will never be able to break into that club and have his flaws forgiven by a fawning Chris Collinsworth. 

3) LeBron James

Now, you might say, “What?” And you’d be right to do so, but bear with me.

In 2010, LeBron James made a big show of doing something dozens of people do every year: entering free agency and going to another team. While he was a big dick about it, at its core it was a roster move.

The media ripped him to pieces over it. He became the biggest villain the NBA has ever seen; it was like something out of professional wrestling. Commentators went on and on about how Jordan and Bird would never do such a thing, and how LeBron was ruining the game of basketball. The owner of the Cavaliers made a brash, untenable promise (in Comic Sans, no less) that Cleveland will win a championship not in spite of, but because of LeBron’s betrayal. The mayor of Cleveland made the team that beat LeBron for the championship honorary citizens of his city.

And that Christmas Day, the Lakers-Heat game had a 45% ratings increase from the previous year.  People were discussing nothing but the NBA in fucking July. It was the biggest story and most compelling narrative we’ve seen in basketball since Michael Jordan retired, and all it took was a villain.

For an NFL-related example, Favre’s return to Green Bay in a Vikings jersey drew more viewers than game 4 of the World Series, which aired the same night. It was the most-watched Sunday Night Football game in 14 years. I doubt the Packers’ or Vikings’ fan bases expanded appreciably that year. It was the chance to see a man who had deceived and betrayed the town that loved him (even though that’s not what really happened) beaten by his successors in front of the home audience.

And that’s why the media needs Jay Cutler to be an asshole, and will rewrite history to make him look like one. If he has a B+ game and afterward says “Yeah it was okay. We won, and I had a pretty okay night,” the story ends there. We don’t talk about it. We don’t click through to more stories and keep refreshing to see if he’s retorted yet.

But if he grumps at Mike Tice when they fail on 3^rd and long, the whole sports world is talking about Jay Cutler, whether they’re cursing him or defending him. And we have that conversation in their papers, on their web pages. They sell more issues, get more pageviews and more advertising dollars, get higher ratings for every segment of SportsCenter that talks about his “outburst.”

They need a story, so they pick somebody with a grumpy face and try to turn him into a monster. And who wouldn’t believe, when you only get a 10-second view of one sideline incident, that a guy with a face like Jay’s was mean to his teammates?

None of this excuses their behavior, but at least it helps to understand why, regardless of what he does, it’s not going to stop until he wins a championship. Once he gets that ring, the “elite QB” thing will go away, and the people who spontaneously ejaculate when an ’85 Bear speaks will have to quit mocking him the same way they had to glorify Jim McMahon.

No doubt, they would say he’ll lose that game on purpose just to spite them.

Rick Telander is the Dumbest Man Alive

It's concerning to all Bears fans that Brian Urlacher may not be ready for the season opener. It's possible a knee injury may slow him down all season long. No one, however, has just suggested in any way even the slightest possibility that Urlacher may miss all off the season. That doesn't stop Rick Telander, however, from somehow deciding that the Bears may (and probably should) cut Brian fucking Urlacher. I don't even know where to begin. As usual, he's in italics, I am not.

He didn’t play.

Telander is correct. Brian Urlacher did not play in the Bears most recent preseason game. This is the last factual and sensible thing you'll see in this article.

And the question is: Can he play?

No, Rick. The question is when he will play. Which nearly everyone with any degree of medical knowledge agrees will be sometime within the next month at the latest. I mean the guy was practicing and running around at traning camp less than a few weeks ago. I don't think the surgery somehow made things Worse.

Brian Urlacher may be the heart of the Bears, but if the pump in the middle of the machine is busted, you either fix it or get a new one.

Or if that heart happens to be a future hall of famer with a swollen knee who just had an operation to fix said knee and is projected to be back soon, maybe you just duct tape that shit and wait for the part to get back in operation. You don't chuck him overboard because he may miss some regular season time for just the second time in his 12 year career.

Nick Roach filled in for Urlacher at middle linebacker against the New York Giants — doing what he has been doing this preseason — and was . . . OK.
 

One play stood out early on. It was a sweep that Giants running back David Wilson took around left end for 15 yards. Roach was blocked to the ground on the play.
 

