The Chicago Sun-Times could be facing its final days (literally–it could be gone for good in two weeks) and the Tribune is somewhere around a billion dollars in the hole (and soon they won’t be able to blame Alfonso Soriano for it).  And so you wonder, where will we all turn to for our sports news when they’re gone?  Local newscasts only have about three minutes of sports, Comcast SportsNet is convinced that giving half-wits like Mike North and Dave Kaplan a combined four hours of airtime a day is a good idea.  Sports radio in Chicago would already be dead if David Hernandez hadn’t done us all a favor and coaxed many (but certainly not all) of the least talented guys into unemployment a la Ponzi.

And so, you start to get nostalgic, thinking back to the days when you couldn’t wait to grab a Tribune or a Sun Times and read anything you could about your favorite teams.  You are nostalgic until you read insufferable horseshit like the stuff Rick Morrissey foists upon his hapless readers several times a week.

I wish I could say yesterday’s hack job about Jay Cutler was the worst thing he’s done in a long time, but he’s setting a new standard for terrible columns on a pretty regular basis.  If they had PED testing for shitty sports columnists, Morrissey would have the French chasing him around like he was Lance Armstrong.

Someone must tell Jay Cutler to wise up

Bears quarterback needs does of reality, to say nothing of maturity

Nice headline.  Rick and Kaplan must be using the same “Pedantic Headline Generator” app for their iPhones.  Oh, who am I kidding?  The two of them together couldn’t figure out how to turn an iPhone on, much less use it.

Who is going to tell him?

By that I mean, who is going to tell him?

Huh?  You just said the same thing twice.  By that, I mean, you just said the same thing twice.  You’re off to a fine start, Ricky.

Who is going to get in Jay Cutler’s face and inform him the Green Bay debacle was ridiculous?

I would guess that by definition, all debacles are ridiculous.  I mean, who among us hasn’t felt the need to ridicule a debacle.  Am I right?  By that, I mean am I right?

The four interceptions in Sunday’s opener were a career high, but the poor decision-making and the recklessness were nothing new. He did that periodically with the Broncos. It’s up to someone in the Bears organization to tell him that being blessed physically is not a license to throw risky passes over and over again.

I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell him myself, right after somebody at the Tribune tells you that just because you know how to type with two fingers that is not license to make your readers dumber every day.

But for the life of me, I can’t figure out who that person would be.

Maybe Vag McCaskey can do it?  She could have Jay over to the home and gently encourage him to throw to the guys in the same color shirts while he tries to chip a piece of hard candy free from that piece of crystal that Capone gave her dad?

It’s also up to someone in the organization to tell Cutler that his on- and off-field demeanor needs to change. Some TV analysts were annoyed by Cutler’s attitude in the news conference after the Bears’ 21-15 loss to the Packers. The attitude is nothing new either.

Now, this I agree with wholeheartedly.  Did you see Cutler’s postgame press conference?  He was rude and dismissive of the reporters asking him insightful questions like “What happened?” and “Why did you throw all those interceptions?”  Nothing will cause a team to fail faster than a player who rolls his eyes at David Schuster.  Just ask the Cubs, everything was going fine until Jeff Baker shrugged and turned away from Toni Ginetti in early August.  This must be stopped.

“I thought he looked completely immature,” former Saints and Colts coach Jim Mora said on the NFL Network. “He acted like he didn’t even care.”

Holy shit!  You buried your lede!  Hey, if Jim Mora thinks somebody is immature, then that’s a red flag.  This is a man who routinely uses the words “diddly poo” in actual conversation!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tie0tz7jGDI&feature=player_embedded]

Well, hey, it’s just one future Hall of Fame coach calling Jay out.  (Mora’s a shoo-in to be a first ballot inductee into the International Circus Hall of Fame in Peru, Indiana, once they get around to adding that Biggest Assclown category they’ve been hinting at.)

Added former Rams coach Mike Martz: “He just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand that he represents a great head coach and the rest of those players on that team. Somebody needs to talk to him.”

Uh oh.  Now football great Mike Martz is piling on.  This is bad.  Martz has done things never before dreamed of in football.  In the span of 11 months he managed to get fired by both Rod Marinelli and Mike Singletary.

If you have been led to believe it’s all about you — if a team bets its future to acquire you and then gives you smooches at every turn — it might be hard to listen to someone tell you it isn’t all about you.

