I don’t think there’s any head coach in football that likes a true quarterback controversy. If anyone does a survey, I would bet that the best teams have one signal caller who everyone looks to for leadership and performance on the field. Marino, Bradshaw, Unitas, Montana; unless these guys were hurt, it was expected that they would be in the huddle, leading the offense.
On the other hand, when there is a real quarterback controversy; it generally means that you don’t have a great quarterback. And if there is one professional football team that has the worst track record at the QB position, it is the Chicago Bears. The Bears have had 33 different quarterbacks start in that past 25 seasons. Many of the team’s career passing records are still held by Sid Luckman, Hall of Famer from the 1930s and 1940s. And when they get a quarterback, injuries follow.
Witness yesterday’s game – the Bears, who had underestimated the winless Detroit Lions, were 10 points behind at home, when the latest starter, Kyle Orton, was flushed out of the pocket. Never a fleet rusher, Orton got tackled near the sideline and a Detroit defender rolled over his ankle. The high ankle sprain is expected to keep Orton out for at least a month, just as people were starting to believe in Orton. The team was 4-3 under him; he made few mistakes; and he was on track to break the Bears’ single season passing record (held by Eric Kramer).
While there may be nothing good about a QB controversy on a team, it is also “conventional wisdom” that the most popular player on a football team is the backup quarterback. Usually, there is a vocal group that hates the starter and thinks that the backup would do better (unless of course, you have a proven great starting at the position). No where has that been true than here in Chicago, except now. Rex “Schizo” Grossman came into the game and was able to get the Bears the win (aided by running back Matt Forte’s 125 yards; and a defense that held Detroit scoreless in the second half). As usual, Grossman was inconsistent: he threw a laser to Rashied Davis for an 11-yard touchdown; but completed only 9 of 19 passes for 58 yards, throwing an interception to go with the touchdown pass for a 49.9 quarterback rating.
And the boo birds were out: every time the Bears’ offense sputtered, the boos come down on Grossman. Ordinarily, I would feel for someone getting booed that mercilessly, but, just as before he got benched, Grossman doesn’t seem to learn from his mistakes. His best throw is the deep ball, but he hasn’t gotten any better on the medium and short routes; nor has shown any improvement when throwing off his back foot, to keep the ball from sailing on him.
As for my other favorite football team, the Northwestern Wildcats, a quarterback controversy seems to be brewing there as well. C.J. Bacher had been the starter for the past two seasons, but a hamstring injury forced him to the bench for last Saturday’s game against Minnesota. So, in came Mike “The Metamorphosis” Kafka, who was unable to rally the Wildcats against Indiana the week before. Now, he faced a ranked team, on the road. Prospects weren’t good. That is until the ‘Cats were able to jump out to a 10-0 lead, allowed Minnesota to score 17 unanswered points, scored a touchdown themselves, and then, the Wildcats were able to win on a 42-yard interception return for a touchdown. Kafka was instrumental in the victory, rushing for 217 yards against one of the best defenses in the Big Ten coming into the game.
So, with the mighty Ohio State Buckeyes coming to town on Saturday; who should play? Bacher was listed as “questionable” for the Minnesota game, but he was dressed. It is expected that Bacher should be ready on Saturday. Should Kafka, the runner, continue to start or Bacher, the inconsistent former starter? Kafka is the better runner, but Bacher is the better passer. Both seem to have the confidence of their teammates and coaches. Personally, it is s nice situation to have, but Bacher has been the starter and led the team to the 6-2 start prior to Saturday’s win, and in my mind, should start Saturday if he’s able.
But maybe the either Bacher or Kafka could be the emergency starter for the Bears?

There is very little sadder than an athlete who falls on hard times after the fans have gone away, cheering for the current athletes. In some instances, it is the body that succumbs to the rigors of the sport. In other instances, it is the athlete, believing himself invincible and youth and the big money will last forever. Two Chicago athletes were in the press this week, an example of each.
Probably no one needs to be reminded of how tough professional football is with all of the health problems that have befallen retired players, often without the financial support promised by the NFL.
While that issue was not addressed, the Chicago Tribune reported yesterday that one of the heroes of the Chicago Bears’ only Super bowl championship, William “The Refrigerator” Perry is suffering. The now 45-year-old Perry requires a wheelchair to get around him hometown of Aiken, S.C. as a result of his suffering from Guillain-Barré syndrome, a potentially life-threatening condition which affects the peripheral nervous system and causes progressive weakness.
