Let them know why you're wearing the crown

Sorry, America. I wouldn't have been terribly upset had the Saints won, but you don't turn the ball over that many times, in a snowy Soldier Field, and expect to win. Or, evidently, compete. Grossman had another mediocre-but-inoffensive game while Jones and Benson ran all over the Saints and the defense looked much improved. Another two weeks off and I think this team is ready to silence all the doubters.

Although Bill Simmons' recent column was semi-complaining about everyone hating the Patriots, he makes a good point about the state of following sports in this country today:

Sports has evolved into a 24/7 event, between the instant highlights and internet coverage, thousands and thousands of Web sites and blogs, an infinite number of fantasy leagues, a never-ending slew of sports radio shows, sportswriters screaming at one another on TV and everything else you can imagine. Every game and event is digested and processed almost instantly, and then it's rehashed and digested again, and then it's beaten into the ground, and within a few hours everyone feels obligated to come up with their own unique angle on things -- even if it's extreme, even if it's insane, even if it's blisteringly nasty or vicious, even if it's completely nonsensical or inane.

This is totally, 100% true. There's just too much, especially in football, which in taking over as the new national sport has inherited the bloated following that comes with that mantle, magnified even further by the cable and internet age. ESPN.com uses video games to simulate possible outcomes of football games, and even writes recaps to go with them, as though the games have actually happened in any sense. Naturally, they're never right (the Bears were picked to lose both their playoff games, and the computer took San Diego over New England and NE over Indy).

But with all this coverage, people inevitably look for the best story and then not only run it into the ground, but seem to go after anything that might stand in its way. The best story was the Saints. They helped New Orleans recover from Hurricane Katrina, they have exciting rookies, Drew Brees had an MVP-like year, they'd never earned a bye before. They were the sentimental favorite. And I'm not blaming anyone for that. But why did "the Saints are the sentimental favorite" seem to go hand-in-hand with "the Bears can't win, won't win, forget it, they stink." It's like everyone forgot that:

(a) The Bears won 13 games
(b) In October, the exact same pundits were suggesting the Bears could go 19-0
(c) The Saints, a warm-weather dome team, were coming into Chicago in January
(d) The Saints' defense really wasn't very good

Dome teams don't always lose outdoors to better teams - just look at the Colts last week - but it seems to happen more often than not. People looked at the Saints' offense, the fact that the Bears' D had looked mediocre recently, and handed the Saints the win because they were the team that didn't have Rex Grossman. Which is all well and good except that they were also the team that didn't have Brian Urlacher, Adewale Ogunleye, Nathan Vasher, Charles Tillman, and the rest of that playmaking defense. You know who the Saints did have? Fred Thomas. How'd that work out?

People also continued to jump on Grossman, effectively handing him the blame for a loss that hadn't yet happened. They forgot, further, that Grossman actually has a very good arm and just makes bad decisions sometimes (because he's basically a rookie, still). No one seemed to consider that the situation favored Grossman not being put in a position to win the game - the Bears could afford to run the ball a lot and the Saints were likely to be affected by the weather. Yet every analyst on ESPN.com picked the Saints on Friday.

And in perhaps my favorite twist, Gene Wojciechowski wrote the following three columns:

December 18: "Least impressive 12-2 team ever"
January 14: "Bears are softest team in last four and should have lost to Seattle"
January 21: "Um, okay, I guess the Bears are good"

Well, sorry, Gene, and everyone else. Once again the Bears proved that you can bash them all you want, but when the time comes, they get it done. 39-14, no less, a game that wasn't even particularly close for most of the second half. The much-maligned offense got into the end zone plenty (helped by short fields thanks to the defense's forced turnovers) and the D looked great for most of the game. And now it's off to Miami.

Which means we have to spend two weeks listening to the talking heads say how the Bears have no chance in the Super Bowl because of the huge edge the Colts have at the quarterback position. Seriously. Can't wait.