Tuesday Football: Well, it's a start

It's been interesting to see which NFL clubs have been issuing pink slips this week.

Some gridiron pundits have expressed surprise at the Indianapolis Colts' firing of the Polian lads, but evidently, they stopped paying attention when the Colts won the Super Bowl five years ago.  Peyton Manning had covered up so many of the Colts' problems by himself, a disaster like their 8-Strength (2-14) season this year was inevitable.  All it took was an injury through which even Manning couldn't possibly play.

Here's an interesting, little noted aspect of Monday's management purges in Tampa Bay (16 Strength, 4-12) and Saint Louis (9 Strength, 2-14)  the Buccaneers, Rams are related by ownership to English soccer teams.  By that, I don't mean little third-division outfits -- I mean Manchester United and Arsenal.  The Cleveland Browns (17 Strength, 4-12) are similarly tied to a third Premier League side, Aston Villa.  It's probably a nasty coincidence, but all three NFL teams just finished horrible seasons.

As for the Chicago Bears, whose collapse lef them to fire general manager go and lose vaunted OC Mike Martz, Yahoo!'s "Shutdown Corner" column pretty well encapsulated their problem:

Maybe Martz wanted capable, productive wide receivers, while the Bears organization wanted Roy Williams. [Or Sam Hurd, who turned out to be as incompetent at dealing drugs as catching Jay Cutler passes.]

Trust me, Chicago and its environs are celebrating.  I'm celebrating, too, as evidenced by the haiku now gracing this blog's title bar.

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Victory Weighting update: With two big exceptions, this year's Victory Weighting tracked the official standings exceptionally well.  11 of the 12 playoff teams showed up in the correct order, as did the top six draft picks.  Overall, Victory Weighting needed only five tiebreakers, including three for draft order.  The exceptions are two teams I've already covered at length:

• Denver would miss the playoffs.  San Diego would host the Steelers in their place.  It's too bad, really; I'd like to have seen a stake put through Tebowmania™ a year early.
• Despite a better winning percentage than Seattle, Arizona would finish third in the NFC West behind the Seahawks, because the Cardinals have a lower Strength.

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Tuesday football: Potpourri

Caleb Hanie, the (unknown) future of the Bears.

Something I never thought I'd say:  "I miss Jay Cutler."

And, "We shouldn't have wished so hard for that."

To be fair, when we were booing, flaming, and otherwise disrespecting him, Jay Cutler hadn't been playing well.  We couldn't tell which was worse, Cutler or the linemen who were supposed to protect him.  After some nice preseason performances and a near-miracle in last year's Super Bowl semifinal, Caleb Hanie looked like a great alternative.

But then offensive coordinator Mike Martz finally justified the salary the Bears are giving him.  Finally abandoning his dream of recreating The Greatest Show on Turf, Martz shifted his emphasis onto workhorse running back Matt Forte, while convincing Cutler and his line to work much more closely.  It wasn't the machine Aaron Rodgers is running in Green Bay, but the Bears had finally generated an efficient offense.  For the first time, Bear fans could admit to actually liking Cutler.

Now that Cutler is out through the winter solstice, the Bears now depend on Hanie to see their run through to the playoffs.  Yes, he looked good when Cutler didn't, but he hadn't had to run an offense for two games that counted.  That changes this Sunday in Oakland.  Fingers are crossed from the Indiana exurbs of Merrillville and Michigan City all the way around to the Wisconsin line.  Brrrrr.

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Outlook not so bad:  Congratulations to the Los Angeles Galaxy on their latest Major League Soccer crown.  The latest question for the league comes from the status of David Beckham:  will he stay, or is it back to Europe for him?  Some columnists think that MLS still needs Beckham, but I disagree.

The problem with arguments like this one made by NBC Sports' Michael Ventre is that it assumes that the sport hasn't made any advances in the U.S. since Beckham joined the Galaxy five years ago.  Both the U.S. men's and women's teams made nice runs in their respective World Cup tournaments.  Well known (if aging) stars like Thierry Henry, Freddy Ljungburg, Rafael Márquez and Roy Keane have made real contributions in their new MLS homes.  Most importantly, expansion franchises have succeeded spectacularly in Philadelphia, Portland, Vancouver and especially Seattle.  All of that isn't going to suddenly disappear just because one particularly glamourous Englishman left his club in Los Angeles.

