The Roy Williams "half-hearted" and Occasional Appreciation Thread.

[Internet Apex]

I owe him at least this much.

I've given Roy his fair share of shit - and deservedly so - from the moment he arrived in Detroit as a heralded, mouthy, do-nothing asscastle. A typical Millen squandering of a high draft pick, a prototypical Detroit Lie-Down epitomizing their early enthusiasm/abject disillusion pattern on a weekly basis. He was coveted and targeted by Jerry Jones, one of the biggest boobs ever to be worth a billion or so dollars. How people from Texas keep defying those odds will never cease to worry and impress me. Anyway, Roy's tenures with Detroit and Dallas, two of my least favorite sports franchises were disastrous and barely eventful.

Failure. Thy name is Roy Williams. I remember your first game at Soldier Field when you did your queer first-down signal after a first quarter reception underneath the watchful coverage of my favorite player, Charles Tillman. I watched as he shook his head while your teammates laughed and after you beat him for a touchdown that would have tied the early score - your kicker's extra=point try was blocked - you talked your way back to the sideline with a bluster unbecoming of rookie receivers going against the Bears in that place even in the leanest of years. We thrashed you. Our defense, our crowd-noise - it was after that game that Lovie (probably at the behest of his colleagues in the p.r. dept) coined the term Fourth Phase to describe the Soldier Field faithful. Mike Brown and Brian Urlacher and Tommie Harris and P'Nut himself - there's just no end to it. They took turns punishing your teammates en route to a blowout made more infamous by your idiotic statement that your offense had left 40 points on the field.

It's stupid how well I remember all of that. I might actually be morphing two different early-season ass-thrashings of Detroit. But what's the harm in that?

Well, I also recall a far darker day at Soldier Field, with the villain being Brian Griese as quarterback for the Bucs. The very same Brian Griese (fuck you) who had sealed the fate of the 2007 Bears by losing twice (TWICE!!!11) to the fucking Lions in his brief stint as Bears quarterback. His elevation to starter kept the Bears from getting another look at Kyle Orton. And the tacit cries of "start Kyle Orton" took flight from the cornfields of Bugtussle yet Lovie and Ron Turner paid little heed. At first. He was replaced only after the two losses to Detroit - or was it merely and injury in Oakland against the Raiders? Fuck it. It was stupid. And it caused me to hate Brian Griese with the fire of a thousand Matt Murton-inspired merkins.  

Griese made his return to Chicago as the quarterback of the Bucs on September 22, 2008. Before the game I infamously posted on these same interwebs that if the Bears lost to Brian Griese, I would run naked through Grant Park with "FUCK DALEY" painted on my ass.

Continued...

[Internet Apex]

Well...

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-09-22/sports/0809210342_1_bears-brian-griese-tampa-bay

Playing without the injured Devin Hester, the Bears (1-2) gift-wrapped this one for the Buccaneers. Tampa Bay (2-1) was all but finished, trailing by 10 after Lloyd's 19-yard touchdown catch with 6 minutes 38 seconds to play. But thanks to Brian Griese's arm and Charles Tillman's brain cramp, the Bears found a way to lose.

Tillman picked up a 15-yard unnecessary roughness penalty in overtime for going after Bucs receiver Michael Clayton after the Bears had stopped the Bucs on third-and-9 from their own 8. Former Bear Griese capitalized, completing his team's 90-yard march to set up Matt Bryant's game-winning, 21-yard field goal.

Griese threw for a career-high 407 yards, completing 38 of 67 passes with two touchdowns. His 67 attempts tied for fifth most in NFL history and were the most by a Bears opponent. He won despite throwing three interceptions.

I know it doesn't take a whole lot to anger up the crimson life-liquid that courses through my Hoosier-bred veins. But Jesus. H. Christ.

