David Haugh toes the line but doesn’t go over it, so I will. Lovie Smith is just not a good head coach, and it’s time we woke up to that cold hard reality.
In fact, based on the miserable showing of this team in 2 of the last 3 games, I’m questioning the talent evaluators, the GM, the scouts, the front-office people that hire them, and everybody who has a say in a team that displays over-paid mediocrity nearly every Sunday.
The team is a joke, and suffers from a complete lack of leadership at all levels.
Can you even imagine a Ditka coached team from the 1980s losing so badly? Losing close games is one thing. Getting your ass handed to you two weeks out of three, quite another.
Can you imagine a Singletary-led defense playing like that? I sure can’t. Man, I miss that guy. But he seems to have rejuvenated the 49ers, who play the Bears on Thursday night.
Imagine that, a black head coach who got the job because … he’s good at it.
I wonder what that would be like for a Bears team.
Note to ownership: we’ve seen great football in this town, played with passion and intensity and talent and dedication. And this AIN’T it.
I’d never heard of either Jerry Angelo or Lovie Smith when they were hired. But I bought in, and gave them both plenty of time.
Sorry, but I think it’s time to say it: neither one is very good at their jobs.
And so by extension, whoever hired Angelo isn’t very good either.
Right after a crushing playoff loss in cold, windy weather, the football coaches of my son’s youth team gathered the kids around for the usual post-game talk.
The season is over now, there’s no getting around it. This is the end.
After 13 weeks of practice six hours a week … after 9 games … after all the team-building that results from good leadership of 25 ten-year-old boys who love football and get along well with each other … here we are now. Done. Over. After all that effort, and all that investment, suddenly, it’s all over.
Some of the coaches got choked up trying to put their intense emotions into words. Just like last year. And listening to them, and watching them, so did I. Just like last year.
And this was a totally different set of coaches from last year.
Two seasons of football, two different sets of coaches, but two identical scenarios at the end of the season: a tough loss, and an emotional message.
Two sets of good people connecting with our young men, doing a wonderful thing for them, and for us. Two sets of dads who throw themselves into coaching with great dedication and desire. with a sincere and earnest wish to teach football to 9- and 10-year-old boys. For nothing. Well, it isn’t really for nothing: the coaches get to spend a little of their own money, and a lot of their own time, energy, and emotion.
Some kids aren’t so lucky, I know, and end up with jerks for coaches, who ruin an entire sport for them forever. We’ve been lucky enough to go 2-for-2 in the Good Football Coaches category, but I know that maybe some folks feel differently about this whole thing. And maybe I’ll even feel differently someday.
But clearly, for the coaches we’ve had, this is a labor of love. And when it all ends so suddenly, it’s extremely hard to face without some powerful emotions bubbling up to the surface. For some of us, it means an apple in the throat, and watery eyes.
I know if I was a coach and had to get up there, and look at the young faces of 25 young men that I’d grown to like and respect, and deliver a summary of how proud I was of them for trying so hard, for so long, I’d struggle to get through. I know I would.
As I’ve learned over the last two enjoyable seasons, football builds bonds like no other sport that I’ve ever been involved with, as a parent or as a child. The investment of time and emotion is so big. SO, so big. And with all that investment comes bonding. Boys with other boys. Coaches with boys. Parents with each other. Parents with coaches.
It all comes together, slowly, over a period of weeks. It turns into a team, a real team, where everybody works together for a common goal, without concern about who gets credit.
And it hurts when it ends. It hurts a lot. There is a very real sense of grief for the end of that bond. Maybe it hurts the adults more than the kids. In fact, I’m pretty sure about that.
And then we drag ourselves back to work, school, or wherever it is we put in our time each day, but we do so as changed people.
We’ve been transformed. Literally, transformed by the power of connecting with other people and working towards a common goal. It’s an amazing and beautiful thing. And I’m pretty sure this is one of the most powerful draws that keeps people coming back to play football, and keeps coaches coming back to coach it, at least in our local youth program.
Someday, when I’m old, and Jacob is grown, we’ll talk about the good times we had when he played youth football, and how much we both enjoyed it, and how much we both learned. Not just about football, but about other people, especially his coaches. What good people they were, and how much giving they did.
In some respects, life is really all about building memories, and it feels good to know you’ve just built another one. It feels really, really good.
