Fun With Words: Gundy vs Mariotti

It has been recently confirmed by an alleged source (requesting anonymity) close to the Chicago Bears that OSU Head Coach Mike Gundy (MG) has been hired to critique the latest “column” by Chicago Sun-Times “sports journalist” Jay Mariotti (JM).

MG - I’m not going to talk about football today.

JM - Some seasons deserve to last, others warrant at least a final flicker or gasp.

MG - I’m not going to take a question about the game.

JM - This Bears season?

MG - I’m going to talk about this article right here.

JM - It immediately should be put out of its misery and chucked into the nearest great lake, waste dump or junkyard, hopefully buried beyond recognition Sunday evening in chilled, stony silence.

MG - Anybody hasn’t read this article — I don’t read it, but it was brought to me by a mother with children.

JM - What started with a succession of offseason screwups — trading Thomas Jones, angering Lance Briggs, prolonging Tank Johnson’s agony, not acquiring a reliable quarterback, ignoring our warnings about the recent fate of Super Bowl losers — ended with a complete, ignominious breakdown in a very winnable game.

MG - I want to talk about this article. Three-fourths of this is inaccurate. It’s fiction and this article embarrasses me to be involved with athletics tremendously.

JM - How in creation did the Bears lose to the New York Giants, a team with a quarterback so awful that we actually began a press-box appreciation society for Rex Grossman?

MG - That article had to have been written by a person that doesn’t have a child and has never had a child that’s had their heart broken and come home upset!

JM - They lost because their one hope on this day, the resuscitated Grossman, reverted to Bad Rexness in the final minutes and failed to piece together the same winning drive that Brian Griese did in Philadelphia, missing five of his final six passes inside Giants territory.

MG - And had to deal with the child when he is upset!

JM - They lost because some of his better throws mysteriously weren’t caught.

MG - And kick a person when he’s down!

JM - And they lost because their one effective method of moving the ball — a quick, no-huddle offense suited to Grossman’s gunslinging ways — was abandoned.

MG - Here’s all that kid did! He is respectful to the media! He’s respectful to the public!

JM - Why, Lovie Smith, did you and playcaller Ron Turner eschew the no-huddle attack when it was so dynamic during an opening 79-yard touchdown blur and periodically in drives that resulted in field goals?

MG - If you have a child someday, you’ll understand how it feels.

JM – Not to rub poison in the wound, but how do you think the pathetic Eli Manning sprung out of his coma in the fourth quarter?

MG - But you obviously don’t have a child. I do.

JM - And what’s with the wideouts? Bernard Berrian made a rubber-band-man catch to spark an overtime victory last week, but he failed to dive for deep balls — lunge, reach, anything — on a couple of occasions.

MG - If your child goes down the street and somebody makes fun of him because he dropped a pass in a pickup game, or says he’s fat, and he comes home crying to his mom, you’d understand. But you haven’t had that.

JM - He will be the designated scapegoat this week, though any fair analysis will include consideration of a lack of talent.

MG - Someday you will and when your child comes home, you’ll understand.

JM - The Other Adrian Peterson had a few impressive moments at running back, but he is as much an NFL backup as the injured Cedric Benson is an NFL bust.

MG - If you want to go after an athlete — one of my athletes — you go after one who doesn’t do the right things!

JM - And when the Bears needed their defense to make a late stop, the result was just as futile.

MG - That’s why I don’t read the newspaper! Because it’s garbage!

JM - Smith was hired for his defensive mastery, but after giving up 356 more yards — 5.4 yards per play — his defense continues to rank in the NFL’s bottom five.

MG - And the editor who let it come out is garbage!

JM - If a defensive era hasn’t ended quite yet in Chicago, what happens if Brian Urlacher’s back injury is a permanent issue and Briggs signs elsewhere in the offseason?

MG – . Don’t write a kid that does everything right, that’s heart is broken, and then say the coaches say he was scared! That ain’t true! That’s not true!

JM – Well, they lost because one of the all-time elite defenses — isn’t that what the now-benched Adam Archuleta said in September? — collapsed against the run and allowed two long touchdown drives in the fourth quarter.

MG - And I hope someday you have a child and somebody downgrades them and belittles them and you have to look them in the eye and say, “You know what? It’s OK. They are supposed to be mature adults but they’re really not.”

JM - And for all our worship of Devin Hester, our hyperventilating cries to feed him the ball every play on offense, we needed blooper sound effects when he blew past safety James Butler, turned around for a perfectly placed Grossman strike and … let it smack off his left shoulder pad.

MG - And then you want to write articles about guys who don’t do things right and downgrade them, the ones that do make plays.

JM - The Bears do not have a head coach who knows how to go for the jugular.

MG - Are you kidding me? Where are we at in society today?

JM – And what good is Lovie Smith if his defense isn’t proficient, if the Tampa-2 scheme has been unmasked?

MG - Come after me! I’m a man! I’m 40! I’m not a kid! Write something about me!

JM – He sounded like a man who knows winter is upon him, that his Super Bowl run was a one-and-done hiccup.

MG - Who’s the kid here? Who’s the kid here? Are you kidding me?

JM - December can’t end soon enough.

MG - It makes me want to puke.