Pat Fitzgerald has now crossed the line. What was perceived as loyalty, especially to his embattled Offensive Coordinator Mick McCall has turned into a belief in his own infallibility. Long term readers know that I have been an opponent of McCall’s for the past several years, including writing Fitzgerald a letter in 2016 and emailing McCall this past summer. Both missives were respectful, but pointed:
… for the past three college football seasons, I have called for the firing of Mick McCall. Having been fired, I am very cautious in calling for anyone to be fired… He has been in Evanston since 2008 and in his time, his major move has been to continue to run the spread offense. Yes, he coached some good QBs: Persa, Colter, Bacher, Kafka and Siemian, but in my opinion, it has been more the result of the QB’s ability to operate in McCall’s never changing offense than McCall’s coaching.
The best coaches craft their scheme and game plan toward the strengths of the players they have, not try to fit square pegs in round holes forcing players to do things that aren’t natural to them. NU is running essentially the same spread offense whether the QB is mobile and can run the option (Colter, Persa) or more standard drop back passers (Bacher, Kafka and Siemian).
Yes, the Cats went 10-3 this season but the offense, as you well know ranked 115th out of 130 FBS teams. Each year for the past four years, the offensive rank has declined. We went 10-3 because our defense was VERY good – perhaps the best unit we’ve fielded since you were playing middle linebacker.
How much worse would the offense have been without Justin Jackson? Perhaps they would have been 127th? Jackson was the centerpiece of the offense, but he carried the ball more than any running back in the nation, and with Solomon Vault moving to wide receiver, one has to wonder if McCall is going to kill the kid. Yes, he’s very good, but a little diversification (along with some help) should make the team better.
This season, McCall anointed red shirt Clayton Thorson as the starter, but the play calling was as vanilla as snow and predictable as a train schedule. Thorson looked good in short stretches, but I had my section, especially my fellow season ticket holders, in stitches as I yell out a dive play up the middle to Justin Jackson on first down, then, like clockwork, that is the play that was run.
Based on his record of fitting players into his scheme regardless of their strengths and weaknesses, it appears to me that McCall believes that the problem is simply execution. ‘We can run the same play; it will work if we block better or run better,’ is the message I see. However, when the defense knows what you are going to run, the best you can expect is a minimal gain and Big Ten defenses are among the best in the country. Far too often, the offense is faced with a 2nd down and 8 yards to go (or worse) after running the same dive play again and again. A lot of people criticized Thorson but I don’t see an offense suited to him.
Another gripe – quarterbacks get hurt, and almost every season, NU’s starter has lost anywhere from a portion of a game to a game to multiple games due to injury. When this happens, the second string QB never looks ready to play and it takes a couple of games before the kid even appears confident on the field. That is the QB coach’s responsibility and you know better than anyone who the QB coach is?
While Northwestern’s website hails McCall as an offensive innovator, over the past three years, his play calling has become more and more conservative. The playbook has become a pamphlet with the offense running many of the same plays over and over. In the 2014 season, calls for McCall’s job were out there, but you stayed with McCall, citing loyalty. Many alums, myself included, were upset and skeptical.
There is a season ticket holder who sits in front of me who has a radio and listens during the game. Running off the field at one halftime, you told the reporter that the team needed to throw more on first down in the second half. Then the team came out and ran on nearly every first down. Who is running the show, Coach; you or McCall?
During the season I saw comments on insidenu.com that McCall’s play calling is conservative because he doesn’t have confidence in his offense. WHAT??? This is HIS offense. I think it means that he doesn’t have confidence in running his “off-the-shelf” offense, and he is unwilling or unable to adapt to the talent he has.
The Mick McCall era should have ended at the end of 2014. It should have ended at the end of last season, but loyalty and the smokescreen of a 10-3 record appears to have once again blinded you and AD Jim Phillips to the reality – our offense is just not good enough. Our defense deserves an offense it can be proud of… You say that you’re a builder of young men; that your players have to be held accountable for their play on the field and behavior off the field – all noble goals and the correct thing to teach your team. When will Mick McCall and the coaching staff be held accountable to the same degree?
On the Internet and Facebook, I pointed out that after last week’s humiliating loss to Michigan State, the offence is now 121st in the FBS in total offense; 123rd in passing offense, and 128th in scoring offense (out of 130 teams). Once again, the critics are out with their steely knives (myself included). Fitzgerald held his weekly press conference yesterday and he proved that he thinks that he is beyond criticism (which is impossible in the very public sports world).
