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.

---

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!

---

Tweet of the Month

I always regarded Patton Oswalt as a stand-up guy.  True to form, he's responded to Sarah Palin's "blood libel" screed with this devastating tweet.  You know, I might have to actually sign up for Twitter now.

---

Victory Weighting: Live playoff blogging

Happy New Year! Today, I'm updating the playoff races as games end, using my Victory Weighting system.

14:53 CST:  The Jets defeat Buffalo, 38-7.  They finish at Strength 42 and 11-5, so they can still hope for a #5 seed.  For that to happen, Pittsburgh would have to lose in regulation.

15:03 CST:  While I'm waiting on another relevant game to go final, I should note that, under Victory Weighting, the St. Louis Rams would already be NFC West champions and a #4 seed.  Their 29 Strength is guaranteed to be the best in their division.  [Second-place Seattle could achieve, at best, Strength 28.]

Also, New England has had the AFC East and the AFC high seed locked up for a couple of weeks.

15:07 CST:  Chiefs 10-31 Raiders.  Kansas City finishes at Strength 40 and 10-6.  They would fall to a #4 seed if Indianapolis wins.

15:09 CST:  Baltimore and Pittsburgh both win in regulation.  Both teams finish at 12-4, but Baltimore would win the AFC North and the first-round bye with Strength 47.  Pittsburgh would get the #5 wild-card seed at Strength 46, leaving the New York Jets with the #6 spot.

Officially, Pittsburgh gets the division title and the bye.  Barring some odd results in New Orleans, Green Bay and Washington, D.C., this will be the only instance this year where the Victory Weighted playoff seeds deviate from the actual ones.  Oddly enough, this seems to happen every year with the Steelers and Ravens.

15:26 CST:  One of the only two questions left in the NFC gets two answers, but needed only one.  Atlanta beat Carolina, 31-10, clinching the NFC South title and the NFC high seed.  As a result, Chicago locks up the #2 seed (and the other first-round bye), while New Orleans wraps up the #5 seed (and a first-round trip to St. Louis).

15:35 CST:  Tampa Bay's 23-13 win at New Orleans leaves them at Strength 41 and 10-6, still alive for the last NFC playoff spot.  It also closes out the New York Giants, who could finish with, at best, Strength 40.

Consequently, Green Bay (currently Strength 38 and 9-6) must beat Chicago in regulation to reach the playoffs.  Even an overtime win would send Tampa Bay through instead.

18:06 CST:  Green Bay wins, 10-3.  With Strength 42, the 10-6 Packers take the last NFC playoff spot from Tampa Bay.  They open the playoffs at Philadelphia.

18:08 CST:  Jacksonville loses 34-14 at Houston.  The Jaguars bow out of playoff contention, handing the AFC South title to Indianapolis.

18:10 CST:  The Colts beat Tennessee, 23-20, on a last-second field goal.  Indianapolis takes the #3 AFC seed, and will host the Jets next week.  Kansas City slips to the #4 seed, to host Pittsburgh.

18:30 CST:  That's it.  Tonight's Rams-Seahawks game will decide the official NFC West champion, but has no bearing on the Victory Weighted playoff picture:

NFC First Round:  (6) Green Bay at (3) Philadelphia; (5) New Orleans at (4) St. Louis
AFC First Round:  (6) New York Jets at (3) Indianapolis; (5) Pittsburgh at (4) Kansas City
NFC Byes:  (1) Atlanta, (2) Chicago
AFC Byes:  (1) New England, (2) Baltimore

23:24 CST:  Whoops.  Seattle won the actual Sunday night game, and with it the NFC Oceania West title.  St. Louis goes home, so Victory Weighting would have made another correction.

---

Wednesday Football: In a blizzard. Uphill. Both ways.

Why, when I was a teenager, I did all my calculus homework on a slide rule.  Outside, while walking two miles through a meter of snow to my school-bus stop.  Uphill, both ways.

That statement is silly, of course, but not much more ridiculous than Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell's ill-considered criticism of this week's postponement of the Vikings-Eagles game.  For me, broadly speaking, it's what Tom Kinslow said over at Bleacher Report.  And that's as many column millimeters as I want to blow on this.

---

2010 fantasy football wrap:  Well, the third time was indeed the charm, and that was bad news for the Fluttering Horde.  I did what I could, and even made up for Andre Johnson's last minute injury, but my running backs and tight end failed me.  Even if they hadn't, Anything But Last had just too much firepower.  After beating ABL twice during the regular season, the Horde lost the league championship, 122-96.  Still, for a team that never got two decent running backs together all season long, and finished 9-7, I'm pretty freakin' happy.  More importantly, it got me a 3:1 payoff and fantasy silver.  Yay, Horde!

The Middlemen also finished 9-7, pounding the Juken' Jockstraps, 127-68, in its fifth-place game.

My most valuable players:

• For the Fluttering Horde:  For the second year in a row, St. Louis wideout Danny Amendola saved my skin.  At the beginning of the year, the Rams tried to make him a full-time receiver, so I didn't draft him.  Soon enough, though, the Rams made him their lead kick returner.  I picked him up, and he delivered 10-18 points week in and week out.  No one was more reliable.
• For the Middlemen:  Chicago running back Matt Forte also gave me solid numbers every week, even as everyone else on the team, including the much-ballyhooed Chris Johnson, sputtered.

I'm going to try to get them both next year.

---

Hoping your Christmas Day is going well

Well, here at the edge of Chicagoland, we've been treated to another white Christmas.  All the snow came yesterday during a day-long shower.  It's pretty enough, but the temperature is right around the freezing point of water.  The show on the streets iced up, so even walking got slippery this morning.

