Over-the-Middle

I am, admittedly, an armchair quarterback (actually, more of a laying-on-the-floor quarterback, a habit picked up from my father) of a football fan. But maybe if the McCaskeys had spent more time in front of the TV instead of the family box at Soldier Field they’d have a better feel for the game. And maybe that even happened over the weekend, although if you told me one or more McCaskeys was spied sitting in an otherwise empty Soldier Field I wouldn’t be surprised. But if by some miracle they were paying attention to the football being played this weekend, they might have learned something. You can only hope. What should be obvious, even to a direct descendant of George Halas, is that playoff football shows why you have a quarterback. Hint: it’s not just to hand off the ball, which is what the Rams started doing after building up twenty-four point lead against Tom Brady and the Bucs on Saturday. No, you throw the ball. And here’s the important part, all you McCaskeys—you throw the ball over the middle. My God, Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen put on a clinic in that regard Sunday night, with the Chiefs finally coming out on top 43-36 over the Bills in overtime. In fact, this past weekend stands as an indictment of all things ex-Bears’ GM Ryan Pace, who didn’t see fit to draft Mahomes, Allen or the Bengals’ Joe Burrow, for that matter. Then again, Pace was the GM who had no need for Jimmy Garoppolo or Robbie Gould. And neither did the McCaskeys.