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Attention, SEC West woofers:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I know that LSU, Alabama and Arkansas are 1-2-3 in the BCS standings.  I can understand why you SEC West fans are whooping it up, trying to mock the rest of us.

And I hope this makes up for the fact that, in men's basketball, your little division completely missed March Madness last year.  Not a single SEC West team made the field of 68.

No, you can't count Texas A&M or Missouri.  Try again next year.

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Da Bears. Da cold. And: a new tag!

Last Friday, the thermometers here in Chicagoland dropped below zero degrees.  Farenheit.  The good news was that I had a heavy jacket ready to go.  It kept me nice and toasty, even though I had to fill a gas tank in the deep freeze.

Super.  Spiffy.  Genius.

The bad news was that it was a Cleveland Browns jacket.  I spent all day assuring the cashiers that, yes, I did have my orange Brian Urlacher jersey ready to go at 1400 Sunday afternoon.  Well, it was, but I ended up wearing my super-spiffy Bears polo shirt instead.

Gotta dress properly on Sunday afternoon, don't ya know.

Anyway, it occurred to me that several of my football posts have involved uniforms and shirts, so now the blog gets a new main category for fashion.  As before, these will concentrate on the sometimes awful things athletes wear on the field, and things fans wear to games, but it's still fashion.

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Like all right-thinking Chicago Bears fans*, I was sad to see them lose last night's NFC title game to that terrorist front NFL team from Wisconsin. Among the numerous failures from head coach Lovie Smith and quarterback Jay Cutler, the 21-14 loss was the most painful to endure.

These are from last season, but they would've fit right in yesterday.

First, there's Cutler's showing.  I'm not talking about what he did on the field.  That mess came as no surprise, given that the Packer defense had previously vexed his betters  and caused the firing of two head coaches.  It's Cutler's behavior after his injury-triggered benching that turned his performance into an epic FAIL.  Instead of standing by his teammates and providing encouragement, he spent most of the second half sitting on the bench, alone, with his head hung low.  Maybe the producers at FOX Sports were just messing with us Bears fans, but their images of Cutler on the bench are those of a quarterback who has lost his team.  It was backup QB Caleb Hanie who rallied the Bears and rocked the Packers on their feet.  He, not Jay Cutler, almost turned a blowout loss into a legendary game.

And Hanie would've done it, too, if it hadn't been for that meddling head coach of his.  On the final drive, Hanie had his players lined up for a classic power sweep against a confused and unprepared Packer defense.  Just as Matt Forte made the turn on a devastating third-down power sweep (oh, devastating irony!), the whistle blew, stopping the play.

Lovie Smith, Super Genius, had called a time out.

Instead of helping the Bears, that pause gave the Packer defense time to reorganize.  Even worse, Smith changed his team's call into a disastrous pitch play to Chester Taylor that lost three yards.  The next play was a desperate fourth-down pass that the Packers promptly intercepted, sealing the Bears' fate.

Aaarrrrrgh.  D'oh.  Crikey.  It was Cutler and Smith at their worst, at the worst possible time.

Oh, well.  I was expecting a 4-12 season from this group, so I'm happy the Bears got this far.

* Now there's a redundancy!

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Tuesday Football: Halftime!

Next week, the Packers, Saints, Raiders and Chargers take the week off. When the final gun has sounded next Monday night, every NFL team will have played nine games. In short, the 2010-11 season has reached its halfway mark. As such, it's time to take stock of some things I hold dear about the league.

Bearing up or down?  My beloved Chicago Bears currently stand at 5-3, good for second place in the NFC North and a tie for the last wild-card spot.  All's well, right?  Not so fast.  Their only quality win came against Green Bay at home.  Jay Cutler has actually gotten worse from last season.  He hasn't thrown so many interceptions, but now he just looks lost.  Setting himself as a better man than his linemen hasn't helped.

