Well, I guess it’s about time to wrap up the ol’ season here on FP, and I want to start by thanking Bob Noyes for having me this year, and allowing me to use various obscenity-laced tirades against, well, Jay Cutler.
One doesn’t have to look back very far to find me verbally assaulting the pick-prone sourpuss, but I have to say that he finished the year strong. If by strong, you mean good performances against division opponents late in the year. Albeit they were at home vs. the Vikings, whose road defense was atrocious at the time, and in Detroit, where they trampled the defeated, rotting carcass of the league’s dead-last Lions defense.
That’s a Rod Marinelli production, by the way. Yep, our new defensive coordinator. But I digress.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Chicago Bears front office.
Now, Cutler played a favorable two-game stretch to finish the season. But I’ve seen plenty of Bears QB’s fold up shop under just as favorable late-season circumstances, and Cutler didn’t. And I do think strides were made in the passing game the last two weeks, with the emergence of Devin Aromashodu, a guy lots of people – Jay Cutler included – liked in preseason, but who didn’t see the field until the year was well in the sh*tter. Bad move. I get that the receivers in Chicago were deep with young talent this year, but it really looks like the biggest, most polished option was kept in street clothes virtually all season long.
OH YEAH, THE SAINTS WON THE SUPER BOWL
I didn’t really think that i had much of a dog in the fight for the championship this year, but once the game started I was squarely in the corner of the Saints. It was a bit bandwagon, but it was just me and the wife watching, and you had to root for them. They were all so adorable.
BASELESS BRETT FAVRE SPECULATION SECTION
The Gunslinger’s been pretty quiet since after the NFC Championship game, only releasing a brief statement of thanks that sounded kinda like he thought he might be ready to come close to making the decision of whether or not he might finally be ready to begin considering whether the time had finally come around to deciding on if the time may finally be here that he’s got to sit down and once and for all come to a decision on either hanging ‘em up, or maybe staying on for one more shot. Good luck, Brett. The world will be ready when you are. I guess.
The only other Vikings rip I got is Bryant McKinnie getting kicked off the Pro Bowl team and then being douchey enough to host parties in Miami all week afterward, and twittering about it all the time. This was fairly nauseating on several levels. If you want to party in Miami all week, fine – I would too. But all you gotta do is just tell the NFC coach that you don’t want to play, like everyone else who made the Pro Bowl original starting roster. McKinnie already didn’t deserve the spot, and then he just stopped coming to practices, he was dismissed from the squad. Embarrassing.
The clock continues to tick on the new Vikings stadium deal that still doesn’t exist. And it doesn’t look like Brett Favre taking them to the conference title game gave the team much momentum to getting the state to pony up some cash, as some predicted it might. Outgoing governor Tim Pawlenty, who is expected to run for the Presidency in 2012, made no mention of money for a new stadium in his final budget proposal as Minnesota’s governor. With government spending and fiscal restraint such hot-button issues these days, a guy with presidential aspirations can ill afford to try to stick his taxpayers with a several hundred-million dollar stadium bill. He’s going to punt that issue right on down the line to his successor, and I don’t blame him. I do blame him for the state budget mess that led to there being no money at all for the stadium, but that’s another issue altogether.
If anyone is still listening (crickets…crickets), thanks so much for reading this season, and it’s been fun. I genuinely appreciate all the feedback and precious disposable time spent reading my material.
