How good was last night’s Chicago-Arizona game? It left me with enough adrenaline to wake up this morning at 6. This game just replaced the Tampa-Indy game as the best reason never to go to bed before the game is over (one of the few benefits I can think of to live on the west coast). Here are some final thoughts about the debacle, which I came up with while I was sitting on the beltway this morning:
- The Bears are resourceful. So the deep ball wasn’t working (or any part of the passing game for that matter), not a big deal. Can’t run the ball – against the Cardinals? Eh, not a problem.
- Grossman is nowhere close to being an elite quarterback in the league yet. I’m not saying that he can’t be a serviceable starter, but there were some people who were mentioning his name alongside McNabb’s and Manning’s in the MVP race. I think we can quit that now. Six turnovers… in one game? That’s unheard of, even by Kurt Warner’s standards (by the way, I think I saw Warner on the sideline of the game looking very upset because Grossman was showing him up on national TV and Warner had no way to respond).
Here’s the difference between Grossman and those other guys: Grossman had his worst game of the season Monday night, and McNabb had his worst game of the season on Sunday… and he still put up numbers that 20 other QB’s in this league would take.
- A lot of teams will regret passing on Matt Leinart in last year’s draft. How cool is this kid? On the last drive where he took the Cards down the field to set up the winning field goal, he looked like Paul Newman in The Color of Money. “Oh you guys have the best defense in the league, I didn’t know that… Oops did I just throw another touchdown, must be beginner’s luck.” Why they didn’t put the ball in his hands in the fourth quarter and let him run the offense, I’ll never know.
- The Cardinals have replaced the Cubs (temporarily) as the downtrodden franchise that you know is going to fail. Poor Arizona. Only the Cardinals could receive a Godsend at quarterback and still make all their fans leave the stadium as if they just saw the Screech sex tape. How do blow a lead WITHOUT GIVING UP AN OFFENSIVE TOUCHDOWN?! It’s not possible!
- And who doesn’t have a killer fantasy story from last night? 1 out of every 12 people this morning woke up with morning sickness due to Rex Grossman kicking them in the groin. I have a great story that I was involved in, and since it’s my blog, I’m going to tell it.
Here's the scenario: my friend Ben is up by 10 (give or take) going into the Monday night game AND he has two players starting later that night: Bears TE Desmond Clark, and surprise fantasy player of the year at that point, QB Rex Grossman. The only player that I had going for me in this game was Bears kicker, “Rowdy” Robbie Gould. In other words, the game was over. There was no way I was going to win. I had even admitted defeat on Sunday, and Ben had already started celebrating.
But little did we know that the craziest Monday Night game in the past four years would lead to one of the most memorable fantasy experiences, not only in my lifetime, but in every league across the country. The weird thing is, our fantasy matchup bore a striking resemblance to the ups and downs of the real game: A bad team – the Cards/ Ben (Ben’s team was 0-5, mine was 4-1) takes a huge lead against good team (the Bears, my team) only to have their hearts broken in the final minutes. Here's what happened.
-- First half, Cards jump all over the Bears and force 3-4 Grossman turnovers (in our league, an INT or fumble is worth –3) which start making me believe I might have a chance tonight.
-- A Bears 3rd quarter drive stalls at the 3. Trailing by 20 they do the natural thing and kick a FG. Doesn’t make any sense, but I’m not complaining – my team +3.
-- I take a major hit when the Bears elect to go for it on 4th and 10 on the Cards 30 instead of kicking a field goal. However, Grossman fumbles again. Now he's responsible for 5 turnovers (-15 points, around -9 when including the passing yardage) which is balancing out the very steady night from Desmond Clark (ended up with six points).
-- Bears force a fumble and return it for six. PAT for Gould. Bears force another fumble, score another TD. PAT for Gould. I get a text message from Ben: "This might be my worst nightmare.”
-- Devin Hester returns a Cardinals punt for the GW TD. Gould kicks Fantasy GW PAT. Paramedics have to restrain Ben from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. So there you have it, the top 3 greatest chokes of all time: 1. NY Yankees in the 2004 ALCS 2. Houston Oilers leading 35-3 in the 3rd quarter against the Bills in '92 Wild Card game, only to lose 41-38 AND 3. Ben’s fantasy team last night. Thank you Rex Grossman.
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