Showing posts with label Chicago Bears. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chicago Bears. Show all posts

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Insufferable, butt-kissing Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross seems willing to repudiate own fans, give up '15 home game vs Jets and play it in London for slight hypothetical possibility of landing Super Bowl. Someday. Maybe. With the right breaks

ICYMI: Butt-kissing Dolphins owner Stephen Ross perfectly willing to repudiate own fans, give up '15 home game vs Jets and play it in London for slight hypothetical possibility of landing Super Bowl. Someday. Maybe. 
With the right breaks.




Miami Dolphins In Depth blog
Bad idea: Dolphins yield Jets home game in '15,
Armando Salguero,
November 7, 2014 9:24 a.m
  
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/dolphins_in_depth/2014/11/i-like-the-idea-of-the-nfl-playing-games-in-london-i-even-like-the-idea-of-the-miami-dolphins-occassionally-doing-their-leag.html

There are many positive and negative things I'll never forget about my time living and working in the Washington D.C. area from 1988-2003.
One of those was that regardless of whether the Redskins were Super Bowl Champs, a very competitive team or just plain mediocre-to-awful -the Richie Pettibon years!- there was never any doubt in the mind of anyone I knew that the team genuinely was THE focus of the community's
hopes and dreams every Fall.

Just like you've heard/read/watched for decades back when CBS used to do NFC games and you could predict that before a big game against the Giants, we'd see a segment lauding Redskins fans and making the point that they had a direct connection with their fans that most NFL cities never have. (And still don't have.)
But it's true.



You didn't have to take a poll when I was living there to know that the Redskins genuinely were THE glue that held the community together, regardless of race, gender, political party, ideology or economic class.
I saw that for myself for years in tangible ways that even the South Florida I grew-up in during the Dolphins' heady era of dominance in the 1970's could never possibly replicate.

I know because I saw I witnessed it everyday in the Fall and Winter when I was on the Metro train on my way into work in the morning, esp. on Monday mornings after big Redskin wins or Friday afternoons before big games, and looked at the faces of the other commuters around me.
And even though I'd lived in Chicago when the Bears won the title in the mid-1980's, and knew well of their decades of suffering, especially when I was at IU, it was even more tangible than what I saw every morning in the Fall when I'd board an El train in Evanston down to The Loop.

It was noticeable at the hot dog stand on K Street with a Redskins pennant flying above it that played the Redskins fight song on an endless loop on their boombox on Friday afternoons. 
Noticeable precisely because it didn't surprise you,
You simply took it in stride.



Noticeable, too, at the CVS on Eye Street near the NY Times' Washington bureau, where I'd frequently run into the MPAA's Jack Valenti heading there mid-afternoon to solve a sugar or caffeine fix.
And while that weekend's weather forecast was always somewhat iffy, what wasn't iffy was knowing that once you walked into that CVS, that 99% of the employees had on a Redskin cap or skullcap.
You could take that to the bank!

So, that said, in 2007 when the Dolphins gave up a VERY RARE Dolphins home game against the NY Giants -the Giants being the team the Dolphins have played THE LEAST in the team's existence, with just 5 games prior to that one in 42 years- in order to appease the NFL execs on Park Avenue and play the game in London, like many Dophin fans, I watched the game with more than a little anger, since every single legit Dolphins fan my age or older -esp. ones like me who were actually from South Florida- knew EXACTLY what that home game represented.
A very rare opportunity: completely squandered.

And also understood what a major customer slap in the face that decision was to Dolphin fans, given the unique history and peculiar demographics of South Florida.
To Dolphin fans who had already been stuck with a listless, punchless team for many years at that point, it felt like once again a decision had been made NOT for what was best for the team or for the fans but for... something else.
Once again stabbed in the back, even as we nursed our cold beers and chowed down on finger foods and pizza throughout South Florida.

Well, Friday's blog post by the Miami Herald's Armando Salguero suggests that clueless, disconnected-to-reality Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has really learned nothing at all from history...
It looks like decisions are once again being made NOT for the benefit of the team that's on the field or for the fans in the stands but for something else entirely.
For his benefit.