Fitzgerald was asked if he was happy with his offensive game plan, and if it was just a case of tightening up the execution after the Wildcats loss. This response was “Yeah, I go into every game plan expecting it to work,” Fitzgerald said. “To be quite honest with you, I understand there are 40,000 experts on Twitter that can call plays for me. My email address is hashtag I don’t care. So, shoot that out.”
First of course, hashtag is a Twitter conduit, not an email one, but I’m surprised he even knows what Twitter is. As a season ticket holder who pays money to watch this team, I am incensed at his cavalier attitude. A friend tells me that as long as Pat Ryan and his wife are alive, Fitzgerald is untouchable, and he has been the most successful football head coach in school history (although other than Ara Parsegian, that bar is pretty low). However, no football coach outside of Saban can just flip off the naysayers.
Plus, this is Northwestern – the Ryans aren’t the only rich alums/donors. There’s a lot of rich season ticket holders sitting in the prime seats on the West side and in the boxes attached to the press box. I’m not one of those “I pay your salary types” (although my season ticket money paid over the past 20 years should count for something). I have paid my money and came to games in rain, in snow, in bad seasons and good seasons, and in any other situation, the cries would ring out for Fitzgerald’s job.
This is the point I don’t understand about Fitzgerald. Yes, the team has turned in some 10-win seasons and won more bowl games than ever. When you look at the numbers however, the offense has been lagging for years. The defense has been carrying the Cats through the good times. It seems that Fitzgerald along with Athletic Director Jim Phillips operate that since we win more than we lose, we shouldn’t try to get better. Companies go under with that philosophy.
I’ve seen companies that operate profitably, but there’s a unit or division that does not operate as well. These companies make changes, either at the top of the underperforming division, or closing the division altogether. THAT is how successful organizations operate. As I written almost everywhere, Mick McCall is incompetent. He would have been fired from every other program in the nation. He might be a nice guy, the players may love him, but the ultimate gauge is performance.
I predict that Phillips will get Fitzgerald to issue a public semi-apology. The Fans and alums cannot be publicly called out no matter how many wins you have in the past.

What do these men have in common: Mitch Trubisky, Jim McMahon, Rick Mirer, Jack Concannon. Bob Avelini, Sid Luckman, Jay Cutler, Kyle Orton, Bobby Douglas, Bill Wade, and Jim Harbaugh? What do these men have in common: Vince Evans, Moses Moreno, and Henry Burris? The answer to both questions are the same to a point: all of these men have played quarterback for the Chicago Bears. The first list is comprised of all Caucasian men; the latter are men of color.
I am not saying that this is a pattern (but there might be), and of course, the Bears have a dismal history of play under center no matter the skin color of the men there (with the exception of Luckman and McMahon of course). I cannot think of another team who has consistently had mediocre to bad quarterbacks. Maybe it’s a tradeoff? The Bears have an exceptional record of drafting linebackers and running backs. Never QBs however. If you look at the great QBs over the past few years, they all have a confidence, a swagger, that Bear QBs other than McMahon in my lifetime don’t have. Trubisky looks like a deer in the headlights most of the time.
Anyway, you may be asking me a question: what am I getting at? It’s a fair question since I regularly commit a cardinal journalistic sin: I “bury the lede.” Although Mitch Trubisky played much better last night against the banged-up and woeful Washington defense, Bear fans, myself included, are not sold on him being a franchise quarterback. I disagree with the comparisons that fans make comparing Trubisky’s pick to Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes, two of the best QBs in the league and picked 8 and 10 spots later in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft (it also doesn’t help that Bear GM Ryan Pace paid a high price to trade up one selection to grab Trubisky).
Here is my point: even if the Bears had drafted Mahomes or Watson, the Bears have never been able to play well behind a mobile QB. Yes, Trubisky is known for being able to run, but not like Watson (Mahomes is more of a pocket passer, but he is elusive). Just because we would have drafted either of these exceptional players does not mean that they would have had the same success in Chicago. While I do think that Matt Nagy is the strongest offensive mind manning a Bear sideline, part of what makes a college quarterback excel in the NFL is the coach/scheme he plays under. Mahomes may be the best QB to come along since Brady or Rodgers, but it is Andy Reid’s scheme that allows him to prosper. Any of the three would have suffered in the John Fox regime (and Trubisky was hurt having to change schemes when Nagy was hired).
I’m not saying that Pat Mahomes and Deshaun Watson aren’t better than Trubisky at this point in their careers; the numbers say it all. I’m not saying that maybe the Bears made a serious mistake on Trubisky; time will tell on that one. However, let’s not get carried away with that analysis: for one thing, it’s done – get over it; second, the other guys might not play well here in Chicago either.

