I don’t often feel sorry for pro football players. I don’t think it’s too much of a stereotype to state that a disproportionate number of them over the years have proven to be bores, asses and chuckleheads. (I make this claim through recollection of Dan Jenkins’ 1977 novel Semi-Tough, recollection of prominent jerks on my favorite childhood team, and, of course, recent events.) That said, I was saddened by this evening’s news that Bears safety Mike Brown’s season, and likely his playing career, ended in yesterday’s season opener. It was the third time his season has ended early due to an injury. By all accounts, Brown has been a great teammate, acting as a quasi-coach during last year’s Super Bowl run, and rehabbed diligently. Teammate Dusty Dvoracek, who also missed last year, is also out for the year. Go Cubs.
UPDATE: In the context of other NFL news from Sunday, Brown’s fate is not that bad.
Last weekend, I heard radio interviews with two of my favorite Texans. First, This is Hell, interviewed Marilyn Clement of Healthcare-NOW. Marilyn was talking about her recent article “Bush’s Health Care Conspiracy.” Then I heard Big Sandy’s Lovie Smith on the Tavis Smiley Show. Lovie, who has seemed ill-at-ease with the press in the past, has seemed comfortable in the limelight this week. (I wonder if Mike North has changed his mind about the comment he made earlier this month: “If Mike Ditka is on one side of Ontario Avenue and Lovie Smith was on the other side the day after the Super Bowl, Mike would be mobbed.” [I've heard of Ontario Street, but am not sure where Ontario Ave. is.] Then again, Mike North says a lot of dumb things.)
Much has been made of tomorrow’s historic coaching match-up, but there’s been a lot less said about the number first generation West African players. The Bears have three players of Nigerian origin: special teams Pro Bowler Brendon Ayanbadejo, a Chicago native, has a Nigerian father; Izzy Idonije was born in Lagos. Of course Staten Island’s Adewale Ogunleye, “The Prince,” is the grandson of a king. The Colts’ Joseph Addai, my darkhorse candidate for Super Bowl MVP, is the son of a former Georgia Tech running back from Ghana. [It looks as though Addai, who's 23 and a year out of LSY, has a MySpace page.]
In the New York Times today, John Branch looks at the Latino market for football. It sites a recent report by ESPN Deportes:
In Spanish-speaking households in this country, which account for roughly 10 percent of the population, the N.F.L. is out of sight, out of mind, lagging far behind soccer, boxing, baseball, basketball and other sports in popularity.
Bears fans are a surprisingly pessimistic lot this week: almost 90% of the 24,000 respondents to the Sun-Times (highly scientific) poll on Sunday’s game are picking the Saints to win. Sigh. (I wonder how Mike Ditkavoted?) Wisdom of the crowds?
[Update: The Tribune's poll, with 12,500 responses on the eve of the game, has an 83% pro-Bears stance. Are Sun-Times readers pessimists and Trib readers optimists? Or are Saints fans just more partial to to the Sun Times?]
Meantime, in other breaking Sun-Times news:
“57 percent of the 182,000 votes cast in a suntimes.com poll” selected punter Brad Maynard [?!] as the sexiest Bear. [That can't be a good sign.]
["Chicago-based psychic"]Sonia Choquette wants Bears fans to take a piece of paper, write ”Freeze New Orleans” on it, then place it in a freezer…”Rex is hitting his own feeling,” she said. ”I feel his energy is getting scared of his own success, so then he trips himself up. It’s almost predictable.”
Choquette said Bears fans can help Grossman.
”What we all need to do is raise the ceiling for his success, so he doesn’t think he’s reached that ceiling,” she said. ”I don’t know if there are evil forces involved, but he’s out of his element because he’s surprised he’s so talented.”
Chicago loves its sports teams and in today’s Tribune David Haugh makes the case that nothing captures the city’s imagination than a great Bears team. Alas, the only way Lovie’s boys will eclipse the 85 team is if they run the table and go, dare I say it, 19-0. Chet Coppock has the best line in Haugh’s piece when he says the 2006 team “will never put the side headlock on Madison Avenue or Michigan Avenue the way the ‘85 Bears did, so help me George Halas…The roar of Papa Bear, the cutting edge of Ditka, ‘Sweetness,’ ‘Hamp,’ ‘Mongo,’ ‘Silky D,’ and an offensive line that would’ve made Hulk Hogan leap over the top rope made ‘85 a year that will not be repeated. This current club has people excited but not galvanized.” Chester continued the theme on his show this morning, noting that this team “hasn’t opened themselves up as characters” the way the “mythical” 85 team did. Meanwhile, Rick Telander’s Friday column reports on an aborted locker room interview with new Bear superstar Tommie Harris and concludes that this Gen Y team has some growing to do before it fully wins our hearts:
It wasn’t even 1 o’clock and the NFL-mandated 45-minute media session wasn’t over yet, but Kreutz was swiftly joined by many of his teammates, who screamed at the top of their lungs, made fire-alarm noises, siren noises, animal noises and bellowed for the media to get out right now, many with threatening gestures…Others pointed and smirked and turned on the few remaining media members the way a gang of bullies would turn on handicapped kids with lunch money in their pockets.
It was an amazing, frightening transformation. The air of physical harm loomed….Tight end John Gilmore glared and angrily screamed, ”GET OUT OF HERE!”…We humans equate winning with immortality, triumph with virtue….Good luck, Tommie Harris. Hope you and your buddies can learn how to be men.
Finally, Brad Biggs compares the marketing prowess of the two teams:
There’s a big difference between players today and the ones from two decades ago — and it involves an extra comma in the paychecks. Salaries have skyrocketed, and athletes today don’t need the supplementary income as much. Still, it’s not bad to have, and a lot of the work is done on their day off Tuesday….’”Our dear beloved coach had the greatest saying of all time,” Hampton said. ”’To the victor go the spoils.”’
Of course, comparing the two teams is unfair: 1985 was a different media era: Tomorrow night’s Bears-Cardinals game is unlikely to come anywhere close to the 30 rating/46 share that the 1985 Bears-Dolphins game earned (the highest rated game in MNF history) . Indeed few programs other than the Super Bowl will ever come close to drawing 30% of American homes– last week Patch AdamsGrey’s Anatomy topped the Nielsens with a 15 rating.
Second, as good as a job as he’s doing, Lovie Smith is no Mike Ditka. (Viewing this video, maybe that’s a good thing.)
Third, though this team may turn out to be a better team (!?), they will never pull off anything like this.
Whatever happened to that promised Steve Albini-produced reunion album?