Brad Biggs gives his usual 10Thoughts about Sunday’s Bears game, a dreary 30-6 drubbing of the ridiculous Cleveland Browns.
I have a theory: the Bears’ O-line is so awful that it is screwing up the entire offense.
They can’t run the ball, because the line can’t open any holes. When you can’t run the ball, the defense tees off on pass plays. And since their pass blocking isn’t that great either, this means that on every offensive snap, basically, they are operating at a big disadvantage.
Stated another way, if they had the O-line of the Colts, or the Broncos, or the Patriots, how many of their current issues just go away? A lot, I’ll bet.
I was not convinced when Jerry Angelo said after last season that the QB was the biggest issue to be solved. It seems like I was right, and Angelo was wrong:
Just sticking to offense, and in approximately the order I’d fix them:
old, slow, offensive line,
bad, small receivers,
no discernible fullback,
a general lack of depth across all positions,
mediocre position coaches,
unproven quarterback who has never been given a real chance with a real offense.
Does bringing Tom Brady, or Drew Brees, or whoever else you like, fix all that, too?
Cutler, Brady, Brees, same difference.
Note that Kyle Orton seems to be doing just fine in Denver, with that great offensive line, big physical receivers, and good coaching.
Feel free, then, to draw important conclusions about the people running the Chicago Bears, both on the field, and off.
Phil Simms has long been one of my favorite color analysts on football, and it’s because of plain-spoken common sense like this (on the criticism of Jay Cutler last week by Jim Mora, Sr., and Mike Martz):
“The critical comments, the overanalyzation of everything, Week 1, there is no other way to describe it except that it is out of control. That’s all I can say. All I am reading is body language, `I can see this,’ or `I can see that,’ ‘I can just tell.’ I’m telling you, I wish I could go on and do the game today and do commentary on that because it is absurd.”
“Out of control” and “absurd” are exactly right.
What is it with people today? Everybody’s a critic.
I hadn’t realized that ex-football-coaches have enough expertise in reading body language to cast public criticism at players for not showing us the right post-game moves that send out the recommended degree of contrition.
Seriously, this is the stupidest thing I’ve heard since the idea of our government fining people thousands of dollars for not having health insurance. And that is a pretty high bar to clear.
More Simms:
“The players don’t listen don’t listen to all the talk radio, read all the articles and watch ESPN around the clock where we have 40 guys analyzing every throw Jay Cutler makes,” Simms said. “If I have to hear one more time, `Oh, you don’t throw across the field.’ That’s another cliche that needs to be blown up because Jay Cutler has thrown across his body 300 times already in his career and he has hit about 100 big plays out of it. Is he going to make mistakes? Sure.
“Someone could say, `Well, hey, he could have a bad day again today.’ No kidding. It is the Pittsburgh Steelers. It won’t be a walk in the park. I’ll make judgment after about eight weeks, maybe at the end of the season. I feel pretty secure in saying his talent and who he is will come through. His talent is tremendous, absolutely one of the top five most talented quarterbacks in the NFL.”
Phil Simms won’t suffer fools gladly, and I love that about him. Especially in comparison to so many TV and media “personalities” who are both too impressed with themselves, and afraid of their own shadows.
The Wildcat formation is causing defensive coordinators in the NFL to do some adapting, and this article does a nice job of explaining the whys and wherefores.
In reading them, it’s very easy to see how he got to be so popular: he went out of his way to engage people. Probably because he’s just a nice guy and a people person. You know who could stand to loosen up a little bit in that department? Tiger Woods. But then, he wouldn’t be Tiger Woods. He thrives on focus and drive, and those things are incompatible with being a people person.
Golf could really use a guy like Arnold Palmer right now. How many people started playing golf entirely because of Arnold Palmer’s charisma? It sure sounds like a lot, from reading those letters.
+++
One of my favorite bands, Steely Dan, played the Chicago Theatre last week. Monday night they played “Aja” in its entirety at the start, and then a bunch of their other great songs. Check out this set list:
1 Black Cow
2 Aja
3 Deacon Blues
4 Peg
5 Home at Last
6 I Got the News
7 Josie
8 Black Friday
9 Time out of Mind
10 Daddy Don’t Live in that New York City No More
11 Bodhisattva
12 Babylon Sisters
13 Show Biz Kids
14 Hey Nineteen
15 Dirty Work
16 Love is Like an Itching in My Heart (Supremes)/band intros
17 Do It Again
18 Don’t Take Me Alive
19 My Old School
20 Kid Charlemagne
Encore
21 Reelin’ in the Years
Color me bright green with envy. I’ve listened to most of these songs sooooo many times over the years, I know every solo, every chord change, every note and lyric. Except for the songs on Gaucho … never a big fan of that record.
