Official Bears-Saints Game Thread

[MJZiggy]

You gained a woman somehow.

[billy_oliver880]

You gained a woman somehow.

A man's dream right there...as long as you are not married to them.

[Packnut]

Woman

You gained a woman somehow.

Yeah, guess I have a pretty active imagination.

[GrnBay007]

Re: Woman

You gained a woman somehow.

Yeah, guess I have a pretty active imagination.

Packnut = Bretsky's idol :P

[GrnBay007]

NFL's FINAL FOUR POWER RANKINGS

1. Colts

2. Patriots

3. Saints

4. Bears

Rex Grossman played well enough in Sunday's overtime win over the Seahawks, tossing for 282 yards and a touchdown. With every person in a 500-mile radius of Chicago monitoring his play like an NFL Films archivist, Rex did what he had to do — he got his team the win. Grossman's biggest play came on third down in OT, when he hit a streaking Rashied Davis for a 30-yard dart that set up Robbie Gould's eventual game-winning field goal.

"The most important thing is we won,'' said the Bears quarterback after the game. "I don't care how we do it. I really don't. This is the most unbelievable situation we are in now. We're in the NFC Championship, and we win one game we're in the Super Bowl. I'm two wins away from having a ring on my finger for the rest of my life.''

Grossman's going to need the suddenly banged-up and beaten-on Bears defense to show up Sunday if he wants to make it past New Orleans and to Miami. Chicago's D, playing without Tommie Harris, Mike Brown, and dealing with Tank Johnson's current situation — has been hit or miss over the last month of play. The Bears have given up 20 or more points in their last five games. The Saints boast the league's top passing offense. If ever there was a time for the league's most storied D to get back on track, Sunday's it.





Is it just me, or does pretty much everything Grossman says to the media sound kinda silly?

[MJZiggy]

No, it's not just you.

[MJZiggy]

dp

[GrnBay007]

Playoff notes: Saints coach shrugs off chilly Chicago weather

CBS SportsLine.com wire reports


METAIRIE, La. -- New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton has shown little concern over how his players will adapt to the weather in Chicago during Sunday's NFC championship game.

Temperatures were in the 40s in New Orleans on Wednesday, on the cold side for this time of year. But the Saints opted to train inside rather than outside on their grass practice fields.

"My concern more is the footing. We've played before in cold weather," said Payton, who coached in a cold climate when he was an assistant with the New York Giants from 1999-2002. "In 2000, I think the last 37 practices we had in New York were inside and yet we played outside."

The Giants went to the Super Bowl that season, losing to Baltimore.

"We'll be ready for the elements and we'll adjust accordingly," Payton said. "We're kind of in a pretty good routine and I kind of like the routine."

In the playoffs, teams from the South have performed well in cold-weather cities in recent years. Michael Vick led Atlanta to a victory at Green Bay in the playoffs following the 2002 season. That same season, Tampa Bay advanced to the Super Bowl by winning the NFC championship game at Philadelphia.

Last season, the Bears lost a home playoff game to Carolina, with Louisiana native Jake Delhomme playing quarterback for the Panthers.

Payton won't discount the effects cold weather and wind can have on a game, but he just doesn't believe the Saints are better served by diverting from the practice routine that has been successful for them to this point.

"We've got a quarterback who's played in Big Ten and understands the conditions," Payton said of Drew Brees, who played at Purdue. "It is what you make of it."

Brees and Reggie Bush are both players who'll have to handle the ball a lot in Chicago, where temperatures are expected to be in the low 30s or 20s for Sunday's game. They also downplayed the weather.

"I don't worry about that," Bush said. "I'm just going to play football. Cold weather's not going to bother me. It's still a football field. It's still 100 yards. It's not going to change."

[MJZiggy]

Saint and the City: Fujita Finds Match in New Orleans

By William Kalec
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, January 20, 2007; Page E01

METAIRIE, La., Jan. 19 -- Mt. Fujita towers six to eight inches, depending on how tightly it's wrapped, and is easily scaled by those with an empty stomach or sophisticated palate.

At Rock-N-Sake, a sushi bar in New Orleans's warehouse district, the edible homage to Saints linebacker Scott Fujita consists of crawfish and tuna rolls coupled with avocado sauce and is stacked like a pyramid. For the fifth-year journeyman linebacker who was traded by Kansas City and let go by Dallas without much of a free agent fight, the namesake dish and local cult-hero status is an honor offered with this disclaimer: "I don't want to get all sappy or anything, but . . ." Fujita said.

Scott Fujita
At a sushi bar in New Orleans, the edible homage to Saints linebacker Scott Fujita consists of crawfish and tuna rolls coupled with avocado sauce and is stacked like a pyramid. (Doug Benc - Getty Images)
THE ROAD TO SUPER BOWL XLI
Sunday
New Orleans at Chicago, 3 p.m.
New England at Indianapolis, 6:30 p.m.