Wait, you’re saying this isn’t all about Jay.  By that I mean, “Are you that fucking stupid?”  Your entire premise (such that it is) in this “column” so far has been that the one thing that’s sure to sink the Bears is Jay Cutler’s attitude.  You have certainly implied it’s all about that.  But now it’s not all about him?  I’m going to need a map to follow this.

But that’s the situation Cutler and the Bears find themselves in after exactly one game.

What’s the situation?  What are you talking about?  Did you write this in Spanish and have Babelfish translate it for you?  Because honestly, this makes just as much sense as what you’ve written so far.

¿Quién va a decirle? ¿Por eso significo, que va a decirle? Quién va a conseguir en Jay Cutler’ ¿la cara de s y le informa que el desastre del Green Bay era ridículo? Las cuatro interceptaciones en Sunday’ el abrelatas de s era un career-high, pero la toma de decisión pobre y la imprudencia eran nada nuevo. Él hizo eso periódicamente con los caballos salvajes. It’ s hasta alguien en el Bears’ organización para decirle que de bendición físicamente no es una licencia de lanzar pasos aventurados una y otra vez. Pero para la vida de mí, I can’ t imagina quién sería esa persona. It’ s también hasta alguien en la organización para decir a cuchillero que su comportamiento on- y del apagado-campo necesita cambiar. Cutler’ molestaron a algunos analistas de la TV; actitud de s en la conferencia de noticias después del Bears’ 21-15 pérdida a los embaladores. La actitud es nada nuevo cualquiera. ” Pensé que él parecía totalmente no maduro, ” el coche anterior Jim Mora de los santos y de los potros dijo en la red del NFL. ” Él actuaba como él didn’ t incluso care.” Coche anterior agregado Mike Martz de los espolones: ” Él apenas doesn’ t lo consigue. Él doesn’ t entiende que él representa un gran primer entrenador y el resto de esos jugadores en ese equipo. Alguien necesita hablar con him.” Si le han llevado a creer it’ s todo sobre usted — si un equipo apuesta su futuro para adquirir usted y entonces le da smooches en cada vuelta — puede ser que sea duro escuchar alguien le la dice isn’ t todo sobre usted. Pero that’ s el cuchillero de la situación y los osos se encuentra adentro después de exactamente un juego.

Now this, this I can get behind.

So who’s going to tell him he needs to change?

Lovie Smith? The blank-faced guy on the sideline who only shows signs of life when it’s time to challenge an official’s decision? No. Smith has gotten to where he is by being a “player’s coach,” meaning he speaks no evil to his troops. The chances of Smith telling Cutler, with feeling, that his crazed quarterback act has to end are zero.

Is there anything more tired than a sportswriter calling out a coach for not showing enough fire?  It’s such a “hack” thing to do, which is why Morrissey would be all over it.  It’s just lazy.  And to imply that Lovie doesn’t criticize his players is asinine.  Just because he doesn’t do it in a press conference, doesn’t mean he doesn’t do it at all.  Besides, you know damn well that if Lovie did do it in a press conference, this half-assed column would be about how that was the wrong thing to do, and how Lovie has lost his team.

(A Denver radio host presented an interesting scenario to me Tuesday: The Bears don’t make the playoffs for the third straight season, the McCaskeys fire Smith and bring in former Broncos coach Mike Shanahan to be reunited with Cutler. My on-air response was something along the lines of, “Hmmmmmmmm.”)

Well, I’m sure they’ll want to have you back on soon, then.  Nothing Denver sports radio listeners like better than guests on their favorite shows answering questions with an undecipherable humming sound.  Hell, if all they want is gibberish they’ll just listen to Woody Paige.

By the way, how great is it that he rips Lovie for being blank-faced, and then says it’d be great to replace him with Mike Shanahan, a man so committed to being impassive on the sidelines that he only moves one eye?

Ron Turner? If you ever have gotten the indication the Bears offensive coordinator is a budding Buddy Ryan-like motivator, please let us know.

Where the hell is this going?  Suddenly we want Buddy Ryan?  Is Rick still criticizing Cutler for not putting on a hairshirt and taking the blame for losing the Packers game all by himself?  What the fuck does Buddy have to do with that?  Buddy practically invented the press conference strategy of “act like you wish you were anywhere else and that you wouldn’t piss on the writers if they all caught fire.”

Jerry Angelo? The general manager has handed the team to Cutler and said, “Here, it’s your baby.” He could have helped tone down the hype surrounding Cutler in the off-season, but didn’t. He also could have added a front-line wide receiver in the off-season, but didn’t.