My favorite Steely Dan records, in order:
(tie) Can’t Buy a Thrill and Aja
Royal Scam
Pretzel Logic
Countdown to Ecstasy
Katy Lied
+++
Locally, Chicago’s attempt to remake public housing has fallen somewhat short. So, to review, the Federal Government created the publc housing mess which helped destroy our cities, and then the city government has distributed that mess into the neighborhoods and suburbs, and done an inferior job at it, too. Maybe it’s time to bring sanity back to housing policy?
+++
Finally, Tony Woodlief writes about the quality of education today. I agree with everything he says there. We don’t home school, but I support and sympathize with many of those who do. And then we have this Education school lunacy. Do people realize what is going on under their noses? On their dime? To their kids? I really don’t think they do.
“If I had it to do all over again, I would not have changed anything I did. I felt we had a player that was treated unfairly, and it was my responsibility as the head coach to stand up for that player. I have three sons of my own, and if they ever went and played ball or did anything with their career and there was someone responsible for them (who) didn’t try to stand up for them, it would disappoint me as a parent.
When it first came out, lots of folks had a laugh, and the rant does seem a little over the top in a couple of parts. But lost in all the laughing and the making fun of his “I’m a man! I’m 40!” line is this: he was exactly right.
His larger point was that we’ve forgotten that college athletes are amateurs. Or, “student-athletes”, if we want to be extremely generous and take the NCAA at their word on that terminology.
We all know that some of these amateurs aren’t as good at their chosen sport as some others. But then, as “student-athletes”, they have lots of responsibilities off the field as well. Where is the media attention for that? Oh, right, there isn’t any.
College athletes have amateur standing for a reason. That’s what we’re told, anyway. But take a look around, at the huge TV contracts, the shoe deals, the under-the-table payola from connected alumni and prominent boosters. Look at the big money coaching contracts, and all the advertising revenue that flows to the NCAA and then to the big conferences and member schools.
Money just flying into and out of everybody’s pockets except the players.
Does that sound like amateur athletics to you? Me neither.
Yet, despite all that money flying all around them, the players themselves are still expected to lead the monastic life of an amateur athlete. Sure, OK, if the NCAA says so.
And as money has invaded college sports, so has the focus on individual stars. ESPN puts you on SportsCenter if you make outrageous plays, or act like an idiot after scoring touchdowns. What’s the difference, any more? It’s all about celebrity more than athletics, and it has been like that for years..
So I think Mike Gundy is here to remind us that we should respect our student-athletes, our amateurs, for being good people and working hard and doing their best. That’s all we can really ask of our young people.
Take care of your business the right way off the field, too. That’s really what Gundy is saying here. Watch for yourself:
He has a very good point, and it doesn’t get made often enough: we’ve completely lost our minds about what is important with the student-athlete today.
As fans, we hitch our hopes and dreams on the backs of kids so that we can feel a little better about ourselves and our pathetic, empty lives. I know that’s harsh and maybe a little hyperbolic, but when you really back away from it, and shine a bright light on what is going on there, isn’t that pretty close to the truth?
As parents and boosters, we lie to ourselves and to our kids when we ignore the most honorable among us, the kids who probably aren’t going pro, but still study hard and show up at practice and contribute to the team in any way they can. Instead, many of us promote harmful ideals like celebrity and glorifying the individual.
We did a much better job preparing our young people for life after college when we took the “student” part of “student-athlete” seriously. Today, we cater to the needs of the top .1% who might become professionals someday, for a couple of years.
Speaking as a parent of a college age son, with two more to follow in a few years, I think I can speak with confidence when I say that most parents of college athletes want to know one thing, just one thing above all others: who is going to advocate for my kid’s interests while he/she is away at school?
If you can’t be there to provide parental guidance day-to-day, you want somebody you can trust to take over that role. Especially in the shark-infested waters of big-time athletics.
So when a coach like Mike Gundy takes on great risk to stand up for what is right, and to stand up for a kid on the team who does everything right, even if he is not the most talented on the team, that tells a recruit’s parent just about everything they need to know.