Do you honestly think the Baltimore Ravens would give up a home game against the Steelers so that Baltimore maybe, perhaps, someday, possibly host the Super Bowl? 
Or that the Seattle Seahawks would give up a home game against the S.F. Forty Niners for the same remote possiblity? Nope.
Neither do I.

The prescient statue dedicated to FDR outside The National Archives' entrance on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington is very much to the point: "The past is prologue."
For most people, but apparently not Stephen Ross.

His insufferable ownership is just another burden for true Dolphin fans to bear who've already had to endure so many other indignities and embarrassments the past 15 years. 

To no tangible change for the better

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Why Lovie Smith got fired by the Chicago Bears -GRIM facts & trends that were increasingly hard to swallow for loyal Bears fans: the Bears have made the watered-down NFL playoffs only ONCE in the past 6 years despite much talent on the team, including failing 3 seasons in a row AFTER making the Super Bowl. If anything, it was an overdue decision; Bears should strongly consider hiring Brian Billick as head coach and REALLY helping Jay Cutler's progress


ESPN YouTube Channel video: ESPN correspondent Ed Werder on the Chicago Bears firing of head coach Lovie Smith on Monday, and what he may do. Uploaded January 1, 2013. http://youtu.be/mUOnaPIMPD4

While there clearly are a lot of people who like Lovie Smith's personality and experience, including some current players, consider how the players have actually played for HIM, since it seems to be something that ESPN and a lot of social media types keep ignoring.

The Bears have made the watered-down NFL playoffs only ONCE in the past 6 years despite the talent on that team, including failing 3 seasons in a row AFTER making the Super Bowl. 

That's more than embarrassing and is NOT something that fans of an NFL team in the third-largest city in the country are going to be satisfied with. 
Nor should they be.


View more videos at: http://nbcchicago.com.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=8938166&pid=null

The one year the Bears made the playoffs in the past six seasons, 2010, they promptly lost the NFC Championship game -at home- in large part because they were so grossly unprepared for an injury to QB Jay Cutler.
Whose responsibility is it to ensure that you have competent back-ups if not the head coach?

As has been noted here many times before, I lived in Chicago in the mid-1980's and that coincided with their 1985-86 Super Bowl run and win, and I still usually root for the Bears.
But these CHRONIC weaknesses with the Bears, like not being able to assemble a good staff or a competent offensive line to keep Cutler upright, can be laid squarely upon Lovie Smith as head coach.

In the end, the facts didn't lie -one playoff appearance in the past six years is NOT satisfactory.
If anything, his firing was an overdue decision for fans of the team.

Just like the one the Eagles and Chargers made to finally be rid of Andy Reid and Norv Turner.
Both need to stay away from the NFL for a year for their own good -and ours.
We can't stand the utter predictability of their problems every year and their chronic inability to adequately resolve them. 

If the Bears were smart, and that's not a given, obviously, they'd hire former Ravens head coach  and Vikings OC Brian Billick, someone who knows something about offense when he has some talent to work with, like he did with those Vikings teams of the late '90's when they were one of the most-exciting teams of the past 25 years.
Give Jay Cutler some help from someone who knows what they're talking about.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Forty-years ago, Miami Dolphins football in December had genuine significance and gave South Florida a real sense of identity, excitement and togetherness that it had never before enjoyed. I know -I was there. But now...

TIME Magazine, December 11, 1972

Building For The Super Bowl - Miami Coach Don Shula
Forty-years ago, Miami Dolphins football in December had genuine significance and gave South Florida a real sense of identity, excitement and togetherness that it had never before enjoyed. 
I know -I was there.
But now...

Some, including many who should know better, foolishly say that South Florida has become "a basketball town."
That's NOT true, of course, since real basketball towns support both professional AND college basketball with equal affection.
I ought to know, because I've lived in two of them: Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Miami is nothing like them.

Still, given the anemic showing the Dolphins have made on the field the past 15 years, and the equally amateurish, dog-chasing-its-tail sense of ineptitude and stupidity shown by the two most-recent ownership groups off-the-field, it's not easy to rebut those foolish claims with a straight face, especially when the Miami Heat have won two NBA championships in the past 6 years.

