Buddy Ryan, defensive mastermind and begetter of hilarious coaches, will be honored at halftime tonight. Not that we’ll see any of that, what with the Lamest Three Minutes being the first priority of ESPN. Even if it doesn’t have anything to do with his tenures in Philly or Chicago, my version of the ceremony would simply be showing footage of the time Buddy punched Kevin Gilbride. It never get old.

If you watched the Eagles-Cowboys beatdown last Sunday, you might have heard Al Michaels mention that Michael Vick during the bye week “played some golf and bought a parrot”. Perfectly suitable stoner activities. This was welcome and KSKharacter affirming news on its own. Then today I happened upon this photo of Ookie posing with a parrot at a pet store.

And all became right with the world.

The Lions were once a laughingstock, what with Matt Millen, 0-16, never going to a Super Bowl and employing Scott Mitchell for an extended period of time. Now, with their 4-0 record and a chance to match the Packers as the only unbeaten team in the NFL through five weeks, the Lions are an admirationstock. They have the Silver Crush, which is a stupid nickname for a formidable defensive front. There’s Calvin Johnson, who is going to finish the season with 65 touchdowns. And Matt Stafford has managed to stay healthy for an entire month. The Lions are so exciting that the league is allowing them to occupy the national spotlight for one time other than the annual early game blowout on Thanksgiving. CONGRATS, DEYYYYTWAAAA, FOR SPORTS EXCELLENCE! NO THANKS STILL DON’T WANNA GO THERE! BUT KUDOS!

Naturally, however, THE CURSE OF THE RIVE BROG, will render the Lions attack lifeless, cripple Megatron, get Suh suspended for a late hit and result in a 5-0 Bears victory, with Jason Hanson missing six field goals. Sorry in advance, Detroit.

I’m sorry, Jay Cutler, that your toughness came into question while we were getting our asses handed to us by the Packers on Sunday. You had a Grade II sprain of your medial colateral ligament, which is the ligament that the banks take away when you don’t pay your medials on time. Are you having money problems, Jay? I’m always here to help you out, buddy. Look, there’s an ATM right over there.

Little did you realize, Jay Cutler, that as you stood on the sideline in the second half that members of your football fraternity would say mean things about you on the internet. I just want you to know that I would never have done such a thing, since it’s against league rules to tweet during games. I don’t understand how they could have said things about you like I might have done 18 months ago. I can say those things because we’re like a family, so it’s different. We’re a football family, with black babies and white babies. And when the babies misbehave or get too old, they’re killed. Babies don’t live forever, Jay.

I want you to know, Jay Cutler, that you are the toughest quarterback I have ever played with. That’s right. Tougher than Rex Grossman. Tougher than that guy with the beard. Tougher than Cade McNown. And yes, tougher than even the great Craig Krenzel. You are tougher than all of them, Jay, though I’m pretty sure Brad Maynard would own you in a barfight.

So I guess…have a good offseason, man. Try not to take any stairs or anything.

It was quite the week for NFL-related errors in newspaper headlines. As you can see above, the Green Bay Press-Gazette misspelled Chicago on its front page, which is either an extremely careless error or a roundabout means of trash talk (“Geddit? Chi-COCK-O!”). This came days after an inattentive copy editor at The Times-Picayune neglected to replace the dummy text in a headline for a story about the Jets-Patriots game last Sunday.

Either that, or the paper distributes a special edition for dyslexics. This would be the version Rex Ryan bought.

The big scandal in the run-up to the NFC championship is that the game will feature Terry McAulay, the head referee of the officiating crew that flagged the Packers an astounding 18 times when the two teams played on Monday night in Chicago in Week 3. Of course, the rest of the ref crew will be different. And, if memory serves, the grand majority of the calls against Green Bay in the first meeting of the season weren’t particularly egregious. Sometimes, it’s possible that one team just committed more mistakes. There’s no rule that infractions and penalty yards need be perfectly level each week. [Gets shouted down by several thousand irate fans screaming about referee conspiracies.]