And unlike the sordid tale of another coach recently, I’m pretty sure Mike Gundy won’t be caught doing some random gold-digger on a restaurant table, paying for her abortion, and then getting sued six years later. Some coaches are more about celebrity; some are more about leading young people.
So, all in all, I’d be honored to have a fine man like Mike Gundy watch after one of my kids. Even if he does say funny things on Youtube videos when he’s angry.
It must be Philosophy in Old Rock Songs Day today.
On the drive into work, I heard “Live for Today” by the Grass Roots, followed by “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Rolling Stones. Also, “I Can Help” by Billy Swan was the first song out of the radio when pulling away from the house, a song that I really like a lot. There is a guitar riff in there that sure reminded me of Les Paul, a connection I’d never made before. One of those runs down the neck, and back up, repeating the same sequence of notes. Here’s a recent version:
Something about the mood I was in made it all sound extra good. I think it’s because I was already in a very good mood, after getting my first good night’s sleep in a quite a few nights. I’m pretty sure this is directly due to my bike ride last night, also for the first time in many days. Went with my youngest boy Jordan, just the two of us, so it’s a win/win. I’ve noticed over the last few years that on days when I get zero exercise, my sleep is low quality. It’s shorter and not as deep, and during the next day, I don’t feel as good, I don’t have as much ability to concentrate, my mood is often inferior, etc. I often wonder how many people who fight problems with sleep and are taking medication for it are sort of barking up the wrong tree.
On to the links:
A night of healing in Iowa – A summation of Friday night’s tribute to Ed Thomas, the coach at Aplington-Parkersburg who was killed by one of his former players in June. He was instrumental, also, in helping rebuild Parkersburg after a devastating tornado mostly destroyed the town in 2008.
Ichiro defies critics and odds – Computers sometimes don’t throw Ichiiro Suzuki lots of love. Proving, I don’t know … that computers can be stupid? Is there a GM that wouldn’t sign him if they had a chance to start a team from scratch and wanted to win a World Series? I sure would. The guy creates team offense by getting on base at a ridiculous rate.
Political Economics 101 – Eric Raymond explains how health care would respond to government intervention in that market. See if you can guess how it turns out!
Oh, come on: one extra club costs Jim Furyk over $130,000 – And that’s why golf is the most honorable game in the world. Rules is rules. It sucks when you forget and break one. Which encourages not breaking them, and rewards those who follow them. The higher the cost of breaking them, the more value they hold.
Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems by Michael Strong
Meltdown by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
The Housing Boom and Bust by Thomas Sowell
Bolt shreds 200m mark, sets second world record this week – 19.19 for the 200m. Sliced .11 off the old world mark of 19.30 he set in last year’s Olympics. This guy is amazing, and I hope he’s clean. We don’t need more reasons to be suspicious of athletic performances.
Bus drivers reject paying red-light tickets – Issuing automatic $100 tickets for not stopping at some exact spot on a road is a DUMB idea. It annoys drivers who are doing nothing wrong, and is nothing more than a cash grab by cash-obsessed local governments. Just because technology enables a particular idea is NOT justification enough for implementing it. In fact, that might be an argument against it.
Some 35yo non-athlete white dude tries to duplicate the stunt that Bears rookie Jarron Gilbert did on YouTube: jump out of a 3-foot pool and land on his feet.
Let’s see, today is April 15, and the season opener is September 13, so … only 15+31+30+31+31+12 days to go until the season opener! Whatever that works out to … 150 days if my old-fogey brain is still working. Call it 5 months.
Week 1: Sun, Sept. 13 at Green Bay Packers NBC 7:20 p.m.
Week 2: Sun, Sept. 20 vs. Pittsburgh Steelers CBS 3:15 p.m.
Week 3: Sun, Sept. 27 at Seattle Seahawks FOX 3:05 p.m.
Week 4: Sun, Oct. 4 vs. Detroit Lions FOX noon
Week 5: Bye Week
Week 6: Sun, Oct. 18 at Atlanta Falcons NBC 7:20 p.m.
Week 7: Sun, Oct. 25 at Cincinnati Bengals FOX noon
Week 8: Sun, Nov. 1 vs. Cleveland Browns CBS noon
Week 9: Sun, Nov. 8 vs. Arizona Cardinals FOX noon.