What's happened is that the Dolphins have slowly bled the heart and evaporated the soul out of many of their most loyal fans and sent them into hiding underground.
They watch the games on TV, but going to see them in-person, with the current crew in charge, is too painful.

When you know what real professionals look like and act like, because you've seen them with your own eyes, and in fact, have grown up with them, it's very hard to accept second-rate and lackluster effort.
Accept such a consistent lack of fundamentals in basic aspects of the game, or the lack of knowledge of the rules, or lack of personal accountability on the field.
And then to be asked to applaud that?
I know I can't, and I'm far from alone.


nitroradio99 YouTube Channel: Highlights of Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins. December 20, 1970. Uploaded April 27, 2011. http://youtu.be/3wtp94Ffg3w
This 1970 game was the first Dolphins game I ever attended in-person at the Orange Bowl, with my Dad. I was nine-years old, the Dolphins but five.



Jean0987654321YouTube Channel: Intro of 1973 AFC Championship: Oakland Raiders at Miami Dolphins, December 30, 1973. Uploaded May 26, 2012.
http://youtu.be/Z-PjSiKm1-M


monteroed YouTube Channel. Uploaded October 27, 2010
http://youtu.be/ErvySdmZqWY



sluggotv YouTube Channel: Chicago Bears at Miami Dolphins. December 2, 1985. Uploaded May 22, 2011. http://youtu.be/_m0SzNtY9WI

The day of this game I was wearing the same trademark aqua-colored Dolphins cap I'd worn all week around Evanston in predicting that Don Shula was not going to allow the undefeated Bears to come into the Orange Bowl and emerge unscathed.
It was weird how confident I was, but having seen all the '72 Perfect Season home games in- person, perhaps it was the the fight-or-flight kicking in!
And my intuition has always been my strongest trait.


I watched the Dolphins-Bears game from the Norris Student Union at Northwestern University in Evanston, where I had moved that summer, and planted myself at a table underneath one of the large TVs they had on the side of the columns. 

I'd often watch the network evening newscasts there and grab a bite to eat while waiting to meet my friend, ace lifeguard, boater, guitarist and very talented singer Susan Smentek, who worked in the art gallery there, and whom I even watched sing a few times in their bar.
Susan was also my creative arts/film friend muse with whom I finally saw "Back to the Future" with when it premiered back then! 

Susan was the sort of wonderfully kind and well-grounded friend you always hope you have on your side when you need to sort your head out and make some difficult choices.
For me, at that time, Susan was the friend and confidant whose opinion I cared about so much that I'd rather have disappointed my own parents and sisters than her, because she's the one who actually listened intensely, and the one person who helped me and cheered me up more than anyone else did the two years I lived in the Chicago area.

Frankly, much as I'd like to write otherwise, those two years along the shores of Lake Michigan were not the happiest of times for me, as I had to deal with a lot more personal anguish and professional disappointment in a short period of time than I'd ever had on my plate at one time before, despite what I thought at the time had been more than enough planning and preparation on my part before heading up to Chicago.
I leaned on Susan a lot, and though I tried not to over-do it, I know that sometimes it was too much, so those times when I knew I'd really disappointed her, I was really racked by intense pangs of guilt. 

I deeply regret that I fell out of touch with Susan not long after after she visited the Washington, D.C. area around 1994 while touring in support of her CD, Siren Song, and I got a chance to see perform yet again, that magnetic voice of hers as strong and impressive as ever.
Which made Siren Song such a perfect name for her!

And how's this for irony, she now lives in Elmhurst, the very town that I was originally slated to live in when I first moved-up there in 1985.
But if I had, I'd never have met Susan, which proves the wisdom of the saying, "Friends Are God’s Way of Taking Care of Us"
Dziękuję, Susan!

That table at Norris where I watched the Dolphins beat the Bears was the same exact table where seven weeks later, I watched the Space Shuttle Challenger launch and subsequent explosion as it happened, which not that many people there were watching a mere five minutes beforehand.
Yet within 15 minutes, seemed to have half of the Northwestern campus there, much of it consumed in tears and sobs, the rest in varying looks of astonishment and bewilderment.