For all the stories about what the Saints, a traditional NFL punch line, have spiritually done for New Orleans, and for all the ones that will be written if the team beats the Bears in the NFC championship game Sunday in Chicago, Fujita's situation serves as a reminder that some players needed this place as much as it needed them.

Less than eight months after racking up a team-best 112 tackles for the Chiefs in 2004, management leaked word that Fujita was expendable in training camp. The team worked a trade to the Cowboys, for whom he started the last eight games of the 2005 season, but only because of injuries. Although the Cowboys offered him a contract before his deal expired last year, Fujita said the terms "declined" throughout the free agency period, leading him to look elsewhere -- even here, a franchise and community shrouded in uncertainty.

"It's kind of a reciprocal relationship," he said.

Presented with a nearly impossible sales job, Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis provided a calculated tour of the city when Fujita visited in March. He didn't avoid sections devastated from Hurricane Katrina, but made sure to tour and talk up parts of town where water damage was minimal or nonexistent.

Of course, when the discussion turned to football (Loomis estimates talk was split 50-50 with all free agents between business and the living situation in New Orleans) the Saints sold Fujita on continuing his relationship with Coach Sean Payton and defensive coordinator Gary Gibbs, who were brought over from Bill Parcells's staff in Dallas.

"We felt like not only is he a quality player," Loomis said, "but also that we had a chance to get him. . . . Sometimes in free agency you need to go after the guys you can get, not just go after anyone and everyone, particularly in our circumstance."

Fujita signed March 13, two days before quarterback Drew Brees signed, and was the eldest Saints starting linebacker when the regular season began. Linebacker Scott Shanle joined the team in late August from Dallas for an undisclosed draft pick. Seventh-year veteran Mark Simoneau was acquired a few days later in a trade with the Philadelphia Eagles for Donte Stallworth. Fujita eventually stood out from the no-name group thanks to the unintentional marketing genius of cornerback Mike McKenzie, who called Fujita the "Asian Assassin" on the Sept. 25 "Monday Night Football" lineup roll call. In that same game against the Atlanta Falcons, a national audience watched Fujita deliver a Samurai bow (a tribute to his adoptive father, Rod, who is of Japanese-American decent) after sacking Michael Vick.

He's bowed before, several times actually, but the move was never copied by Pop Warner linebackers around town. And he's never had a sushi roll named after him. And he says it was six weeks before he had to buy his own drink in New Orleans.

"And it has nothing to do with me being a Saint," Fujita said. "It was just people recognizing that I must have looked like an out-of-towner with my flip-flops, sandy hair and surfer's backpack. They must have thought, 'Man, we need to buy this guy a drink.'

"It was just a unique -- I don't want to call it a marriage -- but I felt like we just fit right in."

Nothing more than a sideshow to the Saints' big-tent offense, Fujita has directed a defense that -- statistically, anyway -- isn't substantially more accomplished than the 2005 unit, surrendering just five yards less per game than last year and totaling the same number of turnovers. Fujita's 96 tackles and 3 1/2 sacks weren't individual career highs, either.

Still, the injection of new players such as Fujita have produced several big-play moments, including stopping Philadelphia inside the 5-yard line last week and forcing a field goal with the score 27-21 and causing Coach Andy Reid to call for a punt on fourth and 15 with less than two minutes remaining.

"When I got here in free agency and a lot of the new coaches got here, I looked at it as kind of a fresh start for me in my career and a fresh start for the coaches," Fujita said. "But it was also a fresh start for the guys that were here in the past and wanted something new to come around, and something new to get emotional about and get excited about. So I don't want to forget about those guys at all, and I don't think everyone else should.

"We have been riding an emotional wave this whole year. But, you can't discredit [us], this is a damn good team that I'm playing on, too."

[The Shadow]

Go Saints!

[Bretsky]

Saint and the City: Fujita Finds Match in New Orleans

you asked several times what FA's TT could have signed; this guy is another

[Bretsky]

I hope for very good weather in Chicago tomorrow

The Saints have better talent and are the better team
Bad weather and unfavorable conditions benefits the Bears and may actually propel the Bears to a Super Bowl. I hope not though.

Sean Payton, for a rookie or vet coach, has been tremendous

[MadtownPacker]

Agreed about Sean Payton. He has won alot of close games and that shows me that the team is well coached. They had only one game where they looked bad and have pulled out alot of close wins. The bears could barely get by a team of wounded ducks.. or seahawks. NO is playing tremendous on offense at a time when the bears D is not feeling it like early in the season. If Brees can get his throw on, it's over.

I wish it was tomorrow so I could watch the Saints destroy the bears. Then I will feel like the 2006 season has ended.

[Rastak]

I like the Saints in this one but if Grossman plays above average the Bears certainly have a good chance with home field.


So my prediction is the Saints.....

[MadtownPacker]

Wrex had his good game (by his standards) last week. Maybe he will feel that since he threw a TD last game this week is the Ds turn to score and win the game like they have done for so many games this season.