Week 10: Thu, Nov. 12 at San Francisco 49ers NFLN 7:20 p.m.
Week 11: Sun, Nov. 22 vs. Philadelphia Eagles NBC 7:20 p.m.
Week 12: Sun, Nov. 29 at Minnesota Vikings FOX noon.
Week 13: Sun, Dec. 6 vs. St. Louis Rams FOX noon
Week 14: Sun, Dec. 13 vs. Green Bay Packers FOX noon.
Week 15: Sun, Dec. 20 at Baltimore Ravens FOX noon
Week 16: Mon, Dec. 28 vs. Minnesota Vikings ESPN 7:20 p.m.
Week 17: Sun, Jan. 3 at Detroit Lions FOX noon.
Breakdown: besides the usual six games against their division rivals, they play the AFC Central … oh yay … Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Cleveland, plus Seattle, Atlanta, Arizona, S.F., Philadelphia, and St. Louis.
This looks like a tough schedule. Thank God for the Lions, Bengals and Rams! Oh my!
49ers coach Mike Singletary is building a big hill right next to the team practice facility, for running sprints. He’s calling it “Mt. Pain”.
Uh-oh. New sheriff in town, NFC!
Here’s Coach Singletary:
Singletary was pleased that the players who fared best in the drills also happen to be team leaders, citing [Vernon] Davis, Frank Gore, Shaun Hill and Alex Smith.
Near the end of Friday’s session, for example, Singletary considered ending the drills early. But “Vernon was the first one to say, ‘No, we’re going to finish this,’ and everybody else chimed in,” Singletary said. “I think that says a lot about our team.”
It also says a lot about the coach, and value of the drill.
Hello, Coach Lovie Smith? Giving you any ideas at all? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
Both Jerry Rice and Walter Payton trained by running hills. Both had kinda OK careers.
It’s a lot like the old saying: you’re not done with football practice until you’re puking. Or maybe I just made that up … not really sure. Sounds like an old saying.
Those of us who watch our NFL action at home don’t get to see them very often, but there are mascots patrolling the sidelines at most of those games. Some of them are pretty cool; for instance, the Cardinals, the Bengals, the Falcons, these I can work with.
But some of them are either a) goofy looking for b) have goofy names, or c) both. I guess that’s part of their job, but there is a fine line between “cool, silly, and goofy” and “just plain goofy”. Here’s a list of “just plain goofy”.
After the Dallas Stars more-or-less fired Steve Avery in December, they have gone 14-7-3 for 31 points in 24 games. Before the firing, they were 8-11-4 for 20 points (23 games). Well over 1 point per game after, vs. well under that before.
Another example, it appears, of addition by subtraction. But there are plenty of people who don’t seem to understand how a team could ever be better off by removing a problem player. Even, it seems, people who sit all day in offices that say “Coach”, “GM”, or “President” on the door.
Some people, unfortunately, are just “toxic”. By their very presence on a team, they bring a loss of productivity, due to various drains on the emotional energy of the team. Drama rarely enhances anything, except the status of the instigator. And it doesn’t matter that much what their star power is, or how often they’ve been on SportsCenter Top Ten Plays, or how valuable they are in fantasy leagues.
And how does Marinelli plan to make the Bears’ line better? It starts with ”a lot of drill work,” he said. Marinelli believes that the tempo of practice is extremely important and that players develop habits by how they perform on a daily basis. As a line coach, he always has pushed his players hard during the position time in practice. Former Buccaneers star Warren Sapp calls it ”30 minutes of hell” and said it soon will separate the men from the boys. You find out who is committed to their livelihood by the way they respond in practice.
That’s Rod Marinelli, the new defensive line coach and assistant head coach of the Bears.
Key phrases that make me feel all warm and special inside:
“tempo of practice is extremely important”
“players develop habits by how they perform on a daily basis”
“pushed his players hard”
“30 minutes of hell”
“separate men from the boys”
“committed to their liveliehood by the way they respond in practice”
OK, pretty much the whole paragraph. Sorry, got a little carried away there. But it’s just really nice to read that conditioning and mental toughness and drillwork is making a comeback, because the last few years of watching Bears football sure didn’t give that impression. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I’ve long wondered about the overall conditioning of the entire defense, but the line is especially important; a tired defense in the 4th quarter means the opposing offense can run any given play more effectively than they could in the 1st or 2nd quarter. This is hardly news; why, then, did the Bears seem to think conditioning was unimportant?
