Reflection: Let them know

Dear Mom and Dad,
Thank you. For supporting me these past 22 years as I made my way into adulthood. For never giving up on me when…well, I didn’t exactly make things easy on you. For steering me back on course when I got off. For allowing me to do the things I wanted to do while never forcing me into doing anything I didn’t want to do. But most of all, thank you for being my parents and for never once making me question whether or not I was loved.
I complain a lot, but that does nothing to my appreciation for both of you. I admire you both to unimaginable ends. Yes, there are times I’ll say that I want to be nothing like either of you, but believe me, there are more times that I want to be…well, at least quite similar to both of you..
Justin

Simple words. Simple sentiments. Not so simple thing to say.

I can only hope that San Diego Chargers running back and NFL MVP LaDanian Tomlinson was able to tell his father these things. Tomlinson’s father was killed in an auto accident Friday when the driver of his car lost control and swerved off the road.

It was sudden. It was unexpected. And it didn’t give Tomlinson any chance to chat with his father one last time before his death. It didn’t give Tomlinson a chance to say goodbye to his father, to tell him that he loved him or to thank him for his support.

Twenty-seven years of advice, friendship, guidance and love came to an end in a matter of seconds. Everything Tomlinson put off telling his father until the next day will be put off forever.

For Tomlinson, there is no more eventually, no more “I can talk to him about it later.”

It really is a sad story for an athlete who has always done things the right way. He’s never spoken out about his teammates or his coaches in the media. He’s never held out for a better contract. None of his record-setting thirty-one touchdowns ended with an embarrassing celebration. You never see his name anywhere near the police blotter section. Tomlinson has proven to be that rare superstar athlete that people should admire.

But tragedy struck him anyway, proving again that no one- not even the most decent human beings are invincible from these kinds of things.

A young football player can learn about the game by watching him play. But a young man can learn about growing up by learning from this tragedy and realizing that your loved ones aren’t going to be here forever.

For me, I learned that lesson in college. I watched my cousin- my best friend in the world who is only one year older than me- lose his father to a sudden illness. One morning his father woke up with a cough; a week later he didn’t wake up. Seeing my best friend’s pain over the death of his father made me want to hug my parents and never let them go.

Two days later, I saw as my mother had to let her own mother go. The helpless feeling she had while saying good-bye seemingly transferred to my body in a moment of pure sickness that I can imagine will only be surpassed by the feeling I get when my own mother passes away.

Situations like Tomlinson’s or like mine aren’t rare. We have all lost people we loved, and we will all eventually lose someone else who we love. It’s a scary thought, but it happens.

So learn from the times you’ve experienced it and learn from the times those around you have dealt with it. Cherish those seemingly meaningless moments with your parents and everyone else you love. Appreciate their company and let them know exactly how you feel. There’s no reason or excuse to put it off until tomorrow because the only thing you know for sure is that those you love will one day be gone. Personally, I can’t predict the day it will happen, but I can predict what will happen today. I’ll tell my parents I love them and that they mean the world to me.

Rivera's ouster almost logical

Life is a bit mysterious at times.

Just ask former Bears’ defensive coordinator Ron Rivera, a head coaching candidate for half a dozen teams in the past two years who was told Monday that his services would no longer be needed despite guiding one of the league’s best defenses to a Super Bowl berth this past season.

It became apparent the past few weeks that Rivera was a victim of circumstance, failing to land any of the positions because his team was either still in the playoffs when the vacancies were filled or because he lacked experience as a head coach. That’s life in the NFL for a coordinator looking to move up in the coaching world. Do poorly and don’t be considered, do too well and miss the chance to be hired. Sure. He had two more opportunities after the Bears season ended, one with Dallas and the other with San Diego. But considering that both teams were playoff teams this past season, it became obvious early in the process that they were searching for a coach with experience. And that’s exactly what they found in Wade Phillips and Norv Turner, respectively.

It made sense that Rivera would leave the Bears after failing to land a head coaching position. Coordinators understand the dilemma they face and realize their chance of becoming a head coach can be sabotaged by their own success. So they often find success and build their reputation in one place only to move to a less talented team for one season. This way, if their less talented team doesn’t make the playoffs, their stock isn’t lessened and they are able to accept head coaching positions immediately following the regular season. It’s exactly what Marvin Lewis did in Baltimore and Washington before becoming the head coach of the Bengals a few years back.

