Chicago Herald-American

Maybe if Lovie Smith hammered his players publicly like Lovie's getting hammered by the media this week, the Bears would be a better team. The Tribune's Rick Morrissey nailed Smith to the wall in this great column in Wednesday's paper -- taking Smith to task for the "charade of Lovie-speak": 1) saying nothing of any substance; 2) refusing to even acknowledge his players' subpar performance; and 3) accentuating the positive to a youth-soccer degree.

On Monday, having analyzed the video of his team's woeful offensive performance against Cleveland, Lovie's search party found a way to put the game in the most gracious terms. You were left to wonder whether he's teaching football or Intro to Positive Self-Esteem.

"I feel good about what we're doing offensively," he told reporters. "There are some things we need to do a little bit better, which we'll do and go from there."

Since he arrived here in 2004, "and we'll go from there" has been Smith's stock way of saying, "Not only have I not answered you honestly, but now I'm dismissing your question and moving on to the next question that I'll avoid."

I understand that a coach wants to put his spin on a contentious subject, but it undermines the coach's credibility when he rufuses to deal with the reality of the situation. I know the Bears' offensive line is working hard every day. But they're not playing well. Deal with it.

Smith can't do that. In fact, as Rick points out, he takes it to a ridiculous extreme.

If the purpose is to infuriate otherwise clear-thinking people, then Smith is first-team All-Pro. More from him on the offense:

"Of course we have tried to do some things differently. When things don't work, you try to do some different things. It's a process like it is with everything else. I'm pleased with us continuing to get down in the red zone where we are talking about the red zone."

Get it? Don't focus on the Bears' problems in the red zone, where they scored touchdowns only twice in seven tries Sunday; concentrate on the achievement of just getting into the red zone. See? We're all winners! Now, which team mom is supposed to hand out the juice boxes this week?

 

And look at it this way: how has Lovie Smith protecting his players publicly helped the Bears? What player whom he shielded from criticism has benefitted from his public show of support? Rex Grossman? Cedric Benson? Brian Urlacher? Tommie Harris? Nathan Vasher? Frank Omiyale? The offensive line?

I don't think his power-of-positive-thinking policy is working. Maybe he ought to try the opposite tack and put a little heat on his unproductive players by at least acknowledge their failings in public. Nobody's looking for a public flogging. Just a sign that he's watching the same game we are.

Reading is a Skill, Too

A week after he professed indignation over Lovie Smith's declaration that he was not going to address personnel issues ("How DARE he?"), the Score's Dan Bernstein was singing a different tune in response to Rick Morrissey's column castigating Smith for not saying anything of substance in his press conferences.

On Wednesday's "Boers & Bernstein Show" on WSCR-AM, Bernsie and co-host Terry Boers questioned why anyone would expect an NFL coach to criticize his players publicly or give any substantive information to the media or even show any kind of personality publicly and challenged anyone to find another NFL coach who does so any more than Smith. "Most of those guys who do that are out of work," Bernsie said.

A good point, but unfortunately, that wasn't the gist of Rick's column. The complaint isn't that Smith won't barbecue his players publicly or tell us if he's going to run a no-huddle offense and when. It's that his responses insult our intelligence, that he doesn't acknowledge reality. That his press conferences are laced with a tenor of arrogance that Bernsie abhors: the attitude that "You don't know what you don't know," and "You only need to know what I want you to know" and that team shortcomings "will get better because I say they will."

And while yes, that attitude has worked for Bill Belichick -- a big reason why it pervades the NFL today -- it clearly isn't working for Lovie Smith. Again, what facet of his football team that he has tried to shield from scrutiny has improved since the Super Bowl? Sorry, but Lovie just doesn't have the credibility to tell us to not worry about the offensive line.

Time for Bulls To Cut Their Losses With Tyrus Thomas

Tyrus Thomas finally has turned the corner as a Bull: He's more of an impediment to their progress toward an NBA championship than he is a help. Or more plainly: He's a bigger part of the problem than  the solution.

I don't know how long John Paxson can hang on to his dream of Thomas becoming the next Shawn Marion or whatever star player he projected Thomas to emulate when he traded LaMarcus Aldridge for Thomas on draft night in 2006, but it's time for him to cut his losses and admit defeat: Aldridge has had back-to-back seasons of 18 points and 7.5 rebounds a game. The Trailblazers just signed him to a 5-year, $65 million contract -- because he earned it.

Thomas has been the ultimate tease in his three-plus seasons with the Bulls: not only showing off his tremendous athletic ability, but at times looking like he gets it -- actually playing basketball and not just free-lancing for the next big dunk or block. But a basketball player he is not. He's an athlete who, unfortunately, is worth more to somebody else than a team like the Bulls.

And now, whether Thomas' flu-like symptoms are real or not, it appears that Thomas is going to be in full-pout mode, with Taj Gibson getting more playing time — a distraction Paxson and Vinny Del Negro don't need and should not put up with. Gibson has earned the shot — while not as gifted as Thomas, he still a talented player and exhibits an understanding of the game as a rookie that has eluded Thomas in three years in the league — like understanding help defense and knowing when to take the jumper and when not to take it. It appears Tim Floyd taught him well in his two seasons at USC.

So it's time for Paxson to take a page from Kenny Williams' playbook: if you have a talented player who isn't going to work out, mitigate the damage by dumping him off on someone else — kind of like trading Brandon McCarthy for John Danks. Or Joe Borchard for Matt Thornton. Williams makes it look easy. Paxson has had middling success at best in that area, with Thomas and Joakim Noah to show for Eddy Curry; Aaron Gray to show for Tyson Chandler and nothing to show for Jamal Crawford.

It's hard to give up on a player who is still just 23. But the only way Tyrus Thomas gives the Bulls what they expected is if they become one of the NBA's elite teams — and one of the reasons they're a long way from that is because players like Thomas aren't getting any better and don't play solid NBA defense. On the Celtics, Thomas might be a star — because they have frontcourt players who can make up for his liabilities on both ends of the floor. The Bulls need too much from Thomas. They need him to be the complete player he's never going to be.