Washington Redskins at Chicago Bears, October 6, 1991

Man, I don't know about you, but I'm already missing football. Also, with labor talks breaking down and a possible lookout looming more than ever, we may not see NFL football for a while. So, all weekend long, I have decided to watch a game each day and review it. Today's post is about the week 6 game in 1991 between the Chicago Bears (4-1) versus the Washington Redskins (5-0), a game that featured four future Hall of Famers, two Super Bowl winning coaches, the former and current coach of the San Francisco 49ers, and Matt Millen.  At the end of day, it was the Redskins that would emerge victorious, by a 20-7 margin. Here are a few notes about this game:

- The stars of this game were the Washington Redskins defense, particularly their defensive line. Bears QB Jim Harbaugh had no time to throw all day long and took tremendous hits thanks to the pressure from DTs Tim Johnson and Eric Williams, as well as DE Charles Mann. In an attempt to put more pressure on Harbaugh, the 'Skins would often line up Mann inside across from Bears C Jay Hilgenberg, and for most of the first half Hilgenberg just couldn't handle him before eventually slowing him down in the second half. Even though Harbaugh took lots of hits, the Bears never made an adjustment by keeping an extra back in to block or putting Harbaugh in the shotgun until late in the game. As a result, Harbaugh was rushed into making some terrible throws and finished the day 17-41 with three interceptions. Harbaugh was so rattled that on one play, he kept dropping back before finally floating a pass in the air attended for RB Neal Anderson, but LB Kurt Gouveia just waited for the ball to come down and picked it off easily. Needless to say, it was not Harbaugh's finest day.

- Even though the Redskins won 20-7 and were only up 10-7 at the end of the third quarter, the score does not illustrate how much they outplayed the Bears in this game. In fact, the Redskins could have had two more touchdowns had Mark Rypien been more accurate. In the first quarter, WR Gary Clark had CB Leumel Stinson beat downfield, but Rypien underthrew it and Stinston picked it off at the five yard line. In the third quarter, Clark once again beat his man downfield, but this time Rypien rushed his throw despite nobody being around him and overthrew his man. I will say that Rypien played a decent game, though he received a lot of help from Clark and WR Art Monk. Monk in particular had a strong game, catching two touchdown passes and making a key catch on fourth down despite taking not one, but two hard hits from Bears secondary players. Monk's stats weren't that impressive (6 catches, 69 yards), but he had the biggest individual impact on the game and played like, well, a Hall of Famer.

- Rypien was also a lot more mobile then I remember him being. Sure, he wasn't Michael Vick like, but for a big guy Rypien could move back in the pocket. One of the keys to the Redskins offense getting on track was Rypien's ability to roll out of the pocket to the right and buying him extra time to find a receiver. That way, not only could Rypien buy more time, but it also moved the play away from Bears DE Richard Dent, and it didn't hurt that the 'Skins had All-Pros Mark Schlerth and Joe Jacoby on the right side and that the Bears were without their other defensive end, Trace Armstrong.

- While Harbaugh didn't have the best game, he didn't get a lot of help either. The Redskins kept Anderson in check for most of the game, holding the back for 73 yards. A bigger problem for Harbaugh was the drops by his receivers, as the Bears dropped five passes in the first half. The biggest came in the first quarter where Harbaugh had Wendell Davis wide open at midfield and threw a perfect strike, only for Davis to drop it. Davis may not have scored on the play, but he had enough room to get at least in field goal range, and the whole game might have changed had Davis held on to that ball.

- For a while, it looked as if the referees were going to take over the game, as there were eight penalties called in the first quarter alone. Some were legitimate, but each team had a big run taken back on holding calls that were borderline at best, and all the penalties really slowed the game's pace to a crawl and took the Bears' crowd out of the game. Speaking of which, John Madden would constantly express his surprise at the lack of noise the Bears fans were making, considering they were playing at home against a top-notch opponent. Eventually, this lethargy carried over to the Bears, who played with a lack of urgency and spark all game long. Even coach Mike Ditka was surprisingly calm as his team made mistake after mistake.

- The game was called by Pat Summerall and John Madden, which is always a good thing, unless the game is over and Madden blabs about whatever just happens to be on his mind at the time. He spent an entire minute talking about Redskins LB Matt Millen and how the number 57 just didn't suit Millen. In Madden's mind, 57 was too long a number. I have no idea what he meant by that, but that's what he said.

So that's that. After this game, the Redskins would win their next five games before finally losing to the Cowboys, then the Redskins would go on to win the Super Bowl against the Buffalo Bills. The Bears would finish 1991 at 11-5, but lost to the Dallas Cowboys in what turned out to be the final playoff game Mike Ditka would coach, unless he decides to come back in the future, which seems unlikely. At the end of the day, the Bears just didn't have enough firepower to overtake the challenging Redskins' defense, and despite some shaky play from Mark Rypien and a running game that was ineffective, the Redskins made this game look easy. Well, thanks for reading, and if you any ideas for future posts, or thoughts about this post, than either leave a comment on the blog or send them to me at e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com.

Fun with YouTube Recommendations: Sept. 30, 2010

Well, I had a couple of ideas about reviews for The Canon Review, but they'll probably take a while to do, and I want to go to bed soon, so I've decided to do a quick little post dedicated to videos that a web site tells me to watch based on other videos I've watched on the same site. So, let's get started, shall we.

