FanHouse Mike Ditka

After Jay Cutler was traded to the Bears because he wouldn't cooperate with the Broncos, some in the NFL community -- notably former Bears head coach Mike Ditka -- suggested that Cutler's attitude in Denver showed he wasn't a good leader.

But one of Cutler's new receivers, Devin Hester, begs to differ.

Everyone makes mistakes. But when those mistakes are magnified by intense scrutiny of the NFL draft, well, they become much more embarrassing than, say, my typical Friday morning, mustard-stain-on-khakis incident.

Which is why the NFL FanHouse braintrust got together to determine who is the biggest bust for each NFL team. They're not listed in terms of stupidity -- they're all stupid relative to a team's total draft performance. Meaning, of course, some teams "bust" is much different than another organization's; we did it this way to avoid just linking you to DetroitLions.com.

Instead, we're putting it in current draft order, sans trades, and allowing this list to serve as a reminder of each's team's ability to properly execute a fail. The "bust factor" was based primarily on three things: statistical production (or lack thereof), position in the draft and other available options during that year's draft.

---

---

Last week, the NFL clarified an existing rule to protect quarterbacks from the kind of hits that sidelined Tom Brady for virtually the entire 2008 season. The clarification "specifically prohibits a defender on the ground who hasn't been blocked or fouled directly into the quarterback from lunging or diving at the quarterback's lower legs."

Over the past two weeks we've heard all about the numerous connections between Pittsburgh and the Arizona Cardinals, and there are plenty. So many, in fact, that the Cardinals are jokingly referred to as "Pittsburgh west" by Steelers fans.

The story's of Ken Whisenhunt and Russ Grimm are well documented. Clark Haggans, Brian St. Pierre, Jerame Tuman and Sean Morey are all former Steelers, while Steve Breaston and Reggie Wells were actually born in Pittsburgh.

TAMPA, Fla. -- A harsh dose of reality was injected into the festive atmosphere of the Super Bowl this morning when about three dozen retired players met with the media to promote the Gridiron Greats, an organization that provides financial assistance to retired NFL players who left the game with serious injuries.

Everyone who follows football knows that players often leave the game with permanent disabilities, and that even the lucky ones can usually point to a knee, hip, elbow or shoulder that bears surgical scars and still causes them pain. But seeing all these former players gathered in one room brought the point home: At one point during the press conference, the ex-players were asked if they were in physical pain just sitting there. Almost all of them said they were.

This season, FanHouse writers take their cameras to NFL stadiums to document what happens when you stop being polite and start getting real. Or something. We've cleverly titled it "FanHouse in the Stands."

The Bears didn't get into the playoffs after their road loss to the Texans, but their fans deserve to be. Bears fans traveled to Reliant Stadium in visiting team numbers not seen since the Steelers came to town in 2005. They were very loud.

Da Bears Super Fans

Before the game, I got to chat with Da Bears Superfans who made their funny yet wrong predictions about the game:

Mike Ditka, the Hall of Fame tight end and Super Bowl-winning coach, discussed the Plaxico Burress situation today in his role on ESPN's NFL Countdown.

And Ditka proposed a simple rule that would likely make players safer, but would also draw the ire of the National Rifle Association: Simply ban all NFL players from owning guns. Here's what Ditka said today, according to a transcript provided by ESPN:

"This is all about priorities. When you get stature in life, you get the kind of contract, you have an obligation and responsibility to your teammates, to the organization, to the National Football League and to the fans. He just flaunted this money in their face. He has no respect for anybody but himself. I feel sorry for him, in the sense that, I don't understand the league, why can anybody have a gun? I will have a policy, no guns, any NFL players we find out, period, you're suspended."

Ditka's proposal will never happen, but Ditka deserves credit for pointing out a simple fact that Burress learned the hard way: If you carry a gun around, you're more likely to hurt yourself than protect yourself.

ESPN has announced this year's second-string Monday Night Football team, and it's the same as last year's second-string Monday Night Football team: Mike Greenberg, Mike Golic and Mike Ditka.

The NFL season's kickoff weekend features two Monday night games. The first, Vikings-Packers at 7 p.m. Eastern, will be called by the usual ESPN crew of Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Tony Kornheiser. The second game, Broncos-Raiders at 10:15 p.m. Eastern, gets the Greenberg-Golic-Ditka trio.

I thought the three Mikes were fine last year (aside from the one unfortunate moment caught on camera), although I wish Greenberg and Golic wouldn't be quite so reverential toward Ditka: They act like he's a god, not a colleague. If the three of them can just talk football without reminding us every five minutes that Ditka is a Hall of Famer, they'll be fine.

On ESPN Radio this morning, former Bears player and coach Mike Ditka, now an ESPN analyst, was asked about the advantage the Packers have of playing at Lambeau Field in cold weather.

Ditka had an interesting recollection: He said Bears founder George Halas, who owned the team while Ditka played for them from 1961 to 1966 and then hired Ditka as head coach in 1982, a year before he died, had such control over the NFL that he was able to manipulate the schedule to the Bears' advantage.

"We never played them in Green Bay late in the year," Ditka said. "We played them in Chicago late in the year. That was our advantage."

According to Ditka, the home team has the advantage in cold weather, and Halas made sure the Bears had that advantage. So is that really how it happened? I looked up the dates they played each other while Ditka was on the Bears:

1961: at Green Bay Oct. 1, at Chicago Nov. 12
1962: at Green Bay Sept. 30, at Chicago Nov. 4
1963: at Green Bay Sept. 15, at Chicago Nov. 17
1964: at Green Bay Sept. 13, at Chicago Dec. 5
1965: at Green Bay Oct. 3, at Chicago Oct. 31
1966: at Chicago Oct. 16, at Green Bay Nov. 20

Sure enough, in five of the six seasons Ditka played for the Bears, they got to travel to Green Bay before the weather turned cold. Ditka stated this in a matter-of-fact way that indicated he didn't think there was anything wrong with it, but it seems to me that it's unethical for Halas to use his influence in the league to manipulate the schedule like that. Of course, no one ever said Halas was as interested in ethics as he was in winning.

Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the death of comedian Chris Farley (hat tip: 100% Percent Injury Rate). Now you might ask yourself, 'what does that have to do with sports?' Everything.

Farley, despite having 'a little bit of a weight problem' gave us some of sports funniest moments off the field. Everyone's favorite is his part of the Super Fan skits . Those skits helped launch Mike Ditka into godlike status, introduced "Da Bears" into our lexicon and even made Michael Jordan watchable on SNL (even though he didn't do anything remotely funny).

There was also his ice skating skit and the one about Schmidt's Gay beer which was a knock off of all those beer commercials that laced our sporting timeouts during the 80s and early 90s. On the 15th anniversary of Christian Laettner's shot to beat Kentucky ... I posted this hilarious Farley spoof on the shot which I'm showing above.