Yes. If that was why Rivera left the Bears, it would definitely make sense. But that’s obviously not the case. If it were, he surely wouldn’t have agreed to take a smaller role on the San Diego Chargers staff. Yes. The Chargers. The team who had the most wins in the NFL last year. The team who boasts the best offense in the NFL and one of the top three defenses. The team who will be favored to win the Super Bowl next season. Ron Rivera just agreed to coach their linebackers. This isn’t exactly a way to assure yourself of not becoming a victim of circumstance the next time teams are interviewing for head coaching vacancies. A more logical choice would have been to become the defensive coordinator of…oh lets just say…the Oakland Raiders.

Something just doesn’t add up here. If it did, the Bears wouldn’t have waited until Monday to announce that Rivera, whose contract expired after the Super Bowl, wouldn’t be retained as the defensive coordinator. If the Bears knew that Rivera’s plan all along was to leave the team regardless of title, they could have avoided a public outcry and simply promoted linebackers coach Bob Babich to the position. Heck, even if the Bears plan was to promote Babich regardless of what happened with Rivera, it would have made more sense to do it early and cite the desire to move forward. No one would have questioned that. Surely the fans would have understood the team’s need to move on early in the event Rivera did land a head coaching position.

But no. They waited. And waited. And then for some reason, waited some more. Then Monday came, and Rivera was gone despite not becoming a head coach. The fans complained, as they should have. Gone was the defensive coordinator of the NFC’s top ranked defense. Gone was the only link this coaching staff had to the 1985 Super Bowl championship team. Gone was any sense of logic.

And for some reason, the reasons have yet to come.

Rich stupid people

“Why are rich people so stupid?”

This was a question posed to me by my friend on Saturday night. I had only one answer.

“A lot of star athletes graduate from high school because they’re good at basketball. Teachers are afraid to give them bad grades, fearing that they won’t be academically eligible to play ball. Then they go to college and blow it off, dreaming of their big payday. When they finally get it, we have yet another rich person with the equivalency of a ninth grade education.”

That isn’t to say all basketball players are dumb. In fact, there are plenty of intelligent ball players. Unfortunately, the dumb ones decided to surface last week in light of former NBA player John Amaechi’s coming out.

By now, everyone has heard about Tim Hardaway’s comments on a Miami radio show. The former all-star said that he not only hated gay people, but that he didn’t believe homosexuality belonged in the United States. The comments sparked a huge backlash, causing the NBA to cancel Hardaway’s scheduled appearances during last weekend’s NBA All-Star Weekend.

After making the comments and receiving a heavy public backlash Hardaway tried to apologize by telling the Associated Press (AP) that he didn’t expect his comments to be as heavily scrutinized as they were. And that he probably shouldn’t have used the word “hate.”

“It was like, you know, I had killed somebody…I never knew that this was going to escalate that high,” Hardaway said.

Exactly what did Hardaway think would happen by announcing to the country he was a hate mongering homophobe? Did he expect to be patted on the back or to receive endorsement deals from the Republican Party and the Catholic Church? You’d think a professional athlete would be smart enough to control the words that come out of his mouth, to understand that millions of people are listening when you make a comment on a radio station. Apparently not.

LeBron James, on the other hand, is only slightly smarter. He realized that he had to be careful with his words, and that’s the big reason his comments didn’t get near as much publicity. But while he never said he hated gay people or that thought it was morally wrong to be gay, he didn’t exactly make the most intelligent response.

James told the AP last weekend that he believed hiding your sexual orientation is a trust issue. Players need to trust one another, and by not coming clean about who you really are, you’re losing that trust.

Excuse me?

Will someone tell me why it’s any of his business who is teammate is dating, man or woman? I sure hope that James tells every one of his teammates whether or not he has a date for that night and who he is taking out. Otherwise, he might be sacrificing some of that trust.

Perhaps had James gone to college, he'd understand a little bit better that another person's personal life is none of his business.

As it is, he's just another one of those rich people who are stupid.

Survey says

ESPN.com is up to their old tricks, this time with a survey asking people who they want to see win the Super Bowl more: Colts head coach Tony Dungy or Bears head coach Lovie Smith.
And the obvious winner: Tony Dungy, obviously. He had 78 percent of the vote.

What is it with this website lately? Did ESPN really need to take a vote to realize that Dungy is an obvious candidate to be a sentimental favorite?

