My Friends,

 

That would be Seattle blue, something like a dirty teal, or turquoise, or maybe even the blue green of the Crayola 64 box of your youth, not the navy blue he was given when the Bears made him Mister Irrelevant of the 2000 draft. When it comes to his professional career, Green’s jerseys have been all blues.

 

So what? Mike Green was a fairly decent nickel back when he joined the Bears, adequately covering the third receiver and hitting with reckless abandon early in his career. The Bears thought enough of Green to hand him the starting strong safety job when they let Tony Parrish walk after the 2001 season, and Green responded by becoming Freddie Freeloader in the secondary, taking bad angles and worse penalties on his way to getting moved to free safety and eventually out of the lineup entirely when a rookie took his place.

 

Not even the lack of depth in the defensive backfield was enough to save Green when the Seahawks called, even after Jerry Angelo had given up his third round pick to acquire the 5-9 ex-Carolina smurf and Denny’s bouncer Ricky Manning Jr. to replace the retired Jerry Azumah. It didn’t matter that Mike Brown had finished the last two campaigns injured, making the safety spot precariously thin; Angelo had seen enough of Green’s flamenco sketches and decided the offer of a sixth round pick was too good to be true.

 

And it is. Another milestone has passed in the career of Mike Green, with the shores of Puget Sound miles ahead. But with all the rain they get in Seattle, I’d imagine right now Mike Green is feeling kind of blue.

 

LBF

4/26/2006