Life is better during football season. Sundays are no longer the days that should be great cuz we don’t have to do shit but actually suck because we have to go back to work in like, 16 hours. Sara actually accepts that I’m not doing anything on football Sundays. I won that battle years ago. What am I gonna do, dust some fucking shelves after nine beers? Please. Anyway Packers rule and the Bears still suck, obviously. Part of me was worried that all the talk about Cutler not beating the Packers and throwing critical interceptions and ruining the entire franchise might actually light a fire under his worthless ass, but that anxiety was misplaced. Cutler showed yet again that he just. does. not. give. a. shit. He’s just there for the massive paycheck and you know what? I don’t even blame him. I might do the same thing if I was him, I’m just glad he doesn’t play for my team. The Bears looked more disciplined than they have in recent years, and maybe John Fox can get this franchise turned around, but for now, the Bears are still our bitch. Thanks for two wins a year, losers. Here’s what I liked and didn’t like:
What I Liked:
 |
| I mean, was he playing with his eyes closed? |
James Jones: I’ll admit that I was not in favor of signing Jones
last week. It’s not that I don’t like him, he was always a productive receiver
and seemingly a good dude. I just thought that we’d be better served in the
long run to give the young bucks their chance to show they belong. That may
still be the case, but I can’t argue with JJ’s production on Sunday. Two
touchdowns in his triumphant return was awesome, and a third TD was wiped out
by a bogus holding call. His presence allows Cobb to stay in the slot when we
go three or four wide, and he showed everyone that he isn’t just lacing them up
as a decoy. I can’t really figure out why he’s able to produce since he’s not
that physically gifted. My latest theory is that his LaDuke-esque giraffe neck
allows him to see over defenders (and possibly through the time-space
continuum), but for now that’s just theory.
Offensive Play Calling: Everyone knew the off-the-field relationship between
Aaron Rodgers and newly-minted play-caller Tom Clements was good, but they
appear to be aligned on the field as well. This duo deserves some of the credit for keeping
Rodgers upright, since Clements was able to keep him out of unnecessary
deep-drops, and Rodgers was able to make the correct checks at the line. I
absolutely love the commitment to the run in short yardage (and even a critical
medium yardage down). Old school football gets me all hot and bothered. Eddie
Lacy in the backfield certainly makes it easier to commit to the run, but I
still think it takes guts to run between the tackles on third and 3.
One good game down in my book for Clements, 18 more to go.
What I Didn’t Like:
Run Defense: Matt Forte is not that good. He really isn’t. Yea we
were missing two of our starting defensive linemen, but there is still no
excuse for allowing that kind of production in the ground game. I don’t think a
single one of our linebackers looked good against the run, and that includes
Clay Matthews. They need to show more patience instead of just crashing the
line as soon as they diagnose a run. It was too easy for Forte to bounce it outside once the line got bottled up. It’s obviously a work in progress with
this position group, and they’ve got a big test coming up next week in Marshawn
Lynch. They can’t do much worse than they did on Sunday, so let’s hope they take
a step forward next week. I’m just sayin, if we can’t shut down backs at the
line of scrimmage, Adrian Peterson might actually kill our safeties. I wonder
if there might be a Jake Ryan sighting sooner rather than later.
Third Down Defense: I harp on this all the time, but god dammit it’s
really fucking important. The Bears went 11 for 17 on third down, but it sure felt worse than that. We could not get off the field in the first half, and it lead to a half time deficit against a garbage team. Giving up third down conversions tires out the defense, builds confidence for the offense, allows play callers to get in a rhythm, basically dictates the momentum of the game. Too often we came within inches of a sack, only to give up 12 yards after Cutler broke the pocket. We need more pressure up the middle next week to contain a more mobile quarterback.
On Andy:
Losing
a friend hurts bad. Andy was a good friend always and a great friend when he
could be. He was compassionate, loyal, and flat out hilarious. One time we were
stocking shelves together at Pick-N-Save in Wales, and Andy decided he wanted
to a take nap. So he built a fort out of paper towels on the bottom shelf, and
crawled in behind it to go to sleep. To me it seemed like a lot of work to get
out of doing work, but whatever. Anyway the manager Ken saw the whole thing and
fired him. Another time Andy lit a bottle rocket off in his ass crack.
Unfortunately his cheeks were too sweaty for the rocket to take off, so instead
it just burned a hole through his boxers and pants and blistered his ass. I
couldn’t think about that without laughing out loud for literally a decade.
Andy was unique. He never judged anybody and treated everyone with respect. I
think that’s the biggest reason he had so many friends. He didn’t care where
you were from or what you looked like or any of that meaningless shit. To Andy,
if you were cool, you were cool. As I said on Saturday, I’m going to try to
take a lesson from Andy and live a better life in his honor. I’m gonna miss
that son of a bitch like crazy.
Quotes of the Week:
“I
don’t know, he said he was going to the Checker Public or something. Must be a
place for retards or something cuz I’ve never been there.”
– Andy Gronewold
– Andy Gronewold
“No,
fuck taking a break. You’re going to be representing all of us when you go to
college, so you have to be able to drink everyone under the table. You’re up.”
– Andy Gronewold
– Andy Gronewold
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