I doubt the overwhelming difference in opinion from the sports watching nation is an indictment of how people feel about Smith, Instead, it’s probably more so indicative of how much longer Dungy has been around.

This guy has been a head coach for over a decade now. He took a perennial bottom-feeding franchise and turned them into a yearly contender, only to be fired the year before they won a Super Bowl. Simply put, this guy has already been robbed of a ring. Then you add the news that his 18 year old son committed suicide last year and you can’t help but want to see this guy succeed because of how well he has handled the difficult times put before him, both professionally and personally.

Again, this poll shouldn’t be seen as a knock on Smith, what so ever, as his players, peers and the media all speak highly of him. It’s just simply a case of him not being a house hold name for a long enough period of time.

That ESPN decided to use their heavily trafficked website to ask hundreds of thousands of people a question that could be answered by simply having a remedial understanding of how people in this country feel is a sign of just how far these sports writers are reaching to find another story about the Super Bowl.

Reading these silly surveys on ESPN.com has been both nauseating and appreciated. I can’t stand reading them. They offer absolutely nothing I couldn’t figure out on my own. But still, they give me a better appreciation of those rare moments I come across a sports survey worth reading.

Take the survey Coors Lite just administered.

-40% of adult males believe that the Super Bowl is a bigger event than Valentine’s Day.

-44% put more time and energy into making Super Bowl plans than they do in making
Valentine’s Day plans.

-30% would rather see their favorite team win the Super Bowl than win a date with a super model, win a year’s supply of beer, or win their fantasy football league for three consecutive years.

-More than 83% cheer for the underdog if their team is not in the Super Bowl.

-67% will get off the couch to use the restroom during the game.

-55% will get off the couch to get something to eat during the game.

-35% will get off the couch to get a beer during the game.

What a novel idea Coors Lite had here; ask people to answer questions that you couldn’t figure out by yourself. ESPN can learn something here. In fact, we all can learn something from this.

-40% of adult males are either single or will be spending Valentine’s Day night sleeping on a couch.

-56% of adult males can be expected to hear the question, “So, what do you have planned for Valentine’s Day” asked several times throughout the course of the game.

-Only 70% of the male population is heterosexual.

-17% of adult males cheered when Apollo Creed defeated Rocky Balboa; promptly boycotted the sequel.

-33% of the population has incredible bladder control, or wears dark pants.

-35% of the population is too stupid to keep the beer near the television during the game.

Despite media proclamations, Grossman legacy still a work in progress

My roommate said something the other night- which isn’t exactly anything new, he tells me that he has 21 years of experience saying things- but this particular statement stuck with me.

“People read these online polls, and they assume that these movies are bad because of them,” he said.

This was in reference to an AOL poll that asked pollsters which movie in 2006, they walked out of. The choices were, “An Inconvenient Truth,” “The Departed,” and “Little Miss Sunshine.” The latter two of these options, of course, were nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards.

“Why, do you think that is?” I asked.

He told me to think about it for a second. “It’s a bunch of uninformed teenagers voting on these polls, and they’re only capable of thinking what the internet tells them to think.”

Not more than 24 hours later, ESPN.com posted a poll question for its readers, asking who the worst quarterback to ever lead a team to the Super Bowl is. The options: Rex Grossman, Trent Dilfer, Tony Eason, Vince Ferragamo and David Woodley. The leader, at last check, of course was Grossman, who had compiled 33% of the vote.

Oddly enough, of the five quarterbacks listed, Grossman’s quarterback rating of 73.9 is bested by only Trent Dilfer’s 76.6 rating in 2000. Where does Dilfer rank on the list? Second, with 24% of the vote.

It’s enough to make you wonder how the two quarterbacks who had the best seasons of the group, based on ratings, could lead the vote. Now take into account that these two quarterbacks are the only two who threw more touchdowns than interceptions in their respective Super Bowl seasons, and you start to wonder a little more.

But my roommate’s comments helped shed a little perspective. The voters are younger. They only know the information they’ve read on the internet. Now seeing that most Super Bowl related articles this week have focused on the apparently awful season Grossman has had, and that his season has been most often compared to Dilfer’s Super Bowl season, it makes sense. The media is the driving force in obscuring its own online polls.

