Because yesterday was a
November Sunday wet and dreary, I had no problem watching NFL football, even if
it was the Bears coughing one up to the Packers, 23-16. It was worth it just to watch the
military-NFL complex at work on Fox TV.
Pre-, half-time and post-game
commentary originated from the Norfolk Naval Station on the Virginia
coast. The talking heads were set in
front of the Navy’s finest ships in port; I don’t know how many times I saw
shots of aircraft carriers. This got me
to wondering, if the NFL and Fox are so interested in our armed forces, why not
broadcast from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda,
Maryland? And if that was too far to go,
why not the nearest VA hospital? Given
that Roger Goodell and the NFL want to thank our military men and women so much
for their service, they can do it by showing what that service can entail, the
physical and emotional loss. But I won’t
hold my breath.
Any more than I would
for the Bears to fire coach John Fox after his team failed to beat an injury-plagued
opponent coming off a loss just six days before and the Bears coming off their
bye week. Fox treats the forward pass
with the same fear of it that George Halas had.
The McCaskeys keep looking for a clone of the old man, but all they end
up with is losers. The Bears’ offense
got so predictable and predictably bad that color commentator Chris Spielman started
to mock the “run-run-pass-kick” mindset that prevailed every four downs.
The Bears actually seem
to have a real quarterback in rookie Mitch Trubisky, who fell nine feet short
of throwing for 300 yards in wet, muddy conditions. Not all they need is a real coach.
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