Why They Should be Fired

Ah, my faithful readers! You thought I had forsaken you. Nah, just got lazy. Too much stuff going on to sit down and type it all out. However, I realized that I should be sending your more good juju. So, we are going to take a look at some more morons in the world. These, however, were on television! You couldn't miss them!

So, if you don't know, the Bears and Packers are two NFL teams that are, shall we say, bitter rivals. Thats putting it lightly. They don't like each other. The fan bases are rabid against each other. It gets ugly. Anywhosits, Green Bay (Packers) visited Chicago to face the Bears on Monday Night Football.

The game was, in a word, ugly. In fact, ugly doesn't begin to describe it. It was a debacle of a game, that showed careless mistake after careless mistake. Most of these mistakes can be aimed at Lovie Smith and Mike McCarthy, head coaches of the Bears and the Packers respectively.

I will start with Lovie, since his team won. First, it should be noted, that the Bears are, and always have been, a "Defense first" type of franchise. They would gladly win 3-0 if that meant you didn't score. They don't care. They want to pound you into the grass. This year's club, while still defensive, has at least attempted to assemble an offense. For this, I applaud them. However, two changes have to occur.

The first is that Offensive Line. It needs to go. Bad. Cutler (Quarterback) isn't going to survive the year if he keeps getting beaten down like he stole something. That poor bastard took so many hits and cheap shots tonight, it made my head hurt, and I was watching from my couch! Needless to say, when your offensive line struggles, your offense as a whole struggles.

Keeping that in mind, we get to change number two. Lovie Smith, you need to join your offensive line and leave. Sweet bajeezus. You made so many coaching errors, that even the announcers were dogging you more than normal. Lets start with the first obvious one.

In a close game, you have a chance to kick a field goal, or to try and punch it in. Its fourth down. Your offense, which really hasn't moved the ball much all game, has a chance to put points on the board that you desperately need by kicking a field goal. Robbie Gould, your kicker, has already missed one tonight, and is the 3rd most accurate kicker in NFL history. Let me repeat that. NFL HISTORY. Not on the team. Not this year. HISTORY. The guy is incredibly accurate. This for him, is a chip shot. He could probably fart hard enough to boot that thing over the crossbar.

Your other option is to take your meager offense and try to jam the ball a few more yards to score a touchdown. Even I, who am not a football guru, know, that when you have a struggling offense, putting points on the board is imperative to having a shot to win. Its what you do. Duh. So, Lovie, obviously, decides to go for it on fourth down. The result? The play misfires, and the Bears walk away with zero points. Fortune favors the bold, but there is a fine line between boldness and stupidity.

Lovie manages to escape this horrible tactical decision thanks to his defense (duh) and Devin Hester, who returns a punt 60 yards for a touchdown. Thank god your special teams are special. Well, that and you are facing an idiot on the other sideline, but thats to come later.

The second mistake came when Green Bay was threatening to score what would end up being their final touchdown of the game. Third and goal from inside your ten. Rodgers has been dodging your blitzes all night thanks to his high mobility and amazing pocket presence. However, during the drive, right before this play, he hurts his foot. He is hobbling around like a kid in a potato sack race with his retarded brother. Its almost comical. He has no mobility, and no real ability to run the ball right now.

Consider this, along with the fact, that Green Bay hasn't rushed at all all night. Their running game has been stuffed time and again. They have all but abandoned the run. Rodgers is running the offense with an empty back set. (That means no one is back to receive a hand off to run the ball. Therefore, an OBVIOUS throwing formation).

So, lets piece this mystery together, shall we Lovie? Cramped quarterback with no mobility (can't run) running an offense with an empty back set (won't run). Hrm, you think maybe he isn't going to run? The option to run is all but gone now. He is going to pass. There is no way he risks hobbling around or trusting his running backs at this point. You got him RIGHT where you want him. You are going to hold them to a field goal try. Its easy really.

Send a three man rush, and drop the other eight back to defend the pass. I mean, its going to be a pass. It has to be. The man can't run!

Timeout Chicago.

What the FUCK?!?!?! Are you shitting me? How can you not be ready for this?! Rodgers is limping for Christ's sake. Everyone sees it. Its on the goddamned jumbotron! Blood in the water. Fish in a barrel. Shoot the bastard. Instead, you call a timeout, and give him a chance to work out the cramp.

Third and Goal. Rodgers rushes in for a touchdown.

Imagine that. Dumbass. If you were going to let him do that, at least make THEM call the timeout.

Mistake number three of Lovie's numerous is the last one I will talk about for now. There are far too many to bring up, and I have other things to do. But the other major mistake was at the end of the game.

The game is tied. Your opponent has foolishly burned his timeouts with retarded challenges, and some futile attempt at stopping the clock. Whatever. With just under two minutes to go, you have the ball at the Packer 9 yard line. The Packers have a total of 1 timeout. This means they can stop the clock once. ONCE. You have FOUR downs. Do the math!

The smart thing to do here, is to take a knee. Don't try some fancy play that might stop the clock. Don't try risking handoffs to your running back so your meager offensive line can be humiliated, and possibly cause a fumble. Don't do anything to risk your premium field position. You want to burn as much clock as possible and boot a field goal through to win the game.

First and Goal. Hand off.

Ugh. Well, maybe he did that to force Green Bay to burn that time out. Hand offs take longer to run than kneel downs. That makes sense.

