Rex, it's time
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by Tstelnicki03
You could probably go out on that limb and say Wrecks Grossman hasn't been having the greatest three weeks of his career.
It would appear that he has managed to do the previously unthinkable, dethrone the Cubs' Billy Goat as the number one scapegoat in all of the Windy City. This fact becomes even more incredible when one considers that it is September, crunch time for the Cubs, when the Goat annually rears his ugly, smelly, bad-luck rearing head.
At the outset of the season, all NFL teams' hopes for their campaigns reach cosmic proportions, and lofty expectations know no bounds, and the city of Chicago was no exception when it came to Grossman. Even after his abysmal Super Bowl performance, the city of Chicago took a collective deep breath, and seemed like it would be willing to handle another year of Rex, and was hoping that he would be just that; Rex, not Good Rex or Bad Rex or Mediocre Rex or Subpar Rex or Boo-him-out-of-the-stadium Rex. Especially not Boo-him-out-of-the-stadium Rex. No one likes that guy.
During the preseason, Rex Grossman made it a point to stress the fact that he had made great strides towards eliminating the inconsistency of his play, which plagued him throughout the season and led to an incalculable number of cat-calls for Brian Griese. Grossman said he was ready to play. Bad Rex was soon going to be a mere memory, a soaked, blurry, interception-throwing, Super Bowl-losing, memory.
If only.
Grossman's worse than pedestrian numbers through the first three games (52.8 completion%, 1 TD/6 INT's) can only be bottomed (if there is topped, there can be bottomed) by his seemingly worse ability to make decisions in the pocket. Game after game, down after down, Grossman continues to boast his seemingly unparralelled ability to flounder around and make poor, hurried decisions in the pocket when faced with even the bare minimum of what one would describe as a "rush."
After watching Tony Romo shake and bake in an increasingly collapsing pocket for much of last night's 34-10 debacle, and still manage to make not only plays, but stellar plays, it only makes Grossman look all the more helpless, as if that were possible. Romo has his wits about him at all times, his eyes remain up... but never in one place, he scrambles, he swings his shoulders, he has an uncanny ability to avoid the sack when it seems inevitable, and worse for opposing teams, when given time, Romo is one of the more deadly precision passers in the league today. Of course, when one is forced to watch the utter antithesis of all things a Quarterback should be, (a.k.a. Sexy Rexy) it may make Romo's skills seem a bit out of proportion in his favor, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
But Grossman's struggles through the first three weeks raise the inevitable question, is he still the starting QB? Head Coach Lovie Smith gave his typically stoic response, "Rex is our quarterback," although we've gotten to the point where, these being the only four words he will use to describe the Bears situation at QB, we are starting to guess at what he might mean from the inflexion and tone with which he speaks them. Apparently, Lovie didn't say it with as much gusto or confidence as he's said it in the past. Really. Fascinating. I guess it's safe to say Rex is as good as gone then?
The fact remains, Rex is incompetent right now. Last season's inconsistencies are a thing of the past. Gone are the days of Rex, starting out hot, cooling off a bit, heating up again, freezing to death.. Rex is consistent now. It is the sad, unfortunate truth of the matter that Rex's consistency lies on the wrong side of the Good-Rex-Bad-Rex-O-meter.
Every time Rex goes into his cadence and recieves that football from Olin Kreutz, every little thing he does is being over-analyzed by every set of eyes in the stadium, not to mention every set of eyes in the national audience. Rex can do nothing right. Even the plays he made last night that were worthy of a few cheers, or perhaps a momentary cease in the constant reign of boos, such as his 10-yard, 3rd down scamper, which led to a few nice pass plays to Desmond Clark and rookie Greg Olsen, are still dissected a thousand times over, replayed and re-analyzed again. Rex was once a prime target for criticism, he's now become a lightning rod, and the end of the storm isn't in sight.
That, precisely, is why Lovie needs to hand the guy a seat. Rex's jubilant return to an outrageously raucous standing ovation near the end of the 2005 campaign to spell Kyle Orton after his disastrous run is now only a distant memory, and it's fading fast. Grossman can do nothing to help himself by playing, whatever he does, the criticism and over-analyzation grows, but more importantly, he can do nothing to help his team right now. The offensive woes continued into Week 3, a prime-time game against another NFC contender in Soldier Field. The offense's habit of turning every possession into a quick 3 & out is wearing on the defense, as evidenced by the Cowboys' late surge, and also possibly by the sudden influx of names added to the Bears injury list.
The one main argument against Grossman's imminent pine-riding is that Griese is only a "band-aid" replacement, as stated so eloquently by the one and only John Madden on Sunday Night. Well John, the Bears are bleeding...and what better way to stop the bleeding then with a giant band-aid.
Lovie, make the call. Rex, take a seat.
