11 seconds to go. Kyle Orton just completed a brilliant 77 yard drive, spanning 11 plays to put the Bears up by 1. It seemed like the Bears had won the game. Until the Lovie Smith decided to give the game away.

The Lovetron decided to squib kick the ball on the ensuing kickoff. After a return by the Falcons, and a pass from Matt Ryan to Ohio State alum Michael Jenkins, with 1 second left, the Falcons kicked the game winning FG. Why did Lovie call for a squib in that spot!? He was asking to lose the game in that spot. In that spot, where you need a field goal, you don’t squib it, hoping to get time run off the clock, you boot it and make the other team go 80+ yards. 11 seconds and 80+ yards is a lot harder to get into field goal range than 6 seconds and 55 yards. Now, if a touchdown is needed in that spot, a squib kick is understandable, as 55 yards is still pretty far, and the squib takes time off the clock. Brilliant management by the Lovetron. Thanks to his ineptitude, this team that could easily be 6-0 right now is 3-3, tied for first with the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers. FIRE LOVIE SMITH!!

Reports indicate that the Packers are considering doing something they have wanted to avoid doing, trading Favre to their rivals, the Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings, in an attempt to end this. The Packers have also said that if Favre is reinstated and comes to Packers camp, that he would not be allowed to take part in team drills, only individual drills.

Meanwhile, Packers team president Mark Murphy traveled to Mississippi, apparently in an attempt to talk Favre out of reporting to camp. Reports say that Favre has been offered $20 million over several years not to report. The Packers control Favre’s rights until his contract expires following the 2010 season.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: The Packers are being really stupid here. Did they take some of Jerry Angelo’s stupid pills or what? Their reasoning seems akin to something Angelo would say, such as last year when he more or less said he traded away Thomas Jones so that Cedric Benson wouldn’t have to compete with him for the #1 RB job. They should have nipped this in the bid and welcomed back Favre as the starter. Now, they are really backed into a corner, or more appropriately, as the first article I linked says, they are backed up against their own goal line. Whether or not they avoid the sack remains to be seen.

This contract wraps up a very busy off-season for GM Jerry Angelo who spent about $185 million on extensions or new contracts for players already on the roster. In addition to Hester’s deal, Angelo gave new deals and extensions to Robbie Gould, Lance Briggs, Desmond Clark, Rex Grossman, Kyle Orton, Tommie Harris, Alex Brown, and Brian Urlacher.

Now the focus turns to training camp and the upcoming season, where the Bears expect Hester to be an integral part of the wide receiver corps, to help make up for the lost production created by Bernard Berrian’s departure to Minnesota. Now that all the contracts have been signed and there isn’t any player mad, we are now free to look at the upcoming season, but that is another story for another time.

Last Friday, the Bears made a horrible move and signed Brandon Lloyd to a 1-year deal. WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DOING!! Brandon Lloyd sucks!!

Lloyd has attitude issues, and he has no desire. He was criticized by teammates for his attitude in San Francisco and had to be disciplined on more than one occasion in Washington. Why do the Bears want this kind of guy on their team!?

And the best part about it, less than 24 hours after joining the Bears, Lloyd was already running his mouth:

“Rex Grossman is the starter,” Lloyd replied when asked how the quarterback situation was explained to him. “Coach Turner and coach Lovie [Smith] think very highly of him.”

Last time there was mis-speak in Halas Hall, it led to Brian Griese being shown the door, except Griese was speaking the truth. We all know dam well that Griese called those plays on his own. Ron Turner does not have the mental capacity to call such a drive.

And while I’m taking shots at the Bears, I decided I might as well go after the fans as well. I’ve been reading the message boards, how in the world can the Bears think that with the retirement of Favre, the Bears are going to win the NFC North now? It amazes me how stupid Bears fans are. Like in 2006 when I said he needed to be fired, everyone was like how can you want a coach who just won 2 NFC North titles to be fired? I tell you: Winning the NFC North is like winning 10 cents in the lottery. Here’s to the Bears sucking in 2008.

