Loving Lovie

Given the tone of the recent posts here, one might get the impression that this site thinks Lovie Smith is a bad NFL coach. Far from it. Smith is clearly a very good coach as the last few years have shown. He's been very good at devising game plans for the talent he has and he's been very good at getting the most out of his players.

But he's also shown a disturbing stubborn streak. Last year's playoff disaster was a result of some serious inflexibility. The same inflexibility has the team facing significant uncertainty at the quarterback position. The coaching staff should have played more of Brian Griese in these last few meaningless games so they could more properly evalute the position.

The stubborn streak of not wanting to appear to undercut Rex Grossman's status as the clear starter was behind the lack of playing time for Griese.

This stubborn streak is, in this opinion, one of the reasons the Bears have lost some big games under Lovie Smith. And one of the reasons there are still questions on the coaching abilities of Lovie.

Those that bash Lovie as being too unemotional to be a good coach are insane (Tom Landry was oh such a hot head). The issue is, can he adapt to what the best teams and coaches throw at him.

If he doesn't show that ability this weekend, the Bears need to re-evaluate if Lovie Smith is another Phil Jackson or Doug Collins.