Perry was hospitalized for five months and looks forward to improvement in his health. “I’m doing fine,” Perry said. “I’m walking a little bit and rehabbing and doing what I’m supposed to. Tell everybody that I’m doing a whole lot better. It just takes time. I hope to be up and about in a walker real soon.”
The article also didn’t make any connection between the disease and any possible causality to having played several years in the NFL, but one has to hope that “the Refrigerator” comes out of this alright physically and financially.
One the other hand, we have the athletes who can’t control their sexual organs; and go out and impregnate the world and don’t think that a day of reckoning will ever come. Former Bull Jason Caffey is one of these guys. Caffey attempted to declare bankruptcy to protect him from several women who plan to sue him over child support payments. However, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Margaret A. Mahoney dismissed the bankruptcy case, clearing the way for the eight mothers of his 10 children to sue for child-support payments in arrears.
In addition, Caffey may be facing time in jail. The bankruptcy filing also had blocked an arrest warrant issued by a judge in Georgia. LoRunda Brown’s attorney told a Mobile, AL newspaper that he will ask the judge to reinstate the warrant in hopes the prospect of jail might entice him to pay Brown child support and legal fees totaling more than $200,000.
As long time readers well know, I feel for athletes who don’t know who to trust. Women throw themselves at professional athletes in hopes of wealth, attention, and, to many, getting “knocked up” is like hitting the lottery. An athlete doesn’t know if a woman is attracted to him/her for the person or for the bling. However, one would think that after the first child out of wedlock, or even the second; or the third; a smart person would think before jumping into the sack, or at least, perish the thought, use protection. That horses$#% about not feeling during sex is a myth and promotes irresponsibility.
It’s hard for me to feel for Jason Caffey. It’s hard for me to feel for any of the “Mamas” who slept with Caffey and had babies. It’s the children I feel for – not asking to be conceived and born, not wanted by Daddy and used by Mommy for money. It’s sickening.

Let me include my name with the people giving condolences to Jennifer Hudson. I have not seen one moment of American Idol, so I never saw her sing on television, but I heard that she lost and shouldn’t have. I have seen the film Dreamgirls and think that her Best Supporting Actress Oscar was well deserved. But the entire world now knows that she lost her mother, brother and nephew to violence this past weekend, and it’s just sad what has happened to her and her family.
But her tragedy is just more publicized than the numerous non-reported tragedies that happen in the Englewood section of Chicago and numerous low income neighborhoods around the country every single day.
I overheard one very ignorant person yesterday asking “why didn’t the family just leave Englewood” as if it was partly their fault for living there (even though it appears that it was Ms. Hudson’s sister’s ex-husband that may be behind it all, not some stranger off the street). I didn’t answer there because I might have exploded, but I understand why they don’t leave: despite my far less than Ms. Hudson’s fame, I have been able to attain a certain level of success, and my grandmother and mother chose to remain in Englewood until they died, even though we could have managed someplace outside of the neighborhood for them to live. But, I believe like Ms. Hudson’s family, Englewood was where my mother’s and grandmother’s home was; where their church was; where their friends lived. And they didn’t want to move to a neighborhood where they didn’t know anybody.
But it isn’t enough for me. I tired of the constant nagging fear that stays with you all of the time in Englewood. I didn’t want to subject my wife to it; I don’t want to subject my kids to it. So I moved, and when the parents died, I sold the house. Now, I get to the old neighborhood infrequently, going to my folks’ old church once annually, and occasionally driving through on my way someplace else. So, I’m a sell out because I got tired of bars on the windows and the sound of gunfire at night. But don’t you people in Englewood see why?
You want respect and the same rights as human beings, but you kill each other over drugs and money, but also over slights and minor accidents and occurrences. Don’t you see that you will continue to be treated like sub-human animals as long as you continue to act that way? You blame other blacks for leaving the neighborhood, but if we lived there, we would be the “rich” Negros and we would be targeted for robbery and worse. You’re insane; you madmen and women. Settling arguments with guns and physical violence is how beasts act, not men. And you mothers of young men, you know if they are up to no good – stop fooling yourselves and kick them out. Make them live somewhere else if you can’t turn them in to the police (and its obvious that the police have trust issues, just ask Jon Burge).