Why now? Having overcome so much, from nearly losing his life in 1990, to battling his addictions to Vicodin and alcohol, to losing his father to a heart attack, to his wife’s breast cancer, to his brother-in-law dying in an ATV accident, to his home in Mississippi being destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, why now?

With the team built to win it all, with Favre, an offensive line, a defense, a running game, a good WR corps, why is he leaving now? Doesn’t he want to go out on top, making for the ultimate happy ending in sports? The script isn’t finished just yet. If it is true that not attempting to get Randy Moss is the reason, then that’s just bad. Favre was never one to back down from a challenge, but here he is, saying:

I know I can still play, but it’s like I told my wife, I’m just tired mentally. I’m just tired,” Favre told ESPN’s Chris Mortensen, in a voice mail message. “If I felt like coming back — and Deanna and I talked about this — the only way for me to be successful would be to win a Super Bowl. To go to the Super Bowl and lose, would almost be worse than anything else. Anything less than a Super Bowl win would be unsuccessful.

“I know it shouldn’t feel unsuccessful, but the only way to come back and make that be the right decision would be to come back and win a Super Bowl. And honestly, the odds of that, they’re tough. Those are big shoes for me to fill, and I guess it was a challenge I wasn’t up for.”

No, Brett, we would not view you as a failure for losing the big game. You’d still be hailed as a great hero. Your 253 consecutive games played serve as a symbol of the miserable failure the QB position has been here in Chicago, where us Bears fans have had to endure 21 different QB’s during your streak. The way you tormented the Bears will never be forgotten, going 22-10 vs. us, including a 20-4 mark until the Lovetron came along.

I’ll never forget the days where I used to hate you so much, that I wished ill things happened, including creating a monster player in my Madden NFL game just to destroy you and end your career. As I watched football more and more, I gained an appreciation and grew to respect and admire your play.

Everything was set in place for #4 to write a storybook ending. Instead, he has decided to hang it up before it was complete. Good luck with retirement, Brett.

“The thing you have to do is create sobriety in the marketplace. Because you have the money doesn’t mean you have to spend all the money. You have to put values on players and then you have to stay disciplined to that, or else what you’re going to wind up doing is keeping all those players at an exorbitant amount of money — way beyond how you valued the player.”

I think what Angelo means by value is that you have to spend a certain amount, it doesn’t matter what the player is worth. The Bears are not interested in winning. They are interested in maximizing profit margins, and by not going after these players, that’s how they do it.

“A year from now or two years from now, you’re going to look back and that money shrinks up and you’re going to need to [sign] other players and all of a sudden those players become targets, and we don’t want to get into that cycle where you have those cap casualties. Then you have that dead money. You have to look at it from a broad picture, not just isolate this year and how much cash and how much cap room you have.”

Doesn’t Jerry say this every year? And since when does this become a constant problem? There are other people you can get rid of and free up cap room. Won’t these guys help the team for a few years, and then when they start becoming liabilities, you cut them? Didn’t the Bears complain about how they needed to upgrade the stadium and how they had to increase ticket prices in order to compete for a Super Bowl?

“If money is the bottom line, I don’t want that player. I’m not letting that team rule our thinking. That’s where the sobriety comes in.”

Oh really, so after tagging Lance Briggs last off-season, had there been a market for Briggs, would Angelo have paid the money needed to sign him? I think not. Briggs only came back on the Bears terms because there was no market for him. When it comes time to pay Tommie Harris, is he going to commit the money needed, a 20M signing bonus, and a contract likely in excess of 80M? Or is Angelo going to refuse to pay him, saying that’s he’s all about the money and they need to be sober? Or let’s say some day, a franchise QB comes to the Bears, will Angelo pay him the 100M+ that will be needed to keep him, or is that being drunk? If the plan is to sink the team in 2008 to get a high draft pick, then say it. Otherwise, if you’re going to talk a big game, actually carry it out.

SUPER BOWL XLIII, HERE WE COME!!!

Grossman has already cost us a Superbowl, now he’s going to completely set the franchise back. We all know that Rex is our quarterback. The Lovetron is married to him, he doesn’t care how he performs. They may say Orton will compete with Grossman, but we all know that Grossman will be the starter. Welcome to year 6 of Grossman sucking.