At the same time, nor has that horrible offensive line, recently dubbed the "Yahtzee Line" by a radio commentator.  The Bears seem to be tossing five big men onto the field every week and hoping for the best.  No offensive coordinator, including legendary Mike Martz, can rescue a situation like that.  The O-line disarray will, in time, doom the Bears, along with the terms of Martz and head coach Lovie Smith.

Left:  Jay Cutler.  Right:  Lovie Smith.

It's the Yahtzee Line that explains why I've never hated Coach Smith as much as my fellow Bears fans.  Back when he reached Super Bowl XL, it was with a strong offensive line and a powerful defense.  Last year, both those units muddled through at about half strength.  This year, the defense is healthy, but the offense remains a mess.  Pretty standard Bears football, if you ask me.  Coach Smith, on balance, is just average.  Barring a deep playoff run (not likely), he's not good enough to stay on in Chicago past this season, but nor are the Bears' problems all his fault.

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Fantasy update:  This week, it's the Fluttering Horde that's floundering.  I spend all week researching just who can take over for Jacksonville WR Mike Thomas (bye), the Dallas defense (must I explain?) and Carolina RB Johnathan Stewart (fired, 'cause he -- sing it! -- suuuuuuuuucks).  The solutions?  The Patriot defense, Houston WR Jacoby Jones and Arizona RB Laron Stephens-Howling.  Jones and Stephens-Howling worked beautifully, but the Patriots (sing it!) suuuuuuuuucked so hard on defense, they actually cost me a point.  Andre Johnson and Peyton Manning are no help, so the Horde falls, 104-81, to the Purple Dragons.  It's the third loss in a row for the Horde (5-4), which falls to the middle of the table.

Happily, with DeSean Jackson back, the Middlemen (6-3) won their game, defeating the Techno Vikings, 98-84.  The public league has turned into a four-team scramble for the top.  It may be time to trade Michael Vick (whom I don't really need) for more wide-receiver power, now that Miles Austin is fizzling.

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Tuesday Football: Thanks for visiting Cowboy Nation

Blog buddy, birder and fellow Texan expat dguzman commented on last week's Tuesday Football post, fretting about her beloved Dallas Cowboys.  I assured her that my Bears were actually much worse, and that the 'Pokes should prevail at home in Week 2.  That prediction failed, and -- deeply as I hate Jerry Jones' outfit -- I'm worried, too.

It wasn't always that way.  As a kid growing up first in Austin, then in the Rio Grande Valley, I adored the Cowboys.  Somewhere in my family album live pictures of me, a seven-year-old decked out in a full replica of Duane Thomas's road uniform.  We had gone to my grandparents' house in San Marcos to watch the NFC title game.  Sadly, that was the game Dallas lost 26-3 to Washington's infamous Over-The-Hill Gang -- so one of those pictures shows me sprawled across the couch, bawling my eyes out.

My affection for the 'Pokes survived for a long time after my family moved to Illinois.  Eventually, I did adopt both the Bears and the Browns, but we made sure to catch the Cowboys.  [In return, CBS, which televised NFC games back then, made sure that watching Cowboy games would be easy.]  I even cared about them as new owner "Bum" Bright trashed the team in the mid- and late-1980s.

It was Jerry Jones who finally got me to abandon the Cowboys.  At that point, I had long since stopped being a kid.  Going 3-13 was one thing, but replacing Tom Landry with Jimmy Johnson, the Gordon Gekko of college football, was unforgivable.  The Cowboys I knew and loved had ceased to exist.  Better to fret about the Bears' interminable quarterback search than worry one more minute about Jones' new toy.  To hell with the new Cowboys.

Since mine is a Texan family by birthright, they Cowboys still come up every weekend in the fall and early winter.  One of my sisters still roots for them, but the rest of us have moved on, mostly to the Bears.  If the Cowboys do miss the playoffs this year, we'll be sad -- not because we once loved them, but because it will represent one of the worst wastes of gridiron talent we've seen in a long time.

Fantasy update:  Score two more victories this week.  The Fluttering Horde rode the Peyton Manning-to-Andre Johnson connection to a 95-78 win over Toothless, the team run by one of my twin nephews.  Meawhile, The Middlemen backed deadly receiving with a crushing Miami defense to roll over TheSDPackers, 108-95, and move to the top of the table.

