I will never stop saying this. It happens every year. I come home for Christmas, plop myself in our den/TV room wearing all sorts of Bears gear (this year, a brand new Bears hoodie that I got as a Christmas gift over my Devin Hester jersey), and the game we watch damn near kills us. Sometimes, it gets so bad, that I think my mom and sister leave the house/move to a distant part of it intentionally so that they don't need to hear my dad and I going utterly ballistic for three hours.
Ok. So here's what was so logic-defying about this game. We've got the #8 defense in the league (Bears) meeting the #5 defense in the league (Jets). Put these two teams out in extreme cold and snow and make them play on turf that's probably worse than frosted kitty litter. And what do you get?
A 38-34 shootout, of course! I thought it would be a Bears blowout when the Bears scored 10 points easily. Then I thought it would be a Jets blowout when the Jets scored 24 in the second quarter and the Bears looked like they couldn't remember if they put their underwear on backwards or not. The Bears went into the locker room down by seven. And then came the third quarter, a scoring frenzy of positively epic proportions in which the Bears staged a furious comeback and Jay Cutler threw three touchdowns in like, eight minutes and positively hung the Jets' secondary out to dry.
It was like they took uppers at halftime, or entered a barbarian-esque berserker phase, or sold their souls, or borrowed the Scoring Machine from the University of Oregon or maybe the Saints. It was like watching someone who is really good at Madden 11 beat someone who is abysmal at the same game. I've never seen anything quite like it. The Bears' offense under Mike Martz has been struggling to find an identity all year as Martz has been experimenting with the playbook (sometimes with disastrous results), but I like the recent incarnations, in which the Bears' prime goal is to score in a manner as quickly and precisely as possible. Cutler was great, Knox was sensational, Hester was magical, Forte was tough as nails, Olsen threw some tremendous blocks, and the O-line even held pretty well.
The Bears have now scored 78 points in two games in which the defenses ran circles around themselves trying to contain Cutler and Crew. Had Robbie Gould not missed his field goal, it would've been the first time the Bears have posted back-to-back 40-pointers since 1948. I call this the "Bat-out-of-Hell" offense. Here's a picture of what the Bears' offense looked like yesterday.
All we need now are a couple of 5'9" receivers and for Lovie Smith to cut the sleeves off his sweatshirts. Source: Getty images, Mike Zarrilli.
By contrast, here's a picture of what the Bears' defense looked like yesterday for most of the game.
Where "you" equals "giving up a gerjillion yards against the slant by playing ten yards off the ball.
Until the end, of course. The fourth quarter was one of those quarters that was such a nail-biter that I nearly chewed off the first digits of several fingers. I'll skip past a couple of the intermediaries and cut to the positively stunning conclusion. Mark Sanchez had the ball with about a buck left on the clock, no timeouts, and the Bears jumped offsides. He found what he thought was a wide-open Santonio Holmes streaking down the sidelines, but at the last minute, Chicago safety Chris Harris flew in front of him to make the game-icing interception.
Ok. 11-4, folks. I'm generally a pretty big Bears skeptic, but I'm starting to believe in this Martz-Cutler chemistry stuff, and a picture of the two of them now serves as the background of my iPhone.
And here are a few other observations from yesterday.
Best Way to Get Into the Playoffs: Even though the Jest, erm, Jets lost yesterday, Jacksonville lost in overtime and sent the Jets to the postseason again anyway! They were allegedly cheering in the post-game press-conference when they heard the Jaguars blew it. Ok. I don't understand how the tiebreaker system works. I understand a lot of things about football, but I don't understand this complicated equation involving strength of victory and schedule difficulty and who beat whose division rival. Truth be told, my actual desire to know about how playoff seeding works is on par with the desire to ask Rex Ryan for a foot massage.
Worst Way to Get Knocked Out of The Playoffs: The St. Louis Rams finally pounded any postseason hopes out of utterly dysfunctional San Francisco 49ers. As a result, eccentric coach Mike Singletary was shown the door approximately thirty seconds after the game. A defensive coach with a funny name that I don't remember takes over as interim. So not only do the 49ers look ridiculous in the way they've played, but the brass of the organization looks equally ridiculous in firing the coach in week 15 out of 16.
Worst Way to Get Literally Knocked Out of the Playoffs: During the Chiefs' stomping of the sleepwalking Titans, Tennessee QB Kerry Collins faced heavy pressure and threw the ball away, where it sailed to the sidelines and hit his own defensive end (William Hayes) in the head and knocked him out of the game with a concussion. (NFL.com) Head coach Jeff Fisher uttered my sentiment exactly, italics mine; "That's kind of how the game went." I kind of want to make a video mashup of the Titans' 2010 miscues and bloopers and dub Yakety Sax over it. I'd bet Colts and Jaguars fans would love it.
Most Absurd Collapses: Remember when I said that historically, the Chargers are unstoppable in December, and the Cowboys are usually the absolute nadir of suckitude in December? Well, I retract that because they've both been awful this December. Exhibit A: The Chargers, who handed the AFC West title to Kansas City by being torched by the 3-11 Bengals (sans Owens and Ochocinco on top of it), and Exhibit B: the Cowboys, who lost by a single point to Arizona and reportedly made Jerry Jones' head pop like a giant zit.
December Capitalism! Chargers tickets are about $200. From Amazon.com, you can get these Chargers cufflinks for about $50. They look very pretty, but do not give them to your little kids - they're a choking hazard!
To come in the next several days: Second and One's Top Ten hilarious football quotes of 2010.