It is generally agreed that the quarterback position is the most important single position on a football team. They touch the ball on every offensive play; they are responsible for getting the ball to the receiver or handing off to the ball carrier to get the most yardage and score points. Quarterbacks are paid millions of dollars; millions more are spent to pay linemen to protect them; more millions are spent on getting them the best targets and runners to surround them; and millions more are paid to get the right Head Coach/offensive coordinator to put them in the best scheme to succeed. Of course, if you don’t produce on the field, you are going to be benched, eventually cut. Here in Chicago, it is said that the most popular player on the Bears is the backup QB.
Still, with all of that money flowing, quarterback controversies still rage, or worse, teams have to look to backups when starters get injured. We are only two weeks into the NFL season and already there are quarterback concerns all over the place:
• Jacksonville spent a lot of money to sign Nick Foles away from the Philadelphia Eagles, but Foles broke his collarbone in preseason. He will be out at least 2 months.
• Mitchell Trubisky isn’t exactly setting the NFL on fire after a nonexistent preseason has led to two mediocre performances, first against the Packers, then yesterday against the Broncos. The only redeeming factor yesterday was that Trubisky led the Bears to an improbable win with a terrific 25-yard pass to Allen Robinson at the end of the game leading to Eddy Pinero’s 53-yard field goal to win 16-14. The only thing that is keeping the fans calling for Trubisky to ride some pine is that backup Chase Daniel looked only passable during training camp himself. The jury remains out on Trubisky for sure
• Meanwhile in New York, Giants management says that it is too premature to bench Eli Manning for Daniel Jones. So far, it doesn’t look like the 0-2 Giants problem is under center, it looks like a train wreck in all aspects of the game. Putting in Jones for cannon fodder for opposing defenses, might not be the best thing. However, it appears that the Giants have no wins, and no prospects for wins. I appreciate loyalty to the man who won two Super Bowls for your team, but you have to give fans some hope…
• The worst thing to have happen is when you lose your starting QB for an extended length of time, even the entire season. The Saints will be scrambling to replace future Hall of Famer Drew Brees on offense. Brees hurt his thumb on a defensive player and is expected to miss up to 8 weeks. The Saints look to former Vikings signal caller Teddy Bridgewater to keep them relevant until Brees returns. Bridgewater has a great deal of experience including leading a playoff run, so they may be OK…
• On the other hand, the Pittsburgh Steelers will be relying on Mason Rudolph at QB after two-time Super Bowl Champion Ben Roethlisberger recovers from a season ending elbow injury suffered in the second quarter of the Steelers’ game against Seattle yesterday. With 15 years in the league and an injury that is being compared to Tommy John surgery which often takes 18 months to recover from, people are wondering if Roethlisberger has taken his last snap in Pittsburgh…
With all of this uncertainty, still Colin Kaepernick’s phone isn’t ringing. Makes one hate the NFL (or at least the owners)…

Obviously wide receiver Antonio Brown has to be one of the most talented players in all of professional football. Coming from Central Michigan after growing up in Miami, Brown was one of the best in the league amassing 10,000 yards, but then he started to complain in Pittsburgh. Prompted by the holdout of Steeler running back Le’von Bell, Brown requested a trade after last season when he didn’t want to practice among other transgressions.
Finally, he was traded to the Raiders in return for a third and a fifth-round draft choice in this past year’s draft. Once he got to Oakland, all you heard about was that he wanted to wear his old helmet, which does not meet the league’s standard for safety. Brown petitioned the league twice, both times being denied. The Raiders, who for decades had the reputation for taking in difficult personalities eventually gave up on Brown and released him, getting picked up by the Patriots. Before he could even suit up in New England, there were reports that a young woman was accusing him of sexual misconduct after a reported $2 million settlement agreement fell apart.
Of course, the league is looking into the allegation, which is not too good for Brown since the league may just be getting tired of dealing with him over the helmet situation. Brown came out and had a fine game for Bill Belichick’s team yesterday, 4 receptions for 56 yards and a touchdown, but how much more Brown will play could be limited.
Worse is the fact that the Patriots are renowned as having a very joyless atmosphere. Yes, they win but there seems to be much less exuberance on the team, hidden by a “just do your job” mantra. Of course, the Patriots have a history of having receivers who make questionable choices.

Long time readers know that my “Daddy only” trip is to TIFF, six days out of town for the first half of the festival. This is my 19th TIFF; over those years, I have seen some of the most interesting, controversial films over the past 21 years. This year I saw 13 films. Here is my annual review of the films I saw by day…
I usually watch only one film on Friday so that I can spend time with the lovely family that allows me to stay with them. Usually, its fairly easy to pick one afternoon film, but this year, there were three movies that I could only see on Friday. The first was Red Penguins, the story of Russian hockey players who were recruited to play for the Pittsburgh Penguins in a story filled with oligarchs, gangsters and strippers. The film was directed by Gabe Polsky, whose film, Red Army about the Russian Army teams of the 1970s who eventually came to play in the NHL is a fine documentary and a favored memory from TIFF – I saw the world premiere back in 2014. As big of a hockey fan as I am, this would figure to be high on my list.
Another film showing around the same time was “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band.” Bob Dylan’s former backup band were Canadian, which made this a big draw at TIFF. While I’m not a huge fan of the Band, I am a huge fan of members Robertson and Levon Helm. Still, not my final pick.
Coming into it late, over the past few years, I have become a big fan of filmmaker Armondo Iannucci. His television shows: The Thick of It in the U.K. and Veep for HBO here are classics. The film from The Thick Of It was “In The Loop” which furthered the story of British Minister Malcolm Tucker, foul mouthed, irreverent and played with glee by Peter Capaldi before becoming Doctor Who. Two years ago, Iannucci directed “The Death of Stalin” the end of his reign as written by Monty Python. It is still one of my favorite films and one of the funniest films I’ve seen in the past decade. So, it was no great surprise that I would choose his latest film, “The Personal Story of David Copperfield.”
Dev Patel stars as the title character, and he brings a charm and personality to the role. A cast full of superlative actors including Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Ben Whishaw, Gwendoline Christie and Mr. Capaldi along with a cast full of actors of color. IT’s been decades since I read Dickens, so my memory of the story was foggy, but it came back to me, and isn’t important to those who don’t know the book. While not as funny as “Stalin” it is very funny and charming. The actors were uniformly terrific.
Mr. Iannucci and Mr. Patel and the other screenwriter, producers and a couple of the actors attended the Q&A session I was able to meet MR. Iannucci after the Q&A to ask if there was most to the story of Malcolm Tucker. He told me that Tucker was in jail. Bummer.

Another gloriously beautiful sunny Fall day in Toronto and I had only two films this day. I originally had four films but in my haste to pick films, the times overlapped, so I needed to make changes. My first film was the most conventional studio film of all my picks. Just Mercy is the dramatization of attorney Bryan Stevenson’s first case after graduating from Harvard and instead of moving into a powerful firm, moved to Alabama to take up the cases of men on death row who had been falsely convicted.
Stevenson is played by Michael B. Jordan (“Black Panther,” “Creed” “Creed II”) is a very conventional leading man role. Brie Larson (“Captain Marvel”) plays Stevenson’s assistant Eva Ainsley who helps him get started in his work in the South. Jamie Foxx plays Walter “Jimmy B” McMillan, convicted of murdering a young white girl who at the time was serving time on death row.
This film is director Destin Daniel Cretton’s biggest film to date after having directed Ms. Larson and Woody Harrelson in The Glass Castle (which I’ve never seen). The performances were very good on all sides, and the continued failures to get McMillan acquitted despite obvious evidence of his innocence was frustrating and depressing. In a predominantly white audience, the gasps of outrage and sniffles in the audience showed that the film hit the emotional buttons. However, it was not the most stylistic directorial job. Mr. Cretton and Mr. Stevenson introduced the movie.
The second film of the day was a much lower hyped project. Proxima is the story of a French woman, played by Eva Green, preparing for a one-year space mission to the International Space Station then Mars. Besides Ms. Green as the lead, the film was directed by Frenchwoman Alice Winocour. The film centers on the preparation and the issues that Ms. Green’s character faces as a single mother, interaction with her former partner and with the other astronauts training for the mission.
What was interesting is that even though the film does not cover the mission itself, it was filmed at the training center in Star City Russia where all of the Russian space rockets and training have been conducted for decades. The astronauts finish their training and blast off from Khuzestan, which is the regime that real astronauts going to the international space station endure, even Americans. That of course brought a high level of authenticity to the film.
I liked the film a lot especially handling the male characters. SPOILER ALERT: her ex-partner starts off as the stereotypical “absent dad” being inconvenienced by having to take care of his daughter full time. The other man who starts out as a stereotype is an American astronaut played by Matt Dillon. He starts out as a complete ass who seems to be a bully to the French astronaut and trying to have sex with her. In the end, the partner turns into a good supportive father to the girl and gives support to his ex. Dillon’s character and Ms. Green’s character end up bonding as astronauts on the mission, instead of having either some ham-fisted and unnecessary romance or sexual harassment situation.