Then, early in the second quarter, Roach broke up a pass from Eli Manning to running back Henry Hynoski, and the Giants were forced to punt. Nice job.

Acceptable backup starter played like acceptable backup starter. Thanks, Rick.

But is this what it’s come down to: Nick Roach for Brian Urlacher? Six-one, 234 pounds for 6-4, 258? Good for superior? Steady for Hall of Fame?
 

What has what come down to? No one but you is trying to make this a decision. Nick Roach is just there until Urlacher gets back. Everyone else but you says he's coming back.  This isn't a choice. This is just a temporary solution, you moron.

Sure, you can say such speculation is premature. Urlacher just needs more time to rehab his injured left knee. He’ll be fine by the season opener, 14 days from now, at Soldier Field against the Indianapolis Colts.

Premature was't the word I had in mind. Asinine? Paranoid? Attention-whoring headline from a hack writer desperate for material? Damn. That's more than one word.

That’s what Urlacher has been saying. That’s what coach Lovie Smith has been saying. That’s what teammates have been saying.

But how do they know?

Probably beacuse they see him daily. Or have access to his medical records. Or to the doctors who've operated on him and given a timetable. You know, people who have actual information as opposed to shit-brained columnists trying to make a stir by playing on the paranoid fears of meatball fans.

They don’t.

You don't know that. You have absolutely no evidence to support this idea that Urlacher is concealing evidence that he'll be unable to play this year. God, I hate you.

And here’s the thing. The Bears have to decide no more than 13 days from now — the Saturday before that opener — if Urlacher is all that he’s supposed to be, all that he once was, or at least a good-enough replica of his eight-time Pro Bowl self that he can hold down his expensive spot in the middle.

That Saturday, Sept. 8, is the last day the Bears could release Urlacher and be off the hook for his $7.5 million 2012 salary. Keep him until Sunday and they owe him everything.

Or you know, whether to decide on starting him week one or waiting until week two. That feels like a far cry from deciding whether or not to toss the best Bears player of the last twenty years beacuse his knee injury might force them to play Nick Roach for a couple of games.

You could say, what’s the harm in just keeping the guy, no matter what? He’s been a great leader, a great representative at the position the Bears are known for, middle linebacker, the position of Bill George, Dick Butkus, Mike Singletary?

Or, instead of keeping him as a symbolic gesture they keep him because the idea that he'll be unable to start all season goes against all of the information they've been given by medical professionals and Urlacher himself, rather than, say...you?

And you would have a point.

Thank you. You do not.

But $7.5 million is a lot of cap space. It’s money that can’t go to free agents. It’s money that can’t be used to tie up quarterback Jay Cutler for more years.

It's money they're committed to for just this year. I don't think there are any free agents out there in fucking August that they're going to need 7.5 mildo of cap room to spend on. I also know that Cutler's contract runs through 2013 and an extension would start next year, not this year, so that has absolutely no bearing on the situation. Let's just make shit up at this point, Rick.

People, this is a bottom-line business. If the 34-year-old Urlacher can’t regain his speed and sideline-to-sideline range and his drop-back quickness, he becomes a very nostalgia-laden, shiny-headed cheerleader.

Fair point. But there's no reason to believe, until we see him on the field, and again, EVERY OTHER PERSON WITH ACTUAL INFORMATION SAYS WE WILL, that he can't. He made the goddamn Pro Bowl last year. Cutting him for a slowly-healing knee sprain would be epically stupid even for an organization that had an ironclad grip on worst personnel decisions in their division until Matt Millen bumbled in.

All the secrecy and irritability emanating from questions about Urlacher’s healing knee have made Halas Hall seem like more of a closed camp than usual.

There's no secrecy involved. The irritability comes from conversations like this:

Rick Telander: Will Urlacher be ready for the opener?

Lovie Smith: We hope so. The doctors told us that was a realistic timetable. Nick Roach had a scope done in 2010 and came back in 2 weeks, so there's precedent. This was a minor operation and Brian had been taking part in practice before it happened.

Rick Telander: So you're saying you have no idea whether or not Urlacher will be available at all this season and you're considering cutting him?

Lovie Smith: What the fuck is wrong with you? 