Victory Weighting update: The Week 2 standings are up.  Washington lost to Houston, but the overtime period they played puts them alone atop the stunningly weak NFC East.

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Tuesday Gridiron: Game over, dude

How bad was the Minnesota Viking defense last night?  The 36 points it conceded last night wouldn't be so embarrassing if the Chicago Bears offense hadn't scored them.  Yes, those Chicago Bears.

If the Vikings couldn't stop the Bears last night, then what offense could they stop?  Get 11 fluffy kittens like these two, hand them a playbook, and you'd have an idea.  If nine of them were declawed, last night's Minnesota defense might even keep them out of the end zone.

And that's why Team Venture lost its final game of the season.  Needing only an average performance from the Minnesota defense against the NFL's weakest offense, we got last night's travesty instead.  Final score:  WRs Aren't Our Forte 85, Team Venture 72.

I spent all year with no top-flight receiver no top-shelf tight end and no great running back.  I finished the year with only four of my original 14 draft choices.  Under those circumstances, I should've probably finished 4-9 and out of the playoffs.  But Tom Brady and Brett Favre held up their end, one after the other, midseason pickups Danny Amendola and Justin Forsett kicked ass, Nate Kaeding kept kicking the ball through the uprights, and the Minnesota defense dominated for most of the year.  That core, and more than a bit of luck, got me into the playoffs.  All thing's considered, I'd call 7-9 a solid, positive accomplishment.

Now if only I could get a legitimate WR1... .

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Tuesday Gridiron (14/2009)

See these two clowns?  On the left, Jay Culter is doing as much for the Chicago Bears as he's done since late September.  As of this typing, his interception count for the season has drifted past the 25 mark.  The guy on the right, Bears coach Lovie Smith, has lately become better known for botching replay challenges than more trivial matters such as, I don't know, coaching.

Pick either man, and you'll have an idea of how badly my fantasy-football week went.  Here's the correct way to look at the final score for last week's consolation semifinal:

• Team Venture starters:  1 touchdown, 58.61 points
• Team Venture reserves:  8 touchdowns, 72.94 points
  

It gets worse:

• The only starter who scored was Danny Amendola, the one nominal wide receiver who isn't supposed to score.  (He's in for his return yardage.)
• My actual score included San Diego kicker Nate Kaeding and the fading Minnesota defense.  The bench's score didn't, because neither Kaeding nor the Viking defense had backups.  (Kaeding doesn't need a backup, but the Vikings sure do.)
  

The phrase you may be looking for is "career low."  It's hard to worry about beating the guy running the other team (101 points) when you've just gotten your ass kicked by your own bench.  I literally could not dump my two worst starters -- Bears tight end Greg Olsen (23 total yards in the last 3 weeks) and Houston RB Arlan Foster (0 points) -- quickly enough.  Yahoo! made me wait until Monday morning.

Actually, things could be worse.  In next week's seventh-place game, my opponent is WRs Aren't Our Forte.  That team started the playoffs seeded first, but now it's trying to avoid the playoff cellar.  That must really suck, because I'm unlikely to ever have a week this bad again.


At 7-8, my big decisions rest on the question of just how low Cutler, Smith and the rest of the Bears have sunken.  Specifically, I have to decide whether the Bears could provide a tonic for a Viking squad that's been struggling.  If so, then Brett Favre and the Viking defense keep their starting spots.  If not, Vince Young (at San Diego) and the Cleveland defense (at Oakland) might be better choices to start.

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The Victory Weighted standings this week give virtually the same playoff results as the official NFL version.  The only difference involves officially eliminated Atlanta.  Their Strength of 29 leaves them within a game and a half of sixth-seeded Dallas (Strength 35), and so still in contention.  Even under Victory Weighting, the Falcons would need "help" from the Cowboys and the Giants.

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Aye, There's the Flub: A Venture Bros. Review

 "There is no Hair Fairy, is there?" -- Dean

The 1985 Chicago Bears won Super Bowl XX using the most powerful defense ever to take to the gridiron.  Superstars Walter Payton and Jim McMahon powered the offense, whose job that year was to simply mop up the devastation that the "46" defense brought upon its opponents.  Their only loss that season, a 38-17 defeat at Miami, happened mainly because the Bears had a rotten second quarter.