We are on the cusp of a historic event; the election of an African-American as President of the United States. Let’s use this event to raise ourselves up, all of us, “bring our ‘A’ game” if you will and begin to try and improve our lives, our neighborhoods, ourselves, so that we, black people, can develop more self esteem so that we don’t have to pull a gun to be respected; don’t have to kill each other; and don’t have to have kids grow up afraid, or not grow up at all. If someone bumps into you, let it go; you don’t need to pull weapons. I, for one, am tired of yet another street corner shrine to some dead kid; another candlelight march; another group of mothers and preachers marching for peace before scurrying inside at dusk before the gunfire erupts.

Many people certainly hope for a Democratic landslide on Tuesday will wash the Republicans out of power and cripple them for many years to come. But still, some of their minions pulls out fear politics in the faint hope that the Democrats won’t have a filibuster-proof advantage in Congress because then, they can’t continue the blatant stalling tactics they have pulled since the 2006 election (and then blame it on the Democrats).
The Chicago Sun-Times has tried to reinvent themselves as a progressive (nee. Liberal) paper, but for some reason, they keep publishing this man named Steve Huntley, who has tried to be a less erudite William Buckley, or scarier George Will. Why they allow him to continue after purging the paper of neo-fascists like Mark Steyn, I don’t know; maybe they want to be “Fair and Balanced;” maybe he had nude pictures of the paper’s publishers. Usually, I ignore his biased demagoguery, but today he struck a nerve.
His column today carried the headline “How Dem Win Could Hurt U.S.” The old white man (most conservatives are old white men) is defending the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who has supported “business friendly” candidates running for Congress. He decries the Democrats who, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, have “raised ire” at the organization and “provoked a backlash from Democratic leaders.”
Huntley shows his ignorance, “think about that for a minute,” he tells readers. “The Democratic political establishment is telling a group of Americans how to conduct their politics. Had President Bush or republicans done that, the roar from the left and self-described civil liberties advocates would have been heard from sea to shining sea…. This has the rotten smell of the powerful trying to squelch political opponents.”
Sound familiar? This is exactly what the Bush administration, Fox News, and all of the pundits have been doing for eight long years. How does it feel to have the shoe now on the other foot? Maybe the Democrats are flexing their muscles in preparation for the a$$ kicking they are doing to dole out on Tuesday, but after all, they learned from the best. And what’s wrong with expressing their displeasure? Don’t get me wrong, Democrats are “a cowardly and superstituous lot,” and it wouldn;t surprise me if they are doing a poor job of telling the Chamber they’re in trouble. However, trust me, if Obama spits on the sidewalk, O’Reilly, Coulter, Hannity, et.al. would say that he is making a statement about his “hatred for America.”
Huntley goes on to decry a return to the “fairness doctrine” to broadcasting, which would be devastating to Fox and their propaganda machine if they had to give equal time to Keith Olbermann after Bill O’Reilly.
Finally, he had to reach into the fear bag. The democrats may (gasp) support actions to strengthen organized labor, which may cut into the precious corporate profits and inflict punishment on companies that move jobs out of the country.
“Imagine a union leader,” Huntley incites “and a couple of his thugs – uh, buddies – showing up at your doorstep to ‘encourage’ you to support union representation.” First, union representation has improved the plight of the American worker for decades. Second, the unions don’t have the same power as before, and third, is there any “Mob” anymore? Sure, a couple of senior citizen wiseguys could really get you to support a union? What are they going to do, drool on you?
The true fear is if you head a company or corporation who has been able to do whatever you want under the laizze faire government regulation, allowing you to line your pockets with money that you don’t have to share with the people who make your goods or peddle your services.
Steve Huntley is scared. He should be. He is a dinosaur and he can see the meteor in the sky that means extinction of his kind.

This Sunday, November 2nd, Berkley Breathed, creator of Bloom County, Outland, and now Opus, is ending the Sunday only strip dedicated to the penguin. But you wouldn’t know it from the Chicago newspaper that carries Opus, because it has been missing from the paper, with no notice for at least the past 2 Sundays.
If it is a cost cutting move, why not just wait until the strip ends in a couple of weeks? If the strip was too liberal for the Tribune, why carry it in the first place? Maybe the moron got his/her months mixed up? If so, why not publish the additional strips with a big OOPS?