Video 1: 80s Christopher Cross Ride Like the Wind - This is by far my favorite Christopher Cross song, although that's not saying a lot since I know about three Christopher Cross songs. This is a live performance from 1979. Two things about this video, one, check out the guitarist doing backup vocals at about 1:45. It looks as if he's a fish chomping down on a hook. Two, I don't want to judge a book by its cover, but I have a hard time believing a guy like Christopher Cross is the type of guy that's 'lived nine lives, gunned down ten' as the lyrics suggest. Despite that, it's still quite a catchy song.



Video 2: Super Bowl XX: Bears vs. Patriots - Last 2:00 - Like the title says, this is the last two minutes of Super Bowl XX between the Chicago Bears and the New England Patriots. It's not very exciting, since the Bears were up 46-10 at the time. All the Bears do is run out the clock with Thomas Sanders three times before ending the game. But at least Sanders had a couple of good runs. The announcers (Dick Enberg, Bob Griese, and Merlin Olsen of Mitchell fame) speculate about whether or not the Bears' success will last for a few years. Well, it did and it didn't, as the Bears won a lot of games the next three years, but only won one playoff game during that time before collapsing to a 6-10 mark in 1989. After the game, both coach Mike Ditka and defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan are carried on their' players shoulders in celebration, which is kind of symbolic in that both men had a power struggle for years before Ryan left to coach the Philadelphia Eagles. It's not the most action packed video ever, but it is a nice piece of football history as the Bears celebrate their only Super Bowl win thus far.



Video 3: Deion Sanders - Must be the Money - Prime Time may be one of the most exciting players to play football, but as a rapper, he makes Shaquille O'Neal look like Dr. Dre. In this classic from 1994, Deion raps about having a lot of money, and spends the music video showing off the lifestyle that his money has brought him. The song is rather repetitive, as half of it is just Deion saying "must be the money" followed by his backup singers repeating that mantra. Deion also wears a hot pink suit throughout much of the video, which is a look that's probably best left in the 1990s. Overall, at least Deion's not as bad a rapper as Macho Man Randy Savage, so he's got that going for him.



Video 4: Kidd Video Opening Song - Remember the 1980s cartoon Kidd Video? Yeah, me neither. From what I can tell, Kidd Video was about a four person band who gets sucked up into a cartoon world in order to become some fat guy's musical saves. With the help of a fairy in leggings with a powerful sneeze, the band fights off being controlled by the evil fat man and try to make the world a better place, or something like that. Also, some of the show takes place in the physical world, so half of the show is a cartoon and half of it isn't, if that makes sense. Perhaps I should watch an episode or two of this Kidd Video. I just want to know how this video ended up in my recommendations. Also, is it me, or does that kid in the purple shirt look like he's thirty?



I think that's enough video madness for now. Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any ideas for future reviews, or comments about this review, then share them either by leaving a comment or by sending me an e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com.

When sports teams produce bad music videos

This post is inspired, so to speak, by Monday's post which featured the music video Let's Go Mets. If you haven't seen it, well, it's pretty bad. But the Mets were far from alone. One of the most disturbing trends from the 1980s is that sports teams felt the need to produce music videos. Apparently, they though just because someone can hit a ball real far or run real fast, they could also sing and dance. This mentality produced some of the cheesiest videos to come out of the 80s, which is really saying something. Below is just a few samples of this phenomenon.

The Super Bowl Shuffle (1985 Chicago Bears)



The original, and most well known of these videos, is the Super Bowl Shuffle. This video was recorded some six weeks or so before the Super Bowl. Fortunately for the Bears, they made the Super Bowl, otherwise they would have looked like fools. Well, some of them already look like fools. Watch out for Steve Fuller (#4), as he dances like he's high on meth. Also, he's not a good rapper. Also, watch for the punter (Maury Buford) playing the cowbell. Even in music videos, the punter gets no respect. This video is missing one thing, and that is Steve McMichael. Imagine what Mongo could come up with in this video.

Baseball Boogie (1986 Los Angeles Dodgers)



First of all, check out those jackets. Nothing says macho more than a pink satin jacket. The star of this video has to be Orel Hershiser (the white guy in the blue jacket). Orel may have been a heck of a pitcher, but he had to be one of the worst dancers to be put on camera. I'm not much of a dancer myself, but I hope and pray I could do better moves than Orel, particularly that creepy shoulder shimmy at the beginning.

Silver and Black Attack (1986 Los Angeles Raiders)




This is one of the most repetitive songs in the world. They play the chorus at least 12 times. Who decided to make this video almost seven minutes long anyway. I don't know who the best rapper is, but the worst is either coach Tom Flores or Todd Christiensen (#46). Also, I like how Matt Millen (#55) is the only guy in the video that was wearing a hat. He also goes through his rap with the enthusiasm of a man buying hemorrhoid cream.

Ram It (1986 Los Angeles Rams)



Words do this song no justice. I will say that Nolan Cromwell (#21) gets the award for "Guy most out of place" in this video. Surely someone must have thought that "Ram It" might be an euphemism for something else. I guess they either didn't care or found it funny and just left the video as is. 

There are others, but I have suffered enough for one day, and I'm sure you have too. If you have any ideas for future posts or reviews, then e-mail them to me at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Remember everyone, if you can ram it just right, you can ram it all day and ram it all night.