Don't tell Brian about the Paris Hilton thing, eh Matt.
The big news about Arizona Cardinals’ Matt Leinart isn’t just that he got prepared for the lack of protection he’ll get from the Cardinals’ O-line by eschewing it in his extracurricular activities. At least not for me. As for a rich, white guy signing a deal with $14 million of guaranteed cash in it, and then announcing that he knocked up his on-again-off-again girlfriend, I just don’t think anybody will be too negatively impacted by that. Not the least of whom is the kid, who will have a Heisman trophy winning father and a…uh…kind of thick, but sort of cute mom who got a college basketball scholarship.

This isn’t even the story for me. What it did was remind me of some of the most uncomfortable moments in NFL Preseason history. All of them involved Mike Ditka.

On Friday night’s telecast, Ditka went from impressed by Leinart’s debut to full-out enamored by it. Mike Ditka…Iron Mike Ditka, mind you…said the following things about Matt Leinart.

He’s kind of a cute guy.

He gets to hang out at parties with Nick Lachey. That’s good stuff.

By the end of the night, it was clear that Ditka was ready to trade an entire draft for Leinart. I have a hunch, though only Dave Barnett knows for sure, that Mike finished the broadcast smoking a cigar and not wearing any pants.

The next thing we know, Matt and Coach will be on an ESPN The Magazine cover in a tux and wedding dress.

The whole thing distressed me, and continues to do so. Especially the part that Coach Ditka knows who Nick Lachey is. Shit. Ditka didn’t even know who Jim Lachey was, and he coached against him for chrissakes.

Because I know you all turn to me for guidance when it comes to all things sport (and really, who can blame you), here’s my two cents on the whole Rex Grossman-Brian Griese thing.

I got a little tired of the graphics during last Friday’s game that pointed out that if you took Brian Griese’s career numbers for completions, yards, and touchdowns that he’d rank #1 on the Bears list for all three.

Look, Griese’s a solid quarterback. I’m not going to pretend he’s not, even if I think his dad is the worst College Football announcer–ever, and even if Brian did go to Michigan. But first off, any stiff with six seasons under his belt probably has numbers that would put them way up on the Bears QB charts. The Bears have been so bereft of competence at that position that Ryan Leaf looks like Sonny Jurgensen compared to most of the dopes who’ve tickled the center’s nutsack in navy and orange over the years.

But remember, Griese’s numbers were accomplished in competent offenses. Denver, Miami and Tampa Bay. It’s easy to put up numbers when every third play isn’t a wide receiver reverse, and when your wide receivers are actually faster than a trio of Andy Frains.

As for Rex, what do we know about him? Other than he’s got a weird, low, Sling Blade kind of voice (I’d love to hear him say “potaters” just once) and his body parts are made out of some sort of paper mache.

Over at the Some Times, Jay Mariotti (who is getting fat again, by the way, and inexplicably looks more like a queen the more he weighs) compares Rex to Cade McNown.

That’s not fair. Cade was lefthanded.

And, a punk. I don’t know that Rex is a punk. He seems like a pretty normal guy, albeit one who’s been paid a lot of money and hasn’t done anything yet (like most of the Cubs, actually), and with an overbearing father. I would think that Cedric Benson is a more apt comparison to Cade, except that Cedric is black and plays running back and so that’s a whole lot more thinking than Jay actually wants to have to do.

I don’t blame Lovie for wanting Rex to have the job. He’s got a better arm, he’s got a cooler first name, he’s younger, he has yet to get drunk, trip over his dog and slide face first down his driveway (though really, it’s probably on his list of freak injuries down the road).

But like Steve Young said yesterday, the Bears have a championship caliber defense and how long can you really expect to keep them around? It already looks like Lance Briggs might bolt after this season and Mike Brown is falling apart before our very eyes. The window at getting to a Super Bowl is closing. If it means you end up going with Griese to give yourself a better shot, even if that’s not in the best long-term interests of the Bears, you really might have to do that.

The problem, of course, is that for all the grief Rex is taking, it might just be that he’s not the problem with the first-string offense. It could be that his only proven receiver is officially over the hill, that the younger guys either can’t catch or can’t end up in the right places to catch the ball, and that the running game has been non-existent. It could well be that if you switched Brian and Rex that all that would have happened this preseason is that Rex would have put up good numbers and Brian would have led the offense to nothing but punts, field goals and interceptions in the end zone.

If that’s the case, we’re right back to where we were last year. Hoping to squeeze out 17 points and hoping the defense returns an interception for six. Or maybe even holding out hope for another 106 yard missed field goal return.

Guh.