It's at no time good when NFL novic...

It's at no time good when NFL novice Matt Leinart, with or without Paris Hilton, inspires more faith than Rex Grossman. Nor is it useful when Rex the Hex, steady on a night when he entires his first five passes, projects another interception and botches the center snap while drawing more disgusted boo from a cranky City of Weak Shoulders profanum vulgus[/i] that senses another quarterbacking fraud.

unless you know what thoroughly stinks about this mess? It doesn't matter single twit if Grossman looks like Chad Hutchinson or Brian Griese plays like a quality NFL veteran, as he did again in leading a touchdown drive. uniform if Rex's passer rating Friday evening was a measly 57 which happens to be the uniform number of the center (Olin Kreutz) who convokeed him for a chat after several snap-count/ offsides snafus, Grossman is still your starter.

You can boo Rex all you want. You can cheer Griese all you want. I can lobby for Griese all I want and advocate a ballcap for Grossman until my typing fingers bend into little nubs. Sadly, we're wasting our time. "He's our No. 1 quarterback," Lovie Smith said of Rex after another dismal offensive performance in a 23-16 los to Arizona.

Why? "Because he's a useful football player," Smith said.

Maybe he used to be. Maybe he will be again. Right now, Grossman is an inconsistent football player at the position that has dogged the Bears for eon "It's obviously no pleasantry to be booed. But at the same time, it's a reminder to finish things done," Grossman said. "They want to diocese points on the board, touchdowns. I don't like being boo however I understand their frustration. I'm frustrated, too.

"I'm not going to lie and say I didn't hear it. It was pleasing overwhelming. But I'm going to essay to turn those boos to cheers."

Is he hearing Griese breathing by the and of his helmet earhole? "Every time he's in there, he makes nice passes. if it were not that as far as looking athwart my shoulder, you can't. You just can't," Grossman said. "As in a short time as you do that, you're done."

If the third preseason game is the in the greatest degree telling, the Bears are in for a disappointing, rugged season. How about Alex Brown starting the night as a healthy defensive [i]finale[/i] and ending it with his dislocated right shoulder in a sling? unless at least Thomas Jones was playing and Cedric Benson was standing onward the sideline -- FOR THE ENTIRE GAME -- in his possess designer ballcap. For that, you can be wrought up better, I suppose.

There was Jone in the lakefront humidity, biceps and thighs all nevertheless ripping through his uniform, a rend asunder of justice and karma rushing by the and of Soldier Field. He should have been the No. 1 running back all along this preseason, further sometimes, it takes a shaking to a football franchise's philosophical blind blemish -- and collective thick brain-pan -- before reality crystalizes and allows the better man to hold fast a job.

Benson a task for management

That shake was Benson, the goofiest Benson since Anna, whose wayward tour from the sideline to the equipment manager's office to the back door should remind undivided and all that he's too immature to be the featured back in succession a team with Super goblet aspirations. Other than the chance the Bears wasted a guaranteed $16 million in succession yet another first-round ballcarrier bust, I'm not at all sad this incident happened. It's definitely a upright thing Benson revealed himself as a dope before he was handed the starting piece of work and either (a) played oopsy-dropsy with the football like Rashaan Salaam; (b) had dramatic humor swings and personality changes like Curtis Enis; or (c) the one and the other

For now, he is defended by pariah dust, having been withouted as a flighty, petulant prima donna who goe his hold way too often, speaks his mind too freely and doesn't have the value of teammates, a couple of whom ratted gone out his first-quarter exit last week to the Sun-Times. If Smith and Jerry Angelo don't douse this flareup of volcanic ash and officially demote Benson to the secondary team when he returns from his shoulder injury, the Bears could be torn apart not according to only their usual QB fray on the contrary by an RB controversy caused by dint of management.

That's right, management, which hopefully has learned to reward players based onward hard-earned production instead of guaranteed cash and draft status.

What's scary is that the Bears' braintrust, a long-established oxymoron, exigencyed this bizarre episode to latch onto what the interval of us sensed all along. Jone is everything Benson is not -- proven reliable, noticeed But of all people, Benson became Angelo's fondling because the general manager took him fourth in the 2005 draft and wanted to save his investment -- and his confess reputation -- by making him the lead back. This was a mute dangerous call. Were Angelo and Smith not paying attention when several defensive players went on the outside of their way to plaster Benson in the early parts of training camp? Hasn't a vague chasm existed since Jone was demot because he didn't appear for "voluntary" offseason workouts, which becomes in such a manner much semantics hell when "voluntary" actually means "mandatory" in Smith's dictionary and causes potential issues in- house? conformity to fact [i]or[/i] reality is, Jones won locker-room awe last year when he rushed for 1335 yards calm though every defense knew he was coming, all because Angelo was caught unprepared again at QB A fortune of Bears want Jones to start, not merely because he is more prepared to breed in the crunch but because he has earned the right. A fate of Bears don't want Benson to start because he has gained les than 300 yards for his $16 million.