Second and Goal. Hand off.

Ugh. You aren't getting this are you? Even scoring a touchdown with a minute to go isn't as good as scoring a field goal with 2 seconds to go.

Third and Goal. Hand off.

Are you insane?! Why would you risk such a thing? Your opponent can't stop the clock! You don't need to move the ball any further! You have the most accurate field goal kicker in the league. Take a fuckin' knee for the love of all that is Holy!!!

And yet, despite this complete idiocy that Lovie put on for us, it is nothing compared to our man Mike McCarthy.

This man wins douche of the week. First of all, lets start with what went right. Aaron Rodgers was a stud. Flat out. The dude earned his check. Even injured, the man played like he was fuckin' Joe Montana reincarnated into a younger body. (I am not taking ANYTHING from Cutler, who did a relatively good job as well, and certainly took some hits and kept fighting, but Rodgers numbers were so amazing). So, with that said...

McCarthy. You suck. Period. I mean, really. You suck. Since I gave Lovie three strikes, I shall give you four strikes. I mean, you lost, so you obviously screwed up more right?

Strike 1. 18 penalties. This is the coach's fault for not instilling discipline. Some of these, like the false starts, have to do with crowd noise, or over anxiousness, but seriously. Helmet to helmet on the quarterback? Throwing the guy down AFTER the whistle? Late hits. Cheap shots. Horrible horrible discipline. Packers fans will bitch and moan that the refs screwed them. Far from the truth. When the Bears did stupid shit like that, they got penalized too. The difference is, Lovie smacked a few of them in the head a couple times, and they stopped making those mistakes.

No discipline at all from the Packers. They shot themselves in the foot. They deserved to lose.

Strike 2. The Bears didn't convert on their ill attempt at a touchdown. They should have kicked the field goal. Alas, Lovie is dumb, and so you are left with the lead, and crappy field position. I mean, horrible. Inside your own 10? Fuck that. It looks like you are going to get out of it and start one of those eight or nine minute drives down the field like you have done SEVERAL times this game. But, your lack of discipline causes a penalty which you can't recover from, and you are forced to punt.

Now, earlier in the game, you punted to Devin Hester, and he burned you for like a 40 yard return. Jesus. That's a lot of field position to give up on special teams. I know this may sound crazy, but if you bothered to scout the Bears, you would have heard of this guy. He has 7 punt returns for touchdowns. A shitload of kickoff returns as well. The guy is just lightning fast, and has a way of bouncing out of tackles. His downfield vision is unparalled. I would recommend one of two things.

One. Don't kick to him. Kick it to someone else. Kick it out of bounds. Hell, kick it into Lake Michigan. Just don't kick it to HIM. Two. If you MUST kick it to him, make it high and preferably not too deep. This will cause a fair catch and neutralize the problem. You might give up 10 or 20 yards in distance, but you keep him from burning you for even more.

Here comes the kick. High and very deep. Uh oh. 60 yards later, Hester scores his 8th punt return for a touchdown, and the Bears have the lead. Imagine that Fuckface?! Hester scorched your ass again! AGAIN! Once, I can see. I can picture the "He won't do that to us" mentality. But after he does it to you once, you let him do it a second time. Hester had over 100 yards in punt returns in one game! What in the hell would possess you to kick to Hester a second time? Why? What good could possibly come from that? I will never understand that.

Strike 3. Know when to hold and when to fold. Your offense commits a mistake. A BIG mistake. They fumble the ball. Bears recover. Its late in the game. You still have all three timeouts. So a defensive stand and you can get the ball back with some time and work your way for that game winning field goal.

Instead, you opt to challenge the ruling on the field.

Wow. Just wow. Its one thing if you think something got lost in the shuffle. Heck, the coaches upstairs may think they saw something, and tell you to challenge it. It happens. You listen to your coaches and you are wrong. Oh well. You tried. But, what makes this so amazing, is that the play happened RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. He was right there on the sidelines when the ball came loose. Hell, had he had a helmet on, he could have recovered the damned fumble.

Instead of looking at the play that happened right there, McCarthy decided to challenge the ruling. His efforts burned him a very much needed timeout. The Packers weren't able to freeze the clock enough. If they get the ball back with 40 seconds instead of 4, who knows what might have happened.

Strike 4. Lets call 3 a foul tip. That way, this is a Strike Out. Its late. Very late. Under a minute to go. You are out of timeouts. The Bears are five yards away from scoring a touchdown. You guys are tied. Remember, you have no control over the clock any more. None. You have an extremely accurate kicker on the other side who will make this chip shot. You can't even freeze him. You are out of timeouts. At this point, you need to get the ball back with more than a fartfull of seconds to attempt a miracle drive.

Why not let them score? Let them have their touchdown. Put the ball back into your stud quarterback's hands, and let him try to win you the game. You would at least give yourself a shot. Instead, McCarthy shoves his hand up his ass and watches his Packers' futile attempts at trying to win.

Perhaps you could have blocked the field goal? Yea. Maybe. But your special teams has been getting raped all night. Blocked Field Goal. Punt Return for a Touchdown. Punt Return for 40+ yards. Not to mention the numerous penalties. Your special teams are more like special eds at this point. You honestly would rather bank the game off of THEM making a play over your offense?!

You, Mike McCarthy, are a fucking idiot.

-Deimos