It’s funny how the Bears’ offense looks with a quarterback who can, oh, I don’t know, throw a forward pass? It looks actually competent. Sure, it helps when you play a December game, outdoors against the Vikings. Minnesota would have a tough time beating a Division III team once the calendar hits December, but still, it was encouraging to see Chad Hutchinson thrive in what should be a quarterback friendly offense.

Scoff all you want, but legends like Kurt Warner, Trent Green and Mark Bulger have all played well in this offense, so who knows, maybe Hutchinson wasn’t a mirage. Maybe next year the Bears will actually have two legit quarterbacks on their roster?

Or, maybe not. What does it say about us that as Bears’ fans we went from bemoaning the fact that Jeff George was listed as the third, or emergency, quarterback to Chad Hutchinson Fan Club Members in about ten minutes? It says that not only don’t Bears have any experience with a real QB, neither do we.

On Friday I labeled the Bears as reckless for playing Brian Urlacher on one leg. Apparently, on one leg, he’s the best defensive player in football. He was everywhere yesterday, in the Vikings’ backfield, smacking Onterrio Smith into the turf, picking off passes. Every once and a while some drunken simp will call a Chicago radio station and get one of the hosts to admit that they think the Brian is a media creation. That we’re only supposed to think he’s great because he’s white. Then, days like yesterday remind you that he’s great because he’s great.

The Bears victory yesterday was encouraging because every time the Packers have faced a good team they’ve gotten crushed. Not just beaten, but crushed. So while being 5-7 and saying you’re in the playoff hunt is normally sheer lunacy, it’s just not this time. Can the Bears win four more in a row? If they could they’ll get in the playoffs. Will it happen? Let’s just say we won’t be betting the ranch on it.

Nice to see Desmond Clark play good football for nearly three quarters. All of this throwing-him-the-ball-stuff wore him out and he got hurt. I think tight end stays at the top of next year’s wish list.

Jerry Azumah’s a very good football player, especially for a guy with a broken neck, but how comical was it to see him literally riding Culpepper around the field while Daunte looked for a receiver. How friggin’ big is Culpepper? He shouldn’t wear a number on his chest, he should wear his own zip code.

Bobby Wade and Justin Gage are still on the team? I thought they carried Rex off the field in week three and then disappeared? Well, that’s good to know.

Only the Bears would end up in a situation where they find a guy off the scrap heap and turn him into a legitimate QB prospect and take crap for it from the fans and media because they didn’t use him early enough.

If they mishandled Hutchinson it wasn’t because he didn’t start before Sunday. They went from Rex to the apparent back up Jonathan Quinn. They gave Quinn ample opportunites to prove he’s a complete stiff (which he did). Hutchinson had only been on the team for a couple weeks so they went to Krenzel. Inexplicably, they won three games in a row. When Krenzel completely imploded it was before a short week and the Thanksgiving game against Dallas. They decided to stick with Craig. He got hurt (and he sucked). They went back to Quinn.

That’s the part that confounds me. Why did Jonathan Quinn go into a tie game against the Cowboys? That’s when you had to go to Hutchinson. It was his old team. It was his chance to be Clint Longley and stuff it in Bill Parcells eye. And they went with Quinn and lost to a terrible Cowboys’ team and humiliated themselves by playing horrifically on national TV in bright orange jerseys.

——–
The Sun-Times is reporting that the Cubs expect to sign both Nomar Garciaparra and Todd Walker before tomorrow night’s arbitration deadline. Mike Kiley is the reporter so grab your grain of salt, but I’ve been telling you this for about five days now. In fact, the Cubs are now considering giving Walker arbitration, which they hadn’t been before. They believe he’ll command around $3 million for one year if he gets arbitration and they’re looking at paying him almost $5 million for two years anyway if he’ll sign the contract they’ve offered him. In fact, Walker may wait until close to the arbitration deadline to sign his Cubs’ deal to see if he can get them to up the ante a little, because of Andy MacPhail’s pathological avoidance of arbitration hearings.

As for Nomar, his is reportedly a one year deal with either a mutual option for 2006 or one that vests after a certain number of plate appearances. His one year deal will start around $8 million and could be worth as much as $12 if he meets all his incentives. One of those incentives is believed to include getting Mia to “corner kick” Albert Pujols in the groin.

As for Sammy, the Barry Bonds steroid thing couldn’t have happened at a worse time. The Mets were already teetering because of the media and public’s expressed horror at trading for Sammy, and now the Mets are worried that all they’ll accomplish is creating a spring training circus with the NY media trying to pin steroids on Sammy.

That does not mean the Sammy trade is dead however. But it certainly didn’t improve the chances of it happening.

———

When the new college basketball polls come out today there’s a chance that the Illini could have vaulted all the way to the top of either or both. Being number one in December doesn’t mean much, but it’s not exactly a stick in the eye is it?

———

Jim Fassel is reportedly interested in the Notre Dame job and it was reported in today’s Tribune. This scares me because on Saturday I started telling people that’s who Notre Dame will hire. He’s been a college head coach before (Utah of all places, just like Urban), he was John Elway’s position coach at Stanford and with the Broncos, he’s been an NFL coach and led a horrendous Giants team to the worst Super Bowl ever and the “I’m moving my chips to the center of the table” jokes are irresistable.

Also scary is that I agreed with almost everything Skip Bayless (of all people) wrote about Tyrone Willingham. Ty is a great guy and a good coach, but his problems at Stanford, great upset wins, head-scratching losses were always chalked up to not having enough talent. So at Notre Dame the upset wins and head-scratching losses continued and his recruiting hauls showed a disturbing lack of talent. If Notre Dame has to keep changing coaches every few years before it finds one, then so be it.

———

What if the Bears’ offensive scheme really is so good that all it takes is a dope like Chad to run it? Anybody ever think of that?

The receivers were quick to condem Craig and Jonny with praise for Hutch.

Wait a minute, Anthony Thomas went on the Maury Povich show? Did he have to take a paternity test? Is the paralyzed kid his? Why am I talking in all questions? Why?

Teddy Greenstein says that Ron Zook is probably headed to Illinois, but Ole Miss is making a run at him. If you’ve never been to Ole Miss, let me just tell you that the best looking women in the world go to school there. I’m not saying that will sway Ron, but since half of U of I’s girls are in the engineering program and look like Soon Yi Previn, it’s an edge.

The Huskies are off to the prestigious Silicon Valley Bowl against Troy! Good seats still available. All of them.

Groucho with another trade idea, but this time Eddy Curry’s not in it.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to blame the Bears for not using Hutch earlier.

Peter King on Bill Belichick’s return to the land of cleve.

The A’s are going to trade Tim Hudson. It just might be to the Cardinals. I don’t care if the Cardinals give up a lot to get the Unit, but Hudson’s too young for the Cardinals to get their hands on. We’ll have to put a stop to this.

World-class racquetball player Jeff Conine hurt himself playing paddleball (whatever that is) and may have cost himself a new contract with the Fish.

The Angels are hell bent for Beltran. They got Vlad Guerrero last year, though the Cubs would have signed Vlad if they weren’t so deeply indebted (financially) to Sammy. If they get Beltran and he wins an MVP, like Vlad did, I might have to stick my head in the oven. Again.

Michael Jackson had to give a DNA sample to police. No, not the fun way.

America’s finest news source on why people are shaving their heads:

Comments