ESPN wants us to choose Grossman as the worst Super Bowl quarterback of all-time because it gives them another story to write. I can see the headline now:

Bad news Bears (fans), fans vote: Grossman grossest quarterback in SB history.

Does that make it true? No. Not by a long shot. Does it have any bearing on the actual game? It shouldn’t. But what it is, is aggravating to any Bears’ fan, who has to sit and read a column, based on a poll that says Grossman is worse than Tony Eason. Yes. That Tony Eason. The same Tony Eason who got his head smashed in during Super Bowl XX. The same Tony Eason who threw 11 touchdowns and 17 interceptions that season. Who completed an amazing 56.2% of his passes. And who posted a 67.5 quarterback rating. That guy is better than Grossman? It would almost be funny if people didn’t seem to believe it to be true.

Of course, the problem here is that the average sports fan- outside of Chicago and New England- probably doesn’t know who Eason is. Heck, I can’t for the life of me figure out how they’d know the names Ferragamo or Woodley unless they lived in LA or Miami, and even then I wouldn’t be shocked if the names didn’t ring a bell.

These polls don’t mention any information about these quarterbacks. The pollster is just expected to know all the information- but in true American fashion, he ends up just voting for the name he recognizes. (How else do you explain Arnold Schwarzennegger becoming Governor of California? I mean. Come on. Gary Coleman got votes in that election.)

In that spirit, how could anyone vote for Ferragamo? Who is this guy anyway? He wasn’t even the starter for the LA Rams when the season began in 1979, and it took three quarterback changes before he got his chance to cement his legacy as one of the worst quarterbacks to ever lead a team to the big game. But apparently, throwing five touchdowns while tossing ten interceptions is far better than whatever Grossman did this past season. Who cares that his quarterback rating of 49.0 was 25 points lower than Grossman’s?

Perhaps some might feel that this column is a bit off-topic. Or that it might even be borderline pointless (minus the borderline part.) But I contend that if these polls and articles written are going to be seen as the sole reminder of these players’ legacies then we at least owe them a bit more time to dissect what they really accomplished on the field.

No one can argue that Grossman played poorly at times this year. He led the league in games with a passer rating lower than 40 (5.) In fact, he had three games with a passer rating of 10 or below. But he also led the league in games with a passer rating above 100 (7), still managed to throw 23 touchdowns and became only the second Bear in history to eclipse 3000 yards passing in a season. (The Bears have been around since 1920, folks.)

An odd fact about Grossman’s season is that if you take out those five awful games he played, his stats would read: 22 touchdowns, 4 interceptions, a 63.1 completion percentage and 2662 yards. That’s right. In those five brutal games, he threw 16 picks and just one touchdown. (Oddly enough, those look a lot like Peyton Manning’s playoffs numbers. Of course, no one is going to mention that.) But my goodness. Look what Rex did in those other 11.

Even including those five games, that still gives Grossman a ratio of 11 good games to just 5 bad games. And last I checked, 11-5 gets you into the playoffs. Heck, in the NFC it gets you a first round bye.

Still, this guy is seen in the eyes of the media as a colossal bust; the worst of the worst to ever hoist a conference championship trophy. People point out any number of his deficiencies. He had a low completion percentage (54.6%). His 73.9 quarterback rating is on the low end of the scale. He has a tendency to have just abysmal games. But, while these statistics make him an easy target, it the recent occurrence of these numbers that have created the perception that no one before has been as bad as Grossman in leading his team to the final game of the year.

It isn’t as if Rex is the first quarterback in the history of the Super Bowl to have a low completion percentage or to post a passer rating in or below the 70’s during that year’s regular season. Hall of Famer John Elway did it in 1986 (55.6% completion, 79.0 rating) and again in 1989 (53.6 %, 73.7.) Other Hall of Famer players to accomplish the feat were Johnny Unitas (51.7%, 65.1 in 1970) and Jim Kelly (79.9 in 1993.)

Heck, Terry Bradshaw only completed 51.9% of the passes he threw in his career and finished with a 70.9 quarterback rating. He won his first Super Bowl in 1974 when his completion percentage of 45.3 and passer rating of 55.2 were good enough to get him benched during the season in favor of the “legendary” Joe Gilliam (sound like a familiar situation?) Of course, he then went on to win three more championship rings, so he’s generally seen in the eyes of this generation as one of the greatest to ever play the position.

