Tribune Writer: Rex Grossman Needs Another Beatdown

I'm not Rex Grossman's biggest fan, not at all. I've criticized him when he's said dumb things, forgot what day it was mid-game, and tried to call 14 timeouts in a row. But I have to admit I start feeling bad for the little monkey when the writers have his keyster under constant attack.

Chicago Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey's premise today is that everyone's being way too positive about the Super Bowl-bound Bears QB and it's high time that someone rips him to shreds again. And who better than Morrissey? (Rhetorical answer: any of the columnists with talent who used to write for the Tribune when it was readable, such as Verdi or Lincicome)

As I noted in previous posts, type "Grossman" and "Super Bowl" into Google and you'll find all the "Worst Super Bowl QB Ever" columns you'd want to read. I voted on ESPN's Worst Super Bowl QB Ever poll yesterday just to see the results and Grossman had a healthy lead over Vince Ferragamo, Trent Dilfer, David Woodley, and Tony Eason.

That's no surprise, polls skew recent. Point is, the premise for Morrissey crapping out another bashing column is false. No one's referred to Rex as a hero until Morrissey did here, to set himself up for the spike.

I'll go over a few points he makes but, for example, nothing in the first 3 paragraphs -- Compton, Emeril, Pluto, Shakespeare -- makes any sense to anybody, so it's hard to even break down on any logical level.

He's a resilient kid who goes into each game offering absolutely no clues as to whether he's going to be good or bad, naughty or nice

He's a resilient kid because he has to be. Again, I'm not trying to paint Grossman as a sympathetic figure, I just don't understand the nastiness and hostility and frequency of all this. Why does it bother guys like Morrissey so much that when the gun sounded Sunday and the scoreboard said Bears 39 - Saints 14, Bears fans started celebrating and enjoying it?

And what player goes into a game offering clues whether he'll be good or bad in that game? What does that even mean? "Naughty or nice." Cute. Whatever.

He had the very nice series in the second half [Sunday] that seemed to give everyone a case of amnesia as to what happened in the rest of the game... Actually, that one series generated the kind of poetry last seen during the Elizabethan period.

There he just insults the intelligence, or more specifically the memories, of Bears fans. That's right, "everyone" forgot but you, Rick. No one recalls seeing 3-for-12, 5-for-19, etc. after every play on Sunday.

There's a difference between amnesia and euphoria. We can remember that Grossman didn't complete very many passes early, that he missed a wide-open Dez Clark in the end zone, we just don't cry ourselves to sleep worrying about it because it's irrelevant to the one remaining game.

The poetry bit, not sure why I left that in there and I haven't the foggiest what or whom he's referring to. What are you rebelling against, Morrissey? "Elizabethan poetry." OK, very good then. Bring on the next misconception and debunk it for us.

This season, the Bears stood by Grossman through it all.
Technically, yes.

That was quick. So it wasn't a misconception at all. Heck of a point, though. You've straightened everyone out on that.

The Bears are 15-3 this season with Grossman at the helm.
This is true

That was quick, too. Your theme was shooting down 4 misconceptions, and so far you've agreed 2 of them aren't misconceptions. We haven't seen this type of journalism since the Mariottian period.

I'll continue with his pithy semantics on this:

but it's also true that they're 15-3 with Hunter Hillenmeyer at linebacker, Alex Brown at defensive end, Jason McKie at fullback and the guy who squirts water in the players' mouths during timeouts

This makes me even more excited about the Bears' chances, when the Bear's mere "cogs" that he's diminishing are very good players in Hillenmeyer and Alex Brown. If those are the Bears' mediocre players, we're in great shape, gang!

And Morrissey should probably have done his homework. They're not 15-3 with Jason McKie. He missed a couple ballgames. Might want to look that up.

Someday, the Bears will let him be a risk-taker like the big-boy quarterbacks. But that day is in the distant future.

Another smarmy insult that Grossman isn't a "big-boy." I must have been watching a different season because I saw Rex Grossman take plenty of risks, sometimes enough to make me hoarse.

Why is any of this important? Because everybody—including Grossman—needs to be realistic about what the Bears have at quarterback heading into the game.

Rick's addressing "everybody" again, as if he's the only one who understands and is realistic that Grossman has run hot and cold all season.

I'm still not following why this is important and needed another column about it. Why is it important for me, in front of my computer right now or with a beer in my hand during the Super Bowl, to adopt your reality that the Bears' QB stinks?

One of the story lines of the season was Grossman's bizarre play.

You don't say. We did not know that.

To pretend it wasn't is to risk the return of Bad Rex. To ignore it is to give him ideas that everything has been dandy all season.

There's no one ignoring or pretending, Rick. Even if we tried to ignore or pretend, we can count on your ilk to come along and beat us over the head with this again, from your perch as smartest guy in the room.

Perhaps the lamest part is that Morrissey truly seems to believe that he needs to straighten all of us fools out on a thing or two, otherwise Grossman will get the wrong idea and that will have an effect on the game.

Morrissey imagines a lot of things, yet he missed Grossman saying directly a few weeks ago that the writers flatter themselves, if they believe the negative stuff they write has a big effect on him. But maybe that's the point - Morrissey won't accept that. The next best thing is to keep the fans booing the QB and claim it's good for everybody and for the team.

No thanks, Rick. You go ahead and crap on this Super Bowl run, we'll continue enjoying despite you. Watch your cornhole, Rex, man.

Footnotes:

• Ted Cox of the Daily Herald did a nice little lash back at some of the haters out there, led by the insufferable Steve Rosenbloom, who are trying to divest themselves of all the negativity that the Bears outplayed.

• On his ponderous blog, Steve Rosenbloom jumped to the defense: "Rick Morrissey has the Rex story right. Grossman had a great clutch series against the Saints after a bad first half. To paraphrase Denny Green, he is who we thought he is, going from all-or-nothing to all-or-no-turnovers-at-least. He is the player who is just as likely to win the Super Bowl for the Bears as lose it for them, and that prospect has fueled most smart observers' fears all season." SMART OBSERVERS?

• BEARSS!