Oh, and this is pretty badass. Now I finally understand the “Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me” prize of getting Carl Kasell recording your message on your voicemail.

Hate restores us. Hate focuses us. Hate keeps us warm at night and spoons us if we so desire it. And no time is hate more powerful – more necessary – than the postseason, when those we despise are so close to getting what they want. I don’t get what I want, so f*ck those guys. There are countless reasons to hate anyone. Some of which you might not be aware. Or been made to realize that they are worthy of scorn. Well, you came to the right place. Allow us to guide you to the darkest recesses of the soul, where the streets run dark green with bile and everyone knows your embarrassing nickname.

Cutlerfucker, in his fifth season, is now making his first-ever playoff appearance after presiding over three late season chokes with the Broncos and a complete washout in his first year with the Bears. When they acquired him, Chicago fans figured they were getting the team’s first capable franchise quarterback in several lifetimes and now it turns out that 23 touchdowns and 16 interceptions is about the production ceiling for their po-faced sulkslinger. This is as good as it gets and he still blows.

That kind of gets to the heart of my difficulty truly detesting the Bears. Even when they’re good, they’re never a threat to do anything. Every few years, they manage to be a bye with someone like Jim Miller or Rex Grossman leading the way. The ’06 Bears made the Super Bowl on account of the rest of the NFC being horrid (the 10-6 Jeff Garcia-led Eagles and the 10-6 defensively deficient Saints were the two best teams in the conference after Chicago) then proceeded to let the Fat Humps win the Super Bowl even though Peyton Manning played like shit except for the one long pass where the Bears didn’t bother to cover Reggie Wayne deep.

The Bears are like a former president who hasn’t died yet. Every few years they might come out and say something or write a memoir or win some pointless award, but no one really cares. Your phase of significance has passed. We’re just waiting for you to croak so we can present your body in-state.

And the 2010 Bears might be the worst team to ever get a first-round bye. If Seattle beats them this weekend in Soldier Field, AS THEY ALREADY DID IN WEEK 6, I don’t know if I would really consider it a upset. I would consider it satisfying after reading articles about how Bears fans are already looking forward to a home NFC Title Game against Green Bay, who would likely crush Chicago unmercifully.

Ticket broker James Magoonaugh awoke this morning to several messages from Bears fans on his answering machine. But none of the callers were asking about tickets to this Sunday’s match-up against the Seattle Seahawks.

They were already looking ahead, to a potential dream match-up: an NFC championship game on Jan. 23 between the Bears and Packers at Soldier Field.

“If Green Bay comes, it’ll be something special at Soldier Field,” said Magoonaugh, owner of Redlinetickets.com.

The Bears best offensive strategy is still hoping someone is dumb enough to punt to Hester. Of course, even though the Bears ranked 30th on offense, Cutler managed to throw fewer than 20 picks, so Mike Martz is lavished with undue credit once again. Sure, Chicago’s defense is pretty good, but I can’t even appreciate it because Julius Peppers domination just transmogrifies into slurping for overrated, Paris Hilton-infected shitbag Brian Urlacher. And if that weren’t enough, it gives cause for Matt Millen to call defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli one of the the best coaches he’s ever been around.

The Lions should have swept this goddamn team. The Bears only won the first matchup by dint of an idiotic and soon-to-be-changed NFL rule that negated what should have been a Calvin Johnson touchdown catch. The second game the Bears were helped to their go-ahead touchdown by a laughably incorrect roughing call on Ndamukong Suh for pushing Cutlerfucker too hard to the ground on a scramble.

Bullshit.

You know those fan bases that think every minor transaction their team makes is deserving of universal attention? Well, Bears fans are the only member of this club who root for a team that never wins shit. Take away the ’85 Bears and their franchise isn’t much less downtrodden than the Browns in the modern era. Yet if they sign someone to the practice squad, I have to hear a bunch of rah-rah assholes wonder why this isn’t a bigger issue on the national stage. Fuck you, that’s why. You’ll all still be buying Ditka sweater vests in 50 years because you won’t have anything more recent to celebrate.

