’72 Dolphins Need to Get On With Their Lives

I’m relatively old, and even I can’t remember when the Dolphins went undefeated, it’s so bad that everyone besides the still living members of the team has forgotten them. Bob Griese, Coach Don Shula, Larry Csonka, Bob Keuchenburg? Okay, I only know the last guy’s name because he seems to be running his own ’72 Dolphin P.R. campaign.

They have what has stands as the greatest NFL season to their credit, and more power to them, but do they have to show up every season, around the tenth game, to heckle those teams that are still undefeated? Come on, at some point, the game has gone past them enough that this is not the same NFL, this is not the same type of season, these are not the same types of players. Who doesn’t miss those old school, smash mouth football player that went all out and rarely wore face guards.

Are these the same men who now sit on the sidelines and root against front runners?

Is it just a new industry for retirees? Defending your streaks in public? Along with the Dolphins, we have Hank Aaron following Barry Bonds around, and Joe DiMaggio being trotted out to games every time someone hits in more than 30 games in a row. Will T.O. show up in locker rooms trying to resolve acrimony when some future player threatens to be more of an ass? I’m sure Jack Nicklaus will be on hand to watch Tiger crush all of his records, but I also believe Jack will handle it with some class.

What’s next, Rosie the retired toll-booth operator running I-Pass booths on purpose to hold up her own streak of ten years without letting a toll through without paying?

I guess all I can do is hope that I see them for the rest of the season on the Bear’s sidelines, right back to Miami for the Superbowl. For the record, I don’t think they’ll do it either. This team is good, but it’s going to need to scrap a little, and going undefeated will mean they haven’t had to do it. They showed heart against Arizona and Minnesota, but who knows if they can do that in a playoff game. If they lose in the first round again this year, it will be devastating to this current Bear’s team.

John Kerry is a Snob

I’m not much for writing on Politics, or even following them. I vote my conscience and my gut instinct and hope the chips fall right. Today I saw an article on CNN.com about John Kerry making some comments to college kids that in education;

"You study hard and make the most of it and become a smarter person, and if you don’t you end up in Iraq." Now, that’s off the video, and even a little worse than CNN paraphrased it. But maybe I have it wrong,

Some of his own party have already jumped ship on him, telling him to just shut up, and therein is a little hope for the democrats. I don’t know exactly what I will vote next week, but I will vote, and not for anyone sounding like John Kerry.

Lastly, in my mind, this was just a jerk exposing his real self, one that I saw last time behind all the campaigning. The republicans are going to try to blow this up even worse than it is and distract from their poor performance lately. That has not escaped my notice either.

It is very possible that I have a different take on this than most who will write about politics, I am the quintessential fence-sitter, and from what I have seen in the media, it is people like me that are going to show up and vote this time around, and the next presidential election, which Kerry should not even bother to run in.

It's time to start paying attention to the little guys, not make light of them with arrogant "botched jokes". That goes for everyone.

Brian Urlacher - Rate him what you want!

I know I’m not the only one that thought Brian Urlacher looked like he was playing ball alone this afternoon at Soldier Field in Chicago. Come on, the man tipped a ball to himself, a play so impressive I thought it was two different people in real time. All that and he had one official tackle(upgraded to 5 after studying the tape.

Wow.

What buttons do you have to hit to pull that off on Madden Football?

You get the idea that the people that placed him just below T.O. as the second most over-rated player in the NFL, his fellow players, are either off his schedule or play defense and want to watch the repercussions. Instead, he surely belongs on the other end of that spectrum, as he was so honored last season as Defensive MVP.

In Chicago, every once in a while we have someone special to watch; Back to Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus, Walter Payton, Michael Jordan, Denis Savard, Ernie Banks, Frank Thomas before he became the Big Disappointment, the ’85 Bears, and the Bulls of the 90’s. Brian Urlacher, since he came to the league, has been that guy to watch. He sells tickets all by himself, but he also makes his teammates better and pushes his team over the edge. It is no mistake that his counterpart on the line is a superstar as well, because the guy he replaced, Warrick Holdman? or was it Roosevelt Colvin, looked pretty good too. I respect Lance Briggs nearly as much as Urlacher, but don’t think he will be pulling the numbers he is now if he decides to take bigger money and go to another team next season.

Since Brian Urlacher first donned the uniform he has been someone to watch on the field. You could go to a Bears game and see something special in action just by following #54 around the field. There were times that he was the only thing to watch on our field, and clowns like Henry Burris, Jonathan Quinn, and Chad Hutchinson made sure he was out on the field constantly. Every one of the previous Bears legends, Butkus, Sayers, Payton, had times when they held the same position.

Urlacher has carried the team attendance-wise through hard times, and now can put them on his back and take over games if he needs to. 25 tackles against Arizona! Reports out of the locker room were that he single-handedly took that game back, and everyone on the team followed his lead. These days he has the fellow horses to pull a stunt like that comeback off, along with the worst team of this decade, mentally, to allow it.