At what point did Jerry “hand” the team to Jay?  Did I miss something?  Seriously, I don’t have a clue what Morrissey is trying to get at now.  Is he just randomly picking words out of the dictionary now and throwing them at his monitor like a monkey throwing around some of Jim Mora’s “diddly poo?”

Brian Urlacher? Not his style, plus he’s out for the season. Injured players tend to be nonentities in the NFL.

That’s right, Rick.  If anybody knows how to play nice with the media it’s Brian, who refused to talk to them for most of the last two seasons.  But why would you know that? It’s only your job.  A job you do very, very poorly.

Ted Phillips? Only if Cutler complains ticket prices are too high.

Ugh.  Holy shit, you are so bad at this.

Olin Kreutz? He has his own problems with the offensive line. The question is whether the Bears center will reach the point where his natural instinct to protect his quarterback will give way to doing what is right for the team. Kreutz is busy in the trenches and might not be intimately familiar with the art of quarterbacking. But he does know what a dumb decision looks like on film.

Olin’s not busy in the trenches, unless that’s slang for “hitting Fred Miller in the face with a dumbbell.”  At this point, it’s apparent that Rick is just randomly typing things and checking the word count to see when he can stop.

The sky isn’t falling, though it is dark. The Bears need to view what happened Sunday as an opportunity. Somebody has to take Cutler aside and tell him the team needs a smart, in-control quarterback. A fiery quarterback, not a foolish one.

So what did actually happen on Sunday?  The Bears lost on the road by six points in a game in which the guy he’s trying to flog led them on a 14 play, 69 yard drive that ate up 7:35 of the clock and gave the Bears the lead with 2:35 left in the game.  That came after two third quarter scoring drives, the first of which was 10 plays and 79 yards and included a 36 yard touchdown pass to Devin Hester, the second was an eight play drive that gave the Bears their first lead of the game.  I’m just not sure what your point is.  And as Neal Page so eloquently said “Have a point, it makes it so much more interesting for the listener.”

The way the franchise, the fans and the media have built Cutler up has been bewildering. He is not a veteran John Elway nor even a close approximation right now. Maybe someday. That’s a huge “maybe” for any young quarterback. In the same way that the trail of Michael Jordan heirs is long and bloody, so it is with all the next Elways.

It’s up to the Bears to give Cutler every chance to maximize his potential. That will involve some tough love, something with which he doesn’t seem overly familiar. But if they get through to their quarterback, Urlacher’s absence might not be a deal-breaker for their playoff chances. And beating the Steelers this week might be more than a possibility.

It is absurd that the franchise, the fans, and of course, the non Rick Morrissey media be excited that the Bears, a team that never put any kind of importance into finding a competent quarterback suddenly acquired a 26 year old Pro Bowl quarterback.  It’s just dumb.  We should have been upset.  Why bother trying to find a good quarterback.  I mean there’s a 50 percent chance he’ll lose his first game and then the franchise will likely implode, go bankrupt and we’ll all catch syphilis and die.  It’s time we all give you credit for being so damn smart, Rick.

Clearly, the reason Cutler threw four interceptions in the game, and played terribly in the first half was because nobody will yell at him.  It had nothing to do with the fact that his offensive line wasn’t doing a whole lot of blocking, his top three wide receivers had a grand total of 71 career receptions (all of them by Hester), or that he was trying to force plays instead of taking a sack or throwing the ball away.  And, it’s not like he got it together in the second half or anything, and actually played well enough to win the game.

If Lovie had just screamed at him at some point and told him he sucked, the Bears would have won that game 45-21, it’s just that clear.  Fucking Lovie.  I guess he just doesn’t want to win.  What an asshole.

When an organization has spent five months saying its new leader is a franchise quarterback who will make even the most pedestrian receivers better, it’s sort of hard to tell him he’s human.

But better now than later.

I’m sure Sunday’s pregame speech will consist of Lovie quieting the team, getting them to take a knee and circle around him, and then in his best Italian-accent he’ll tell Cutler that he’s not a wooden puppet, but that he’s a real boy, and Cutler will go 55-57 for 1217 yards and 17 touchdown passes in a 119-0 win over the Steelers.

All of this reaction is the same he and some other media dipshits had after the preseason opener in Buffalo.  Cutler didn’t play well, he had the temerity to blame Hester for not trying to break up a pass that was intercepted and everyone predicted doom for the offense and the team in general.  Then, the offense looked good in wins over the Giants and Broncos and everybody calmed down.  For a while.

Congratulations, Rick.  On yet another steaming pile of shit.  Consistency like yours is a rare thing these days.  Even the worst columnists accidentally make a coherent point once and a while.