Two of the greatest coaches in the history of any sport are Vince Lombardi and John Wooden; both were fanatics for conditioning, on the theory that it would win you many games late, by being in better shape physically, and therefore mentally tougher. It’s all connected; the harder you work players physically, and the more you demand of them conditioning-wise, the more they are trained to tolerate mentally challenging situations and fatigue.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t get what the big deal is about Donovan McNabb picking up a phone on the New York Giants’ sideline.
Did he really get an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for picking up a phone?
Yep. Sure did.
I thought it was sort of light-hearted and funny, myself. Maybe refs have no sense of humor, or think the Giants don’t have one.
He picked up a phone, pretended to talk into it for just a second, and hung it back up. Then he jogged back to his huddle, without so much as looking at the Giants players on the sideline.
How this is anything like shoving a ball in an opponent’s face after scoring a touchdown, I’m not real sure.
What I am sure about is that sometimes, sports officials get too caught up in the emotion of a game, and throw their weight around by calling serious infractions for pretty silly reasons.
Recently, Bears GM Jerry Angelo held his end of the season press conference, where he offered this pearl of wisdom about the quarterback position:
“I think we have to have competition at that position. We have to keep an eye on that position, more than any. We have to get that position right. I know there’s going to be a lot of talk about a No. 1 receiver, but it starts with the quarterback. It’s all about the quarterback. You don’t win because of wide receivers. You don’t win because of running backs. You win because of the quarterback. We have to get that position stabilized. We’re fixated on that.
So, if you bring Tom Brady in, the Bears win the Super Bowl? Really?
Here’s what I think.
Great teams win the Super Bowl.
Great teams have no weaknesses.
The Bears have lots of weaknesses.
Just sticking to offense, and in approximately the order I’d fix them:
old, slow, offensive line,
bad, small receivers,
no discernible fullback,
a general lack of depth across all positions,
mediocre position coaches,
unproven quarterback who has never been given a real chance with a real offense.
Does bringing Tom Brady, or Drew Brees, or whoever else you like, fix all that, too?
What would be sweet is if, some day, before I die, some bad-ass Big 10 team could travel out to Pasadena on a Jan. 1, and kicks the living snot out of USC, with the whole county watching on national TV.
Yeah … that’s probably not going to happen.
Instead, the inevitability of USC or some other West Coast team cleaning the clock of the sacrificial offering sent by the Big 10 every year is so regular, you can set your watch by it.
Let’s see, if a Rose Bowl is on TV, and it’s just about over, and USC is winning big, then it must be Jan. 1, about 7:15 pm Central Standard Time. Yep. Sure is!
And then next year, the Big Ten will continue to delude itself that it is still a major factor in big time college football.
Last night during the telecast, Kirk Herbstreit pointed out that the Big Ten had lost the last 8 Rose Bowls by an average of 25 points, and was losing, late, in this one, by 24.
Make it 9, now. With an average margin of more than 20 points.
As emphatic statements go, that is a pretty solid one.
You don’t lose 9 in a row, by an average of more than 20 points, unless you pretty much can’t carry the jocks of the best of the elite teams in the other conference. By which we mean, of course, USC.
And their cheerleaders are hotter, too. Lose/lose.
Over the last two weeks, the Bears needed a whole bunch of teams to lose in order to make a wild-card spot: 4 of them last week, and 2 this week. All lost.
The Bears were missing just one thing: winning their last game against Houston, which they lost 31-24. In the fourth quarter, they allowed a six-minute, 90 yard drive for a nail-in-the-coffin touchdown to make it 31-17.
The defense allowed 455 yards for the game. 4-5-5.
Greg Couch of the Sun-Times says “Lovie’s in denial”, because he thinks the Bears are “close”.
Close to what? Catching fire, from being torched so often? Barely making the playoffs, so they can be shown the door by the Atlanta Falcons? Is this how we measure success today?
"As I wrote in my common sense, bulldozer of truth book "Ted, White and Blue," you do not have a "right" to health care, but rather a personal responsibility for it. From my vantage point, too many Americans obviously do not care about their health but have the unmitigated audacity to want someone else to pay for their health care damage control. That attitude is soulless, irresponsible and un-American. I am not of the same species as these bloodsuckers."
Ted Nugent, from "Fedzilla Goes Quack", Mar. 10, 2009
