Bears Offense Sucks (Ssshhh!!!)

I'm currently enjoying a little schadenfreude reading about Moss's leg injury keeping him out of practice. I like Moss, but I don't know why the jerkface had to go and play for my two least favorite teams. And when he did go and play for a team I do like he spent the whole time slacking and being lame. I can't really hope a speedy recovery for him until either the Pats are firmly out of playoff contention or he's playing for another team, neither of which are likely to happen any time soon. So I guess that means I'm hoping that Moss's minor leg injury keeps him from playing football ever again. Wow I'm a jerk. But I am stubbornly hoping that the Patriots offense doesn't turn out to be as awesome as the consensus believes they will be.

On the other hand, I'm willing to buy all of the reports about the Bears offense looking really good so far this year. I have no problem believing that Grossman could have really gotten better in the off-season, mainly because it seemed obvious that his biggest problems were mental. When he felt comfortable it was fun to watch him; he seemed smooth. But it was obvious, as the season went on, he wasn't really able to make himself stay comfortable on the field for very long, culminating in the second Vikings game which was about as close as you'll ever get to seeing a professional athlete lose control of his bowels on national (or, what, regional? I watched it in San Francisco...) television. But, hey, I've been there. When I took Spanish my first semester at the University of South Dakota, I started off clean and smooth, picking everything up right away and not even having to study to stay ahead of the class. But we soon progressed to harder stuff and I got passes pretty quickly, so before I knew it I was sitting in front of a test quaking because I knew absolutely none of the answers. After that, even though I studied hard and managed to pull of a passing grade in the class, I never felt fully comfortable with any of it. A weird thing happened, though, during the year I took off of Spanish. It all sunk in. So when I came back and took Spanish 200, it was so much easier than I thought it'd be. I'd actually learned everything before, it was just that it took a while for my mind to become completely comfortable with it. And that has made all the difference.

Since quarterbacking an NFL team is so similar to trying to pass Spanish class, I've convinced myself something similar will happen with Grossman. He blew by the first few weeks, but then he thought he didn't need to learn anything new and got hopelessly behind, and so even though he actually did progress quite a bit in the last few games of the season and into the post-season (not counting the GB game, of course, which, I mean, come one, the game meant nothing, he's a person, can we really blame him for not caring?), but he just never managed to get completely comfortable with all of it. So now, after a break, his mind's had time to get fully wrapped around what he learned, and everything will probably seem a lot easier this season. Provided, of course, he doesn't get as cocky as what led to his downfall last season.

Plus, by all reports, the offense has gotten way faster. Berrian's looking even better; Bradley's healthy for the first time and having an amazing camp; Hester is looking like he'll work on offense much better than anyone hoped; and Greg Olsen is a 6'5" freak. At least if you believe everything coming out of mini-camp. Which I do. For fun.

But what's really got me excited about the Bears offense this season is that it's a commonly known fact that they suck. Grossman's terrible. Benson can't stay healthy. Their receivers suck. I don't know how much perceptions like that actually effect other teams' game planning, my guess is not all that much, but even if the Bears offense manages to play better than I think they will, it's still going to take until probably the tenth or eleventh week for that perception to waver. People will still expect them to start sucking until then. People probably will think that they suck all season anyway, even if they don't. They'll have no shot to win a playoff game. And not a chance in hell to win the Super Bowl. I hope that's how it turns out anyway, for the completely selfish reason that it's so much more fun to cheer for a team no one expects to do anything than a team everyone expects to dominate everybody. It makes me feel like I know something that other people don't.