Players

Fans

Remaining Lovie Smith challenges

Brett Favre is pulling some last minute dramatics that suggest he might start. Failing that, he’s getting in some good attention whoring before occupying half the ESPN broadcast via anguished sideline shots. Meanwhile, TCF Stadium is approaching Heinz Field levels of hazardous conditions.

Chris Kluwe is especially concerned. No worries, pally. If anyone is catastrophically injured, it’s probably not going to be the sorry-ass punter. Even if said punter has the best reaction to the helmet hits madness of any NFL player to date.

Look, the Bears defense had an outstanding night. You can qualify that by saying they faced Tyler Thigpen and that the Dolphins lost another starting lineman and Brandon Marshall during the game. Either way, you don’t go on the road and shut out a team with a winning record without playing exceedingly well.

That said, Matt Millen can eat a kiddie pool full of Dungeness dicks for slathering his Rod Marinelli love juices all over the broadcast. No one wants to hear him slobber over and shamelessly defend one of his former employees in Detroit. Yeah, Rod Marinelli might be doing a fine job as a defensive coordinator, but he was horrid as a head coach and Millen touting his excellence doesn’t make his stint in Detroit any less a disaster. It’s a goddamn joke.

And, of course, whenever you get either the Bears or the Dolphins, you’re in store for a QB carousel graphic or four. Get the teams on the same field and they have to do a separate set of player introductions just to fit them all in.

My pocket runneth over with shitty QBs! Quarterkkake!

With the two Chads injured, Miami is forced to turn to Tyler Thigpen at quarterback. It’s once again Coastal Carolina’s time to shine! But let’s not downplay the difficulty of the task. How could Thigpen possibly hope to replace the nine touchdowns and 11 interceptions Chad Henne has contributed to this offense? Hopefully it involves raping more skeletons.

Every pundit presumes the Dolphins are going to revert to a Wildcat-heavy offense, which is actually kind of a relief. If you’ve watched any of their games this year, you know how announcers like to breathlessly explain how Miami hasn’t actually used the formation much this year, as though they were the first to strike upon such keen insight.

The Bears, meanwhile, are 6-3 but have only defeated one team with a winning record this year, and that was the Packers in the Monday night game where Green Bay committed something like 56,000 penalties. And if history has taught us anything, this is right around the time of year that Jay Cutler begins to sabotage any hope of his team making the playoffs.

Oh, and because I don’t feel like writing a separate post for it – here’s yet another example of Bill Simmons being a douchetard on television, via PTI today.

Kornheiser asked what to make of Justin Bieber wearing a Yankees hat at a concert in Boston or somesuch shit no one cares about and Simmons said the move was “beatdownworthy.” Of course he did.

“NO LITTLE FACKIN HOMO WIGGAH KID STEALS TAWWMMY BRADY’S TRADEMAHHK HAY-UH AND TRADEMAAHHK YANKEES HATS AND DOES NAWT PAY IN BLOOD! BILLY SIMMONS, BLUEBUG AND THE HOLY CRAWSS POSS WILL BEAT THAT ASS, BEEBAH!”

I wish no ill upon the Bears; Chicago is a wonderful city that has provided me with many good times. And I have nothing against Jay Cutler and his stupid sulky face. I hope his concussion isn’t serious, because his interceptions give me great pleasure from week to week.

Bears fans, on the other hand, can go piss up a rope. This gallery of Cutler suffering brain damage is for every Facebook status I read over the last couple of weeks that said “BEARS!” instead of “Ugh, we really didn’t deserve to win that one.”

Enjoy.

Awww, that one actually makes me feel kinda bad for ol’ Jay. Although I doubt that Packers and Lions fans are feeling much compassion.

BONUS CONTENT!!! Bears second- and third-string quarterbacks getting hurt: