Packers v. Bears: NFC Championship Game.

Yeah, I’m pretty happy with the season overall. Of course, I would have wanted to see the Bears win today, but they far surpassed my expectations for the season. I’m not really disappointed at all, unlike how I felt about the Cubs in '07 and '08.

(Checking in late, having been away to watch the game)

I give the Bears a ton of credit for hanging in there, really rattling Rodgers in the second half (especially after the hit by Peppers), and rallying behind Hanie. When the Bears were driving at the end of the game, it really didn’t feel as though the Packers had an answer for what the Bears were doing. I really didn’t want to see it go to overtime, because I had no confidence that the Packer offense would be able to score again.

The Packers’ play in the second half reminded me too much of the inconsistent way they were playing earlier in the season – they certainly can’t do that again in two weeks if they’re going to have any chance against either the Jets or the Steelers.

But, hey, I’ll take the win.

A lot of current NFLers tweeted their suspicions baout Jay cutler quitting on his team.

In all seriousness, Packer fans better start worrying about the Steelers. They’re looking like a juggernaut (and against a better team than what the Packers faced). The Steelers are a flat out better team on both sides of the ball than the Packers are. The Steelers are going to be favored. I know I smack talk a lot, but I think the Packers are going to get blown out.

That’s not smack talk.

The Steelers will be favored, rightly so , they are very impressive. However, no one has been able to blow out the Packers this year and that is due primarily to their defense, which I think is better than the Jets.

Fixed link. (You missed a closing quotation mark.)

Thanks!

I don’t like Jay Cutler at all, but those people need to STFU. Lovie and the Bears didn’t do Jay any favors by being hush-hush about the injury, but I don’t think it’s fair to question his desire based on that.

Agreed. If you read the recently-updated story on SI.com, it sounds like (if Olin Kreutz’s observation is valid) Cutler likely injured a ligament. Lovie’s typical sphinx-like behavior doesn’t help.

I think the Pack had better play better against the Steelers, but I think they can.

I also think you have zero credibility to make any post involving Green Bay.

The refs will be celebrating their victory against you late into the night.

Bears almost made a game of it. I don’t really get the whole assumption that Jay Cutler, why, he could have gone out there and played if he wanted to, he’s just a wuss. I find that kind of “tough” talk about football players to be ludicrous coming from couch potatoes, but we’re getting dangerously close to what caused my only ever Mod warning.

The good news is that you have predicted blowouts in favor of practically every team the Packers have played this year, rendering your predictions and analysis laughably worthless.

What, you folks thought the Steelers would be favored? Opening line is Green Bay -2.5, and it’s well on its way to 3.

Still kicking myself for not taking Green Bay +50 in today’s game when Dio was offering.

No they aren’t. You’re insane.

Wilbon’s excellent, bitter, resonating article about Cutler and the Bears today.

Damn that burns.

He’s right. Again the defense performs brilliantly only to lose due to the (lack of) offense. Not only could they not score, they gave up points.

Ha! Trent Dilfer talking about “hot quarterbacks.”

No, I think the Steelers are the better team. Who can predict what the “experts” in Vegas will predict? But I’ll grab the points, thank you.

Cutler frustrates the hell out of me, and his ability to make an entire stadium cringe whenever the ball is in the air is outstanding, but I’m still gonna defend him. That is one shitty article.

First off, he tries to take the high road by saying “you’re not going to read in this space any suggestion from me that Cutler’s knee injury wasn’t serious enough to send him to the sideline” and then follows it up with a whole bunch of comments from other people saying that.

And I hate how everyone loves to trash on a player after one bad game. Every good QB has a bad game every now and then. And unfortunately, sometimes they have to happen in the playoffs. Hell, Rodgers had a pretty crappy game today too, and on any other day, the Bears would’ve beaten them easily.

It sucks it had to end this way, but this season was the first one in a while to give fans hope that they can be a great team again. It didn’t happen this year, but we can say “Maybe next year” and really mean it this time.

But I’m sure I’ll be reading a “Fire Lovie” article in the Sun-Times tomorrow.