Oh, well.  It's Christmas, and we didn't have plans to go out.  The salt can wait until tomorrow.

Merry Christmas, one and all!

---

Tuesday Football: Happy returns

On a landmark week for kick returners, it makes sense to debate which spectacular return was the week's best:

• Devin Hester's 64-yard sojourn last night, which made him the all-time leader in kick-return touchdowns;
• Dan Connolly's shocking 71-yard return Sunday night, probably a record for a lineman; or
• The New York Giants' second Meadowlands Meltdown, or DeSean Jackson's last-second punt return that won the game for the Eagles?

My vote is obvious:  in only one of these cases did someone go through the trouble to simulate the play on the glorious Tecmo Super Bowl game.  Enjoy!



After the actual play, the FOX cameras panned onto Giants coach Tom Coughlin, yelling at his punter. While the ball should've been kicked out of bounds, no team should ever be punting in the closing seconds of a close game.  To his credit, Coughlin didn't fire his punter, so he probably realizes that he deserves blame for leaving his team to punt that way in the first place.

---

Fantasy football update:  Sometimes, the last minute of a real game directly affects a fantasy game.   With Green Bay driving for a winning touchdown Sunday night, the Fluttering Horde led its semifinal match by only 2.4 points. A Packer touchdown would have cost the Horde three points and the game.   Instead, the Patriots' defense came up with two sacks (+2 points each) and the game-ending fumble recovery (+2).

Final score: Fluttering Horde, 103; Southside Hitmen, 95. The Horde advanced to 9-6 and a date with Anything But Last. I've already beaten ABL twice, but this one is for the league championship.

The Middlemen got a break when Adrian Peterson suddenly bowed out of last night's blowout loss to Chicago.  Without Peterson, the Warriors didn't have enough to rally.  Their 116-102 win puts the 8-7 Middlemen into the fifth-place game against the Jukin' Jockstraps.  The good news is that Michael Vick will again lead the Middlemen.

The bad news is that Vick will also be leading ABL.  Peyton Manning had better be on his best behavior.

---

Tuesday Football: Where every seat is cheap

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! (FOX Sports)

Sensational as it is, Sunday's failure of the stadium roof in Minneapolis points to some rather disturbing facts.  In the first place, this is not the first time the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome roof has collapsed under a lot of snow.  After the third one in 1983, and a wind-related failure in 1986, Metrodome officials made some technical fixes to strengthen the roof system.  Unfortunately, it now appears that the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, the body that maintains the stadium, may have ignored warnings about the fiberglass roof itself.  Replacing the roof would cost 12-15 million dollars, and I wonder whether the MSFC just thought that investment was too expensive.  The answer to that question doesn't matter now, I suppose.

But stop and think about this:  According the the people who designed and built it, the roof has "has exceeded its service life of 20 years."  Seriously?  The good people of the Twin Cities spent tens of millions of dollars on something that with a lifetime of only 20 years?  Just to keep an effing sports team?

That question also occurred to the folks over at Treehugger, who noted that the Metrodome was built both quickly and cheaply.   I had always wondered why the Pontiac Silverdome, once home to the Detroit Lions and host of the classic Super Bowl XVI, ended up selling for only $500,000 after the Lions abandoned it.  And, what, I wondered, was the point of building the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis if the Colts were going to dump it in only 25 years?  For that matter, what about other huge venues that didn't make it to their 40th anniversaries?  The Kingdome?  Veterans' Stadium?  The NBA arenas in Orlando and Charlotte?

These things got built because, in order to keep their beloved sports teams from moving to some other city (or, in the case of Indianapolis, to steal a team) municipalities had to build new arenas, and build them right now.  Again:  what's the point in redirecting tens -- now hundreds -- of millions of taxpayer dollars on a major building if it's not going to last that many decades?  So the sports team(s) can make millions, not a dime of which goes back to the city?  So the cities and/or states that spend that kind of money can do it again in 20 years?

A 100,000-seat stadium full of dog manure, that's what it is.  I don't care who's spending a billion dollars for a new stadium.  For that much money, the Cowboys and New Meadowlands venues had damned will better withstand a hell of a lot more than a meter of snow.

---

Fantasy football update:  Well, what'll you know?  Both my teams won this week.

Victory came too late for the Middlemen (7-7), whose struggles kept tracking with those of Antonio Gates' feet.  For once, the Middlemen got a team on its worst week.  Again, the performance was weak, but it was enough for an 84-74 win over the playoff-bound Tin Men.  It didn't matter, alas, as fourth-place No Clue also, relegating the Middlemen to the consolation bracket.

I'm not going to stick God for all the blame for wasting a team as talented as the Middlemen.  [In the family league, top-seeded Anything But Last shares no fewer than five players with them.]  Its fast start surprised me, and also blinded me to the possibility that I could lose key players to injury.  I waited too long to find substitutes, and it hurt.  Also, I never did find a steady defense.  [This week's squad, Oakland, scored zero points.]  The Middlemen's bigger problem, though, was bad luck:  they seemed to catch every opponent on its best week.  As I've discovered to my regret, the most talented team in the league is doomed if it has to rack up 110 Yahoo-standard points to win every week.

On the other side, the news is much happier for the Fluttering Horde (8-6), 111-56 quarterfinal winners over Osogood.  The match was over once the Patriots, whose defense the Horde uses, blew out my beloved Bears.  On Monday, Andre Johnson and Ahmad Bradshaw pitched in 44 points that the Horde really didn't need.  Up in next week's semifinal:  an earlier Horde victim, the Southside Hitmen.  Now that Peyton Manning's earned his way out of my doghouse, I like my chances to finish in some money.

---