Rick Telander: *eats paste*

Smith is halfway in love with Urlacher, and releasing him would be akin to taking his favorite dog and shooing it off a cliff. Indeed, the very thought of it ending like this for Urlacher in Chicago is painful.

 

Or cutting the best player on his defense over the last decade because he might miss one, or even two games. The thought of Urlacher's career ending like this is not only painful, but horrifying, as it would mean the front office was run by a bunch of panicked, ill-informed idiots who piss in the face of reliable medical information.

But how is that knee?

We don’t know. 

He's right. The only logical answer is that it can only be horrible and irreperable and we must get rid of him. You didn't come to that conclusion? Would you like to try some of this paste?

The best answer is, not good. Eight months of rehab for a bad sprain? A secret trip overseas to — maybe or maybe not — get blood-cell therapy? Arthroscopic debridement surgery two weeks ago?

Okay. The mysterious trip to Germany is odd, I'll grant you that, but Kobe supposedly had the same operation and missed no time. There's nothing to suggest that that would slow his rehabilitation. And calling a scope by it's full name to make it sound more terrifying doesn't actually make it anything more than the routine operation that football players have all of the time and return from in a matter of weeks. This, again, is a Telander scare tactic.

And then, what, the guy is supposed to come back with barely any team practice and no game time-ups and lead the way?

Barely any team practice? He participated in the first two weeks of camp. He had a full offseason of rehab and workouts. Only Rick Telander would assume that Brian Fucking Urlacher would fall completely out of shape and forget the defense he's played in for nine years in a matter of weeks.

Urlacher will be an unrestricted free agent after this season, which means he could go anywhere he wants for whatever he could wrangle. And he could just continue rehabbing and take his Bears millions this season.

Yes, Urlacher has just one year left on his deal, meaning the team can easily part with him with no hard feelings should he be unable to fully return from his injury this year. That's a good thing. He may come back completely fine within the next few weeks and sign a team friendly extension to end his career in the right place. Instead, just cut him now because they need that money for....well, nothing. Surely they need the roster spot! Oh, they can IR him whenever they want if this should somehow turn into a season ending injury? Only Telander's scenario would result in bad blood and horrible press for the Bears, so of course he, the guy who would be quickest to pounce on them if they followed his own advice, wants them to do it.

Oh, and of course Urlacher would just rehab and swindle money from the Bears so he can focus on his next contract. It's always a good idea to miss an entire season in order to boost your stock in free agency.

Yes, he wants to play. And, yes, he came back from that serious wrist injury three years ago — the one we thought might ruin him — and has been a rock. Indeed, except for that 2009 season, Urlacher has started 96 straight games over seven years.

Always good to throw in points that completely contradict your agument, folks. Take notes.

But so what?

What about this convenient note that completely contradicts my "Brian Urlacher is fragile and used up" narrative? I should never have even put it in here!"

Bottom line, baby.

The bottom line? You mean like the salary cap completely unaffected by money already committed to
Urlacher?

In fact, this is a poker hand combined with high-stakes chicken. 

Over here you’ve got Urlacher. Over there you’ve got first-year general manager Phil Emery.

Urlacher’s good at bluffing. Rookie Emery, well, what do you think?
  

I think Emery probably pays Urlacher's doctor, and knows the actual status of his knee. Only Telander assumes that Urlacher can just say "knee's fine!" and the Bears won't ask to see his medical records or an MRI or anything that would validate or invalidate what he says.

Would you have the stones for your signature move to be releasing the greatest Bears linebacker of the last quarter-century? Would you be soft enough to keep him if he’s done? While realizing nobody will know if you’re right, either way, for months or years?
 

Or you could just keep him on the roster and find out, since, again, the 7.5 million he's owed has never factored in their plans nor would it. In fact, the floor is now set at 90% of the cap, so the Bears would arguably have to overpay someone else to make up the money from cutting Urlacher. Brilliant!

Imagine No. 54 retiring. Imagine him starring again for the Bears. Imagine him as a Green Bay Packer. Gag at the thought.
 

Where? What? How?

But anything’s possible when your cards are down and nobody knows what’s in the hole.

I'm willing to bet the Bears know what's going on. The only person here who seems to belong in a dark, miserable hole from which no one should ever emerge is you, Rick. Please, stop playing doctor or writing.