Fast-forward to today. I sat on my perfectly sculpted pasty-white arse and watched as the Bears, perhaps exhausted despite Smith's denials, perhaps hamstrung by Mike Martz's clown shoes and their offensive line's incompetence, dared to blow another comfortable lead in London against those Bucs.

And just when you were sure that Josh Freeman would have all the best of the momentum on his way toward another ball-obliterating defeat, something happened. Something I won't soon forget.

The Bears had blown a chance to put the game away with a touchdown in the red zone with just over 3 minutes left and a 3-point lead. The Bucs would be able to follow Bob Gould's chip shot with two timeouts and a certain groove that they'd lacked for three quarters. But alas, one of the Bucs defenders stuck his fingers inside Roy's facemask in the endzone long after a sack of Cutler had been consumated by a blitzing Ronde Barbour. Half the distance to the goal. First down. A minute and a half ran off before Bob's inevitable score-settler. And Freeman followed that up with his fourth pick. This one to a triumphant D.J. Moore, who I like more and more every time I see. Fade. To. Black.

Yes. That all happened. And I know it doesn't take a whole lot to produce loud noises from my well-fed, Hoosier-bred gullet. But man, I just about brought the apartment house down with joy.

Roy contributed this line: 4 Rec for 59 Yards. One TD, two first down gestures and one, mind-blowing, life-altering penalty drawn on a Tampa corner Agib Talib.

It's hard to really blame Talib for getting mad enough to ruin his team's chances by going after Roy the way he did. I mean, I never could stand the son of a bitch either.

That's all changed now. And as for the turmoil he caused in Detroit and Dallas? Thanks again, Roy. First down!!!!!!

[JakeD]

**golf clap**

[Tonker]

Um... perhaps this is another "two countries separated by a common language" thing:  but if you're writing about it, it ain't tacit.

[World's #1 Astros Fan]

Um... perhaps this is another "two countries separated by a common language" thing:  but if you're writing about it, it ain't tacit.

Especially 40,000 words.

[JD]

Um... perhaps this is another "two countries separated by a common language" thing:  but if you're writing about it, it ain't tacit.

Whatever, Tonk.  Here in America, the Land of the Free, we don't have to know what words mean to use them.  We just have to know they exist.

And you're kinda ghey for even knowing what tacit means!

[Tonker]

Um... perhaps this is another "two countries separated by a common language" thing:  but if you're writing about it, it ain't tacit.

Whatever, Tonk.  Here in America, the Land of the Free, we don't have to know what words mean to use them.  We just have to know they exist.

And you're kinda ghey for even knowing what tacit means!

How do you know I know what it means, huh?  I wasn't explicit (swee what I did there?)  YOU KNOW WHAT TACIT MEANS, TOO, YOU GHEYLHORD!

[Yeti]

Um... perhaps this is another "two countries separated by a common language" thing:  but if you're writing about it, it ain't tacit.

Whatever, Tonk.  Here in America, the Land of the Free, we don't have to know what words mean to use them.  We just have to know they exist.

And you're kinda ghey for even knowing what tacit means!

How do you know I know what it means, huh?  I wasn't explicit (swee what I did there?)  YOU KNOW WHAT TACIT MEANS, TOO, YOU GHEYLHORD!

What are you implying?

[Tonker]

Um... perhaps this is another "two countries separated by a common language" thing:  but if you're writing about it, it ain't tacit.

Whatever, Tonk.  Here in America, the Land of the Free, we don't have to know what words mean to use them.  We just have to know they exist.

And you're kinda ghey for even knowing what tacit means!

How do you know I know what it means, huh?  I wasn't explicit (swee what I did there?)  YOU KNOW WHAT TACIT MEANS, TOO, YOU GHEYLHORD!

What are you implying?

What are you inferring?

[Internet Apex]

Did I not state implicitly that I'm from Indiana? Jeez.

I kept using that word. I don't think it means what I thought it means.

[Internet Apex]

It's stupid how close I came to knowing what tacit means.