My Friends,
In this, what amounts to the off-season for us Bears fans, there’s great news coming out of Mississippi. It looks like The Washed-Up Veteran Quarterback is coming back for another season. And that means the Bears’ dominance of the packers under Lovie Smith will continue.
That’s what was intimated in a story posted by a guy named Al Jones on the website of the Biloxi SunHerald. That got me to wondering whether “SunHerald” is the result of the merger of two older papers, or just an internet blog set up by the paper’s publisher and being run by his son, Herald (or is it Harold?). But I digress.
Al told us that he got a text message from The Washed-Up Veteran Quarterback Thursday and that he replied (wish I could have tried to decode some of that exchange), and what followed was a phone call to Al from some unknown number in the 920 area code, which includes the green bay habitat, and the guess was that the call came from the pay phone out back of aunt Kay Kay’s fillin’ station and taxidermy, because it turned out to be The Washed-Up Veteran Quarterback himself on the other end of the line. According to SunHerald journalist Al, “Him and Deanna and Brittany and Breleigh went to a local ice cream store,” and the next thing you know The Washed-Up Veteran Quarterback was saying, “Al, I want to continue . . . I would like to continue longer.”
That Deanna might be feeling “unfulfilled” and The Washed-Up Veteran Quarterback could be gunning for the Cialis endorsement never crossed Al’s mind, who took this to mean that The Washed-Up Veteran Quarterback would be returning to play next season, evidently, because he also wrote that “Favre will return from another season.” Or maybe Al just meant that The Washed-Up Veteran Quarterback would be heading back to Kiln after the packers’ season ends. It’s all a mess, and too hard to translate the local dialect into understandable English.
What’s also hard to figure out is why The Washed-Up Veteran Quarterback would choose the week of the packers’ playoff opener to cipher a text message down to Al about his future, rather than make the sugar cone call during the bye week. I guess it didn’t occur to him that it might be a distraction for his coach or teammates to have to address the issue while they’re preparing to face Seattle, ironically coached by a guy who has a street outside Curly’s Place named for him. What a nice, gentle reminder of this week’s opponent that must be for the urine-stained as they head home from the Don Hutson Center. Can’t anybody up there get their consonants in the right place?
Confused packer fans have also pointed out that The Washed-Up Veteran Quarterback should return after he posted his best passer rating (95.7) since his lone Super Bowl success in 1996. But that rating has been a mediocre 61.7 against the Bears since Lovie Smith arrived, with five TDs to go with 15 interceptions. The Bears are 6-2 in those games and I, for one, welcome the prospect of a quarterback with that kind of recent success against the Bears, one who will turn 39 on October 10th, showing up twice on the schedule.
And, of course, there are the records. There are always the records when it comes to The Washed-Up Veteran Quarterback. If he stays healthy, The Washed-Up Veteran Quarterback (currently at 253) will pull to within one of the record for most consecutive regular season games started in the 2008 season finale (held by the Vikings’ Jim Marshall at 270). Don’t think that won’t be on his radar as he limps toward the finish. I can see the ceremonial first snap against the Bears in the second game of 2009 at Curly’s Place right now, following a record-tying packer season opener on the road against Marshall’s old team in Minnesota. Mark my words, that’s how the NFL will schedule it. By the way, how high will the interception record be by then?
So break out those Sheboygan brats, cheeseheads. There will be white smoke at Castel Gan Curly, and two more losses against the Bears to look forward to next season!
LBF
1/10/2008