Post Mortem

"You know the hardest thing about being smart? I always pretty much know what's gonna happen next. There's no suspense."

sigh. That quotes comes from Billy Bob Thornton in the incredibly forgettable movie Bandits (that was the one where he and Bruce Willis escape from prison and end up robbing banks. Outside, of that quote, the movie is impressively unimpressive. I know I've seen it, but I have absolutely no feelings, good or bad, about the movie. You'd think that with all the money spent on a movie, you'd be able to evince some kind of reaction from me, but all I feel about that movie, and other movies like it, such as the one where Will Smith and Gene Hackman run from the government, or the one where Bruce Willis tries to save that autistic boy from Alec Baldwin, or those two volcano movies that were released at the same time, is nothing. These movies couldn't have been terrible, because then I would have at least remembered that they were terrible. It is interesting to me how little I feel about those movies. Of course, because of this I suppose you could say that I at least feel a little interest in them. I mean, I did just spend a paragraph talking about them. Oh, everything's a paradox. Or it isn't). Anyway, I always liked that quote, probably because my megalomaniacal side likes to think that I have suffered the same problem.

The reason I bring this quote up? Because it is the best way to describe how I feel after the Super Bowl. As noted on this blog, I predicted the Colts would win 27-16, and I was only three points off, as the actual score was 29-17. I even suggested that Hester could run back the opening kick for a touchdown (but sadly, I did not have access to a bookie to place that prop bet. Oh well). Obviously this performance left a lot of Bears fans feeling let down, but I'm not sure I can count myself among them: I mean, if something turned out very much like you expected, it's pretty difficult to feel let down. So unlike a vast majority of Chicago, I don't particularly feel any anger about this: the Bears were who I thought they were.

I will admit that I was surprised by how easily Indianapolis controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Frankly, the Colts simply played tougher than the Bears. I did not expect the Colts to have much success simply running the ball into the middle of the Bears defense, but that is exactly what happened. The ability to pick up short yardage combined with Manning's stellar play on third down wore the Bears defense down. Of course, it doesn't help that the offense couldn't sustain any drives in the second half.

Still, with better quarterback play the Bears could have won this game. Having played fairly poorly up to that point, the Bears were still down only four in the third quarter, before Rex Grossman threw what was probably the worst pass in the Super Bowl since Garo Yepremian's interception in 1972 (sorry Neil O'Donnell: I hate to exclude you, but even your picks weren't that bad). Garo had the excuse of being both a kicker and foreign-born, whereas Rex has no such thing. After that pick, the game was essentially over, and the only things left to do were wonder whether the Colts would manage to cover and who would win the MVP.

So, now I'm left in a position I have been familiar with my whole life, due to the fact I'm a Cubs fan: waiting for next year. I am not sure what is going to happen with the Bears. For one, they have to battle the curse of the Super Bowl loser. Since the Buffalo Bills in 1993, no Super Bowl loser has made it back to the conference championship the next year. Also, before this year, for five years in a row the Super Bowl loser had even failed to make the playoffs the following year. Of course, the Seattle Seahawks showed this year that as long as parity is continuing to drag the sport down into mediocrity, even curses can be overcome. Here's to a really weak NFC again next year.

Still, there is an outside hope for me that the Bears could be better next year. For one, if Tommie Harris is able to come back and be as productive as he was pre-injury, the defense will get a shot in the arm. Same goes for Mike Brown, but in a lesser sense. The Bears still have tough decisions to make on Lance Briggs, and there is the concern about an aging offensive line, so the front office will have to have a good offseason, but in general Jerry Angelo and company have done a pretty solid job.

And there also could be a huge silver lining in this game. Having never thought Rex Grossman was worth a shit as a quarterback, his play in the Super Bowl did not particularly infuriate me any more than any other Sunday, but for many Bears fans, the Super Bowl was an eye-opener to the craptacularness of Rex. Though I do expect him to come back next year, there is a hope that if the yelling gets loud enough, the front office may decide to bring in someone else to at least compete for the starter spot. Whether Lovie will actually allow this to happen remains unseen, but finding a new quarterback, even if he's a journeyman like Jeff Garcia or a castoff like David Carr (who I would really like), would be the single most improvement to this team (of course, there's always a hope that all the NFL draft "experts" continue to talk up Brady Quinn's flaws to such a point that he'll fall to a spot that the Bears could think about trading up and drafting him. This is obviously a pipe dream, but it is fun to dream. By the way, have you heard that Brady Quinn has never won a big game in all his life? I also heard that his second toe is bigger than his big toe, and everyone knows that you can't be a good quarterback with a bigger second toe. I'm just putting it out there). I guess we'll have to wait and see.