I did have one slight disappointment and you may be surprised as to why. Ms. Green has been known as a sex symbol in films like Casino Royale, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, and the sequel to 300. She has not been shy to be topless in her movies, and she is beautiful. I did find it a bit odd that there are two shots of her topless although the first one was more in character. She was changing clothes in the same room with the men, leading to a slight comment from Dillon’s character. OK – maybe they do change in the same room and her back was turned so you could only see the side of her cleavage; but more problematic to me was a decontamination shower near the end of the movie with a full topless shot. I thought that this was unnecessary and not even titillating (no pun intended). Maybe I would have had even more of a problem with it if it hadn’t been directed by a woman. Still, a minor point.
Ms. Winocour introduced and had a Q&A after the film. What was interesting is that while Ms. Green was unable to attend, she actually films a short intro apologizing for not being able to attend and welcoming everyone to the film. Nice touch.

When choosing my films, there were a couple of films that I felt I needed to see at all costs. One of mine was “Dolemite Is My Name” the story of comedian Rudy Ray Moore who in the 1970s became the second most popular Black recording comedian after Richard Pryor. Eddie Murphy comes back as Moore, playing a role instead of playing Eddie Murphy and he was very funny. Moore is portrayed here as an entrepreneur of the higher order – making the records himself, promoting the, traveling around adding people to his group of comics, producers and crew.
The story culminates in Moore’s idea to make a film: “Dolemite” during the time of blackexploitation and kung fu films. The scenes showing the making of the film and all of the problems and issues with sets, money, and director D’Urville Martin, a popular character actor in many of the black films of the day, played hilariously by Wesley Snipes.
This film is supposed to get a limited theatrical release then go to Netflix. My suggestion – if you remember Rudy Ray Moore, or are a fan of 1970s black movies and comedy records, see this one way or the other. While Mr. Murphy and Director Craig Brewer (Hustle and Flow) could not attend, Oscar Award Winning Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter did answer questions, With all of the wide 1970s fashion, she did a tremendous job.
My next film was also a comedy and a British one, which means that it was a lock to be on my list. “Greed” is a parody of the fashion industry with Steve Coogan playing the lead. He reminded me of a fashion-type Malcolm Tucker – loud, brash, unpleasant, willing to cut anyone down. Coogan is a favorite of mine due to the Alan Partridge shows and “The Trip” movies with Rob Brydon. Coogan’s Trip director, the extremely prolific Michael Winterbottom directs this. Coogan’s character is throwing himself a very expensive 60th birthday party in part in an attempt to overshadow a government investigation that shows that the man isn’t a genius at fashion, just a corporate raider to buys abd sells and bankrupts stores then moves on having cleaned them out.
The party is being held on the beach by the villa, but there are a number of problems: foreign workers hired because they are cheap find out the Greek workers make more money, then strike; a group of Syrian refugees are living on the public beach next door within sight of the party and Coogan wants them gone; celebrities who promised to show up are cancelling; and there’s the family including estranged wife, kids on a reality show, and a youngest son who is looking for ways to kill his father. Running through all of these stories is the fact that garment workers in third world countries make cents per day while the industry makes billions per year. Paying more to the workers would have little effect on the price of garments, but trims the profit margin.
The film is hilarious and doesn’t bring the message home until the very end, which makes it palatable. A heavy handed message would have turned the film into a polemic which are usually the realm of documentaries. Good news though – after the screen, I went up to Mr. Winterbottom and asked if there were any more “Trips” being planned. He told me that “The Trip to Greece” had already been filmed.
One of the most successful anime films of all time in Japan was Your Name, the story of high school aged kids linked in a strange, almost supernatural way. Director Makoto Shinkai continues focusing on teenagers in his new film Weathering With You. A young runaway from the country comes to Tokyo because he doesn’t get along with his parents and there’s nothing for him in the small town, but on the ship, he nearly dies in a storm and is saved by another passenger. The storm the ship encounters is not rare, it seems that Japan is getting historic amounts of rain. The sun never comes out.
Turns out the passenger has his own ramshackle business and the boy works and lives there with the man and a girl about his age. Eventually, he meets a young girl who befriends him and is taking care of her younger brother with no parents around. The girl finds out that she has the power to make the rain stop in certain small areas for a limited amount of time. Eventually, the two start a business making good weather for parties and weddings.
Obviously heavily influenced by Hayao Miyazaki, Mr. Shinaki’s characters are more linked to the real world, but instead of strange creatures, the kids themselves are trying to manage the real world pressures of being teenagers with the world of the strange. Very well done.