Does anyone know?

Time is short. VOTE. VOTE. VOTE.
We could be in the middle of a historic time in American history, but it won’t happen if everyone believes that the race is over or won. If you’re worried about vote fraud and your vote not being counted, VOTE early if allowed in your state. I have and so has The Indignant Wife.
If you hate what’s going on in this country; VOTE.
If you don’t, you have no right to bitch about the outcome.

It certainly doesn’t surprise me that there is yet another controversy surrounding Isiah Thomas. Last weekend, someone (the police reported a 46-year-old male; Isiah is 47) was taken to a local hospital near Thomas’ home for an apparent accidental overdose of Lunesta sleeping pills. Thomas says that it wasn’t him, it was his 17-year-old daughter involved in the incident, and the local police have gone on the attack saying that they know a middle aged man from a teenaged girl and that it was indeed Thomas who was treated and that he was unconscious but breathing.
Around Chicago, Isiah will always be considered a hometown hero who has had some problems recently, but in truth I’ve never thought much of Thomas, and I’ve seen him up close and personal for years,
The cherubic faced kid came out of one of Chicago’s worst neighborhoods, protected by his mother, with good reason. The elder Thomas brothers were thugs of the highest caliber. I know, Mrs. Thomas and some of her kids would come to the old Chicago Stadium when I was working there as an Andy Frain usher. There was no sweeter person in the world than Mrs. Thomas, who knew me by sight and always wanted to know who my family was and how I was doing in school. The brothers were an embarrassment, showing up drunk and often disorderly; getting into arguments with fans because Isiah played for the hated Pistons, not the Bulls.
While Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn were the main instigators on the “Bad Boy” Pistons of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Thomas was quietly just as dirty as the big boys, but more of a punk because he would run behind the bigger guys when someone wanted to take umbrage against some hard foul Thomas gave out. Remember, it was a jealous Thomas who led the move to keep the ball away from Michael Jordan’s first All Star Game because Jordan had already marketed himself successfully with the Nike Air Jordan shoes.
Finally, Thomas retired from the game, but he was far from retiring from the spotlight. In 1994, he became part owner and Executive VP for the then-expansion Toronto Raptors, leaving after a bitter argument with new management in 1998. After a stint as a broadcaster, he and a group of investors bought the Continental Basketball Association for $5 million and ran it into the ground. The dumbest move seemed to be turning down $11 million from the NBA to make the CBA the official minor league of the NBA, but Thomas passed and the CBA remains a distant memory.
Despite a long history of superstars making poor head coaches, Thomas appeared to have redeemed himself by taking the head coaching position with the Indiana Pacers in 2000. His teams made the playoffs in all three years under Thomas but were eliminated early each season.
Then Thomas took over the New York Knicks as President. His Knicks teams were a collection of overpaid has-beens and never-wases, as Thomas seemed to have little concern for team morale and chemistry. The losing wasn’t the worst thing of course. In 2006 Thomas and Madison Square Garden (the corporate owner of the Knicks) were sued for sexual harassment by Anucha Browne Sanders. Anucha was at Northwestern when I attended (a couple of years behind me), and she was a very quiet girl, an excellent basketball player, but, by no means, gorgeous. Thomas again showed poor judgment; instead of quietly settling the case, they allowed the case to go to court, where allegations were made public of Thomas making demeaning statements to Mrs. Sanders, as well as making sexual advances and telling her that he loved her (unusual for a grown man saying this to a married mother of three). Mrs. Sanders eventually won the largest sexual harassment judgment in history up to that time, $11.6 million.
After being fired by the Knicks, Thomas was unheard of until the latest incident. Do I think Isiah Thomas tried to commit suicide? I don’t think so; very few people I’ve ever encountered have more ego than Isiah Thomas. Was I surprised to see him taken to the hospital? I guess I’m not surprised by anything an athlete does these days. But am I surprised that Thomas denied being the person taken to the hospital for the overdose? Not at all – all of his life, Isiah Thomas has been protected, by family, by coaches, by teammates. Very rarely has he had to face direct blame or accountability for his actions. In the final analysis, something happened at Thomas’ house last weekend, but what actually did happen is subject to question and is only important to the person/people involved.
All I know is, wherever Mrs. Thomas is, she is probably a bit ashamed of her baby boy.