King Kong, Angry Daddy and Crying Baby – Don’t Leave Us!

The proud history of the NFC North is often remembered for stoic faces like Lombardi, Grant, Ditka, Payton, Charter and Sanders.  When Joe Kapp climbed his way out of the Canadian Football League to be branded by Sports Illustrated as, “The Toughest Chicano” it was because of grit and determination.  Barry Sanders had an indomitable spirit that refused to let him be tackled.  And when the ‘85 Bears defense recorded back to back shut-outs in the playoffs for the first time in history, we couldn’t even try to pretend that Jim McMahon wasn’t a total ass and the Super Bowl Shuffle wasn’t entertaining as hell?

So, why are we about to let Donkey Kong Suh leave? Yes, I hate him too, but I love to hate him! Don’t you hate some people in the WWF [Editor’s Note: The old World Wrestling Federation, not the World Wildlife Fund — we all love panda bears here]? Don’t you love to hate Belichick? Don’t you love to hate Loki? Don’t you love to hate the Borg?

The NFC North is in grave danger of loosing a huge amount of it’s character this off-season, and it’s about time somebody said something about it!

I hate to hate Aaron Rodgers. He’s a decent guy. Boring as milk toast. Mike McCarthy? God, if the Packers win a few more Super Bowls with those two Mormon-Missionaries-Out-Of-Costume the Super Bowl ratings might finally get back to those of the World Series! Teddy Bridgewater looks pretty good, but boring as a country afternoon.

Adrian Peterson was in danger of becoming a bit of a milktoast-yawnfest he was so clean-cut and had that famous firm handshake. Now every time he has a big game and steamrolls some unfortunate linebackers, the late night comedians will click their heals in glee. People will have protests! Yeah! I fracking love protests!

Ndamukong Suh will be all stomping on some offensive lineman whose name none of us know anyway. Hello, bleeding hearts, remember the name of the last guy? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Jay Cutler just fills my heart with delight like a child at Christmas. He is so amazing at time he scares the hell out of me, and then, thirty seconds later, he has a total meltdown like a toddler. Right there on national television. He pouts, and has fits, and pretends to be hurt. He hides in the corner of the stadium, with a towel over his head riding an exercise bike, thinking we will forget he is over there, while his team’s season goes down in flames. He is almost as bi-polar as my ex-wife, your Mother-in-Law or the HR lady at work.

Do we want all of that happening over in some other country? Do we want to occasionally smile as we see a highlight reel of Jay Cutler ruining a season for Miami or the Jets? Would we really care as much if Ndamukong Suh was wearing a Jaguars jersey and stomping some offensive lineman for the Texans, whose quarterback’s name we don’t even know? Would we be OK falling asleep at night as Conan O’Brien makes a joke about Adrian Peterson on the Broncos beating a Justin Houston so bad that he left welts on his testicles?

No! We would feel an emptiness. A loss and a yearning. We would be forced to sit through another decade of mullets, cheese heads and discount-double-checks! God help us! Stop beating the drums to drive the characters from our teams, our league and our sport! Give us our drama! Give us our heroes and our anti-heroes.

Entertain us!

By Ryan Weeks