That second quarter kept coming to my mind as I outlined this post.  Every great champion has at least one episode that simply sucks.  The same is true of television series: there's always at least one episode that's obviously worse than the others.*  The Venture Bros. has had a great run, but "Perchance to Dean" is the first episode that I can claim to dislike.  It's not a bad episode, but with its larger-than-normal plot holes, it's not good, either.

It was nice to track a simpler plot line.  (Simple is good, once or twice a season.)  It was a pleasure to see a VB episode highlight Dean.  Finally, it was good to see movement in the relationship between Doc Venture and his twin sons.  Like the "46" that 1985 night in Miami, alas, none of these meshed very well.

In the core plot line, as punishment for a spectacularly funny insult, Rusty has handed Hank an excessively long list of chores.  Hank chafes, of course, and the arrival of his friend Dermott simply abets his rebelliousness.  Meanwhile, Rusty has decided to start training Dean as a scientist.

The basic Dean line actually works.  At first, Dean is uncomfortable with the idea of becoming a scientist.  It doesn't help when Rusty turns the Panic Room into Dean's mini-lab (no windows!).  But Dean has started losing his hair, and he soon starts experiementing with fallen strands of it.  In a hilarious sendup of progressive rock music, Dean finds even more inspiration in a listening room that Rusty had previously kept secret.

By contrast, Hank gets nothing but contempt, and it's small wonder that he decides to join the annoying (but popular) Dermott on another adventure.  I generally don't like Dermott, whose only interesting feature these days is his mysterious mother, who makes a voice-and-shadow appearance at the end of the episode.  (Right now, Dermott is just a bulked-up Nelson Muntz.)  As a foil for Hank, though, Dermott works well enough this time.

So far, so good.  In other VB episodes, the inevitable complications improve the plot, but here, none of the complications work.

• D-19, the episode's main antagonist, is a deformed, paranoid and generally sad Dean clone.  Terrible actions notwithstanding, I could only feel sad for D-19.  Circumstances considered, the fate he meets might be kind.  The trouble is that D-19 deserved a better beginning.  From the opening sequence, we are supposed to believe that he (a) survived being literally flushed down a drain as an embryo, (b) made it to the Venture attic and (c) reached even the limited level of intellect he has -- all while undetected by Brock Sampson or the Ventures for at least 16 years.  All three conditions must have been met for D-19 to have any plausibility, but I didn't see evidence that any of them were.  Yes, Doc Venture misses lots of things that happen on his own property, but that doesn't resolve this hole.
• Let's see if I have the psychic-delivery-man story line right:  Delivery man, inadvertently prodded by a frustrated Hank, alerts the sheriff of a bad feeling he has about the compound.  Sheriff brings in a SWAT team to raid the compound.  SWAT commandos move in, arrest Doc Venture and Sgt. Hatred and Hank, and take Hatred's PC (why not Venture's?), only to let it all go at the end.  In the first place, where have the cops been since the end of Season 1?  In the second, the tip-off from the psychic recalls only bad 1970s made-for TV movies.  Amusing references to the Branch Davidian and Heaven's Gate cult disasters notwithstanding, I didn't see any reason to have this subplot.  Maybe the delivery man will show up again in a later episode.
• What is Sgt. Hatred still doing on the compound?  As a bodyguard, he's been an abysmal failure, and I'm surprised Rusty hasn't fired him.  His latest protection scheme, involving explosive mockups of Doc Venture, ties all the subplots together, but doesn't prevent either Dermott's intrusion or protect anyone from arrest.

Other issues -- the opening scene as Brock's first day on the job, Rusty's sudden change in behavior towards the twins -- would normally get their own paragraphs.  In "Perchance to Dean," however, these are just minor issues, worth just this little scribble.  The episode isn't as disastrous as some I've seen on other TV series I've liked (Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), but I hope this is a low point.

Score: 78/100, including a +5 bonus for J.G. Thirwell's progressive-rock riffs.


*Excepting The Wire, whose clunkers still made great television.

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