Cheap Seats
Who’s laughing now?
USA Today reports that Pat Bowlen, the Denver Broncos owner, who once fired Dan Reeves, sent this note to his former coach earlier this season:
“Congratulations on your 5-1 start. I’m really pleased for you. Keep it up. Maybe we’ll meet in the Super Bowl! Ha, ha!”
Berenstain Bears
Skip Bayless of the Chicago Tribune, ridiculing the botched Chicago Bears news conference, presumably to name Dave McGinnis as the new coach:
“Friday, (Bears president Michael) McCaskey officially ensured that your Chicago Bears have become national laughingstocks.
“Not just the jokes of the NFL, mind you - McCaskey went sea to howling sea. His Grin-and-Bear-Its now rule as the biggest dunces in all of sports.
“Now, when you think Bears, you think losers. Boobs. Goofs. Fools. When you think McCaskey you think Inspector Clouseau. Frank Drebin. Yogi Bear.”
McGinnis withdrew as a candidate for the job Saturday, and later that night Dick Jauron, the defensive coordinator for the Jacksonville Jaguars, agreed to become the Bears’ next coach.
One for Pops
Atlanta quarterback Chris Chandler and his wife, Diane, finally settled on a name for their third daughter, who was born last Wednesday. They have named her Brynn Brodie. Diane Chandler’s father is former NFL quarterback John Brodie.
“I threw the old man a bone,” Chandler said.
He gives 110 percent
Denver Broncos veteran Ray Crockett has been here before. He knows how to use a lot of words without saying much. The following is Monday’s effort at the press conference, which may have threatened the Super Bowl cliche record:
“When you’ve gone through the kind of season like we’ve had, our coaches are very good at preparing us to play,” Crockett said. “When you get to the playoffs, it’s do-or-die time. You have to leave everything out there on the field. When we have our backs against the wall, we let it all hang out.”
Murder, mayhem and the Super Bowl
Columnist Woody Paige of the Denver Post, trashing Miami, the site of Super Bowl XXXIII: “Miami, where the slogan is: `Your CD player, your money and your life … ‘
“But tourist deaths are down 12 percent in 1999. Only one Canadian and a Panamanian visitor have been murdered so far. It’s early.”
Paige offers 15 tips when visiting Miami, but his first tells it all as far as he’s concerned:
“Don’t go. Is it worth losing your life to attend a sporting event? Scalpers are getting upward of $4,250, and that’s just in the strong-armed-robberies.
“Tickets? If the guy says it’s a 50-yard-line seat and shows you a ticket hand-printed in black and white, just give him the money.”
The last word …
“Will the last Bull leaving Chicago remember to turn out the lights?”
- Sports writer Jeff Gordon in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch