Byline: Rick Morrissey
CHICAGO _ One of the great, all-time corrections in sports journalism history came about 20 years ago in Denver.
After much adding, dividing and general calculating, a newspaper columnist had discovered the ultimate proof of parity in the NFL: The league had become so balanced, he wrote, that the average record the season before had been 8-8.
The next day, after hearing from more than a few readers, the chagrined columnist wrote that, upon closer inspection, he had to admit the average record every season is 8-8. Has to be. Somebody has to win and somebody has to lose in equal measure. He regretted the error and his confusion.
There's a reason we writers don't major in math in college. But the point the columnist was trying to make about parity 20 years ago is still valid today. There are a lot of average teams in the NFL.
Here's the difference: At least in the middle of all that mediocrity, we had some great teams to have and to hold _ the 49ers of Joe Montana and Jerry Rice and the Cowboys of Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith, to name a couple.
There are no great teams in the NFL these days, unless the Steelers are hiding their inner `85 Bears and I'm missing it.
Which brings us to this year's Bears. We're being told not to panic about the Rex Grossman Wheel-Spinning Tour. We're being told that good teams have been known to struggle in exhibitions and that the real Grossman was on display Thursday night. That the other guy had been an imposter.
That's all fine and dandy, and I suppose if you subscribe to the theory the Bears can turn it on any time they want, then you're feeling quite relaxed right now. But there is an opportunity here just begging to be grabbed.
If the Bears are as good as they say they are _ and Lovie Smith, Coach Serenity, says they are very good _ they're one of several teams with a legitimate chance to get to the Super Bowl. Hey, I'm just going by what he seems to be saying.
This is where the sense of urgency comes in. This is where the panic starts tugging at your sleeve. If the Bears are that good, it sure would be nice if they left a few clues indicating so. Throw us a bone. Make us feel a little better about things. OK, you give us Grossman's touchdown pass against the Browns on Thursday. A start.
The fact of the matter is that, right now, the Bears are a leap of faith, or at least a decent hop of faith. You figure the defense, if the entire unit doesn't clutch a knee in unison in Week 2, is going to be good, borderline great. You figure the offense will be better than last year because anything would have to be better than last year.
But that's the galling part of this. The Bears are supposed to be much better offensively this season. We've been spoon-fed the promise of Grossman for so long that some of us were full of hope.
So imagine the shock when Grossman looked like Kyle Orton with a better arm in the first three exhibitions. Until Thursday night in Cleveland, he was the king of the overthrown pass. Nobody led a receiver by 10 yards the way our Rex did. But he finally looked good against the Browns in a brief appearance. Finally.
That's not four quarters at Green Bay.
The picture that has been painted of Coach Serenity as a man with a quick trigger finger, as a coach not afraid to make lineup changes_I don't see it. A cold-blooded coach at least would have mentioned that Brian Griese might be, you know, a decent alternative at quarterback.
Instead, we get Smith chanting, 'We like Rex.'
This is a peculiar organization. Linebacker Lance Briggs gets demoted for missing the voluntary off-season workouts. He gets his job back the second day of training camp. Wow, lesson learned.
Running back Cedric Benson gets reprimanded for not standing with his teammates during an exhibition game. How do the Bears react to the brouhaha? By vowing to get to the bottom of who leaked the news to the media.
If they spent as much time trying to fix their offense as they do trying to be Donald Rumsfeld, we would be talking seriously about the Super Bowl here instead of just wondering about it.
This is supposed to be a time of optimism for the Bears. Instead, the quarterback position is still very shaky, taking Grossman's body of work into consideration. Thomas Jones is upset that, after rushing for 1,335 yards last season, the Bears seem more interested in another number _Benson's $17 million in guaranteed money.
Smith has the look on his face that says he will be laughing about all this turmoil come playoff time. Here's hoping he's right.
Here's hoping the Bears don't end up with the NFL's average record.
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(c) 2006, Chicago Tribune.
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