Take into account some of the other “greats” to play behind center and lead their team to Super Bowl Sunday. Steve McNair led the Titans by throwing just 12 touchdowns and 8 interceptions. His 56.5 completion percentage led to a 78.6 rating. Phil Simms won two Super Bowls, but during his first run he completed 55.3% of his passes and earned a 74.6 rating while throwing one more interception (22) than touchdowns (21.) And who can forget about Joe Namath. Perhaps one of the more overrated players, whose legacy is defined more by one game than anything else he did in his career. In leading the New York Jets to a victory in Super Bowl III, he posted 15 touchdown passes, 17 interceptions and a 49.2 completion percentage.

Look at these names again. John Elway. Johnny Unitas. Jim Kelly. Terry Bradshaw. Steve McNair. Phil Simms. Joe Namath. Between these seven quarterbacks, that’s 18 Super Bowl appearances and ten wins.

And judging by the pedestrian regular season numbers they accumulated in some of the 18 Super Bowl seasons, it’s g to be those ten wins combined with great statistics during the seasons they didn’t make the Super Bowl that make these guys all-time greats.

So forgive Rex Grossman, he of just 26 career starts (he’s won 19 of them) and just now preparing for his first Super Bowl appearance, if he doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt these others have gotten through the years. He still has time. And time might show that Rex isn’t the worst quarterback to ever lead a team to the Super Bowl. He could wind up on the other side of this argument someday.

Enough is enough

I feel as if the national media is banging us over the head with a frying pan--repeatedly. OK. We get it. Rex Grossman isn't as good as Peyton Manning. Who is?

Immediately following the Bears win over the Saints, a columnist over at the Sports Illustrated website wrote a column about Rex Grossman being the worst QB in the history of the Super Bowl. He said that you can't give the distinction to Jeff Hostettler, Trent Dilfer or Mark Rypien because those guys at least won the game--keep in mind, Grossman hasn't played the game yet; if he wins, will he be taken off the list? The columnist then tried to save himself a bit, saying that even if you don't agree that Grossman is the worst QB in the history of the Super Bowl--you have to admit that no matter who wins the AFC Title game, he will only be the second best QB in the game.

Wow! Stop the presses. Sports Illustrated is going out on a limb and making the statement that Rex Grossman isn't as good as Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. In other news, the sky is blue and the Bears play in Chicago. Come on, here. We get it. Rex Grossman has the ability to lose this game for the Bears. He has shown throughout the year that there is a higher probability he will cost the Bears the game than there is that he will single-handedly win it for them. But this doesn't qualify as a newsworthy opinion anymore because every single sports journalist in the country seems to be saying the exact same thing.

Imagine this. You're in college. You do a thesis paper and try to prove that Reggie Bush did in fact deserve to win the Heisman Trophy in 2005--well, there was no opposition to him winning. In fact, he won the award in a land slide. You'd probably get a failing grade for trying to prove the obvious. It's no different with these ridiculous "Rex Grossman is no Peyton Manning" columns. It's obvious. Stop writing it. We already knew it.

A much more interesting story, though, might be that Peyton Manning could cost his team a Super Bowl win. There's something that hasn't been written about lately.

Sure. People know that Manning has had post season failures. His Tennessee team didn't win until the year after he left. His Colts teams didn't win a playoff game until two years ago. He couldn't get past Tom Brady. He has never won a championship. But still. All of these stories seem to have one common thread to it: a built-in excuse. As in, "Peyton Manning has never won a championship...but it isn't his fault that his defense has never been that great." Forget the fact that he has historically struggled against good defenses (N.E., Pittsburgh, Baltimore, San Diego).

Forget that he has thrown only two touchdowns in these playoffs while allowing nine picks- or that his defense and run game led the Colts to the Super Bowl--not his 'laser rocket right arm,' as he says in one of his many commercials. Forget all of this. Because the failures and shortcomings of Manning will obviously be overcome because of one simple fact: He's better than Rex Grossman...the guy who has thrown eight less picks in these playoffs and as many TD passes while playing in one less game.

Obviously Baltimore's and N.E.'s defense are better than those of New Orleans and Seattle, and that played a part in Manning's high number of turnovers. However, the Bears defense--while behind Baltimore in talent--is still ahead of N.E. and K.C., two teams Peyton struggled against this post-season. Don't be shocked if those same struggles show on February 4 and they cost Indianapolis a championship.