With a blizzard menacing Philadelphia, the National Football League moved Sunday’s Eagles-Vikings game to Tuesday night, prompting Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell to take offense. The governor invoked the toughest of tough football coaches.
” Vince Lombardi,” he said, “would be spinning in his grave.”
If that didn’t make the point, Rendell lamented that “we’re becoming a nation of wussies.”
The dire forecast that threatened Philly — nearly two feet of snow — never really materialized. But parts of the area got a little more than a foot of wind-whipped snow. It would have been what we call “Bear weather.”
Except it isn’t.
Oh, how we cling to this notion that Bears players and fans have some DNA that lets us laugh in the face of frostbite. The same gene, no doubt, that gives Mike Ditka’s mustache its virility. Let’s put that myth to rest. Two weeks ago, the New England Patriots routed the Bears in a swirl of blowing snow. The team looked awful. Plenty of Bears fans stayed in their dens rather than fill their usual seats at Soldier Field.
We wonder if some fans really do see it as a test of manhood to tough it out in their season tickets (personal seat licenses topping $10,000) in a North Face parka for three hours. Maybe it’s clinging to an image that we as Chicagoans cherish but one that has long disappeared. Dick Butkus retired 37 years ago. And Chicago doesn’t hack beef carcasses, it produces Groupons.
Yes, these Ice Bowls make us nostalgic for those winter pickup football games in the backyard. But let’s not feel guilty for saying it’s a better game at 60 degrees when we can see the yard markers and drink a beer without catching pneumonia.
Philadelphia sports columnist Will Bunch blasted the “girly men” who postponed the Eagles game. “In a few years, they’ll come here and conquer what’s left of America while we huddle on our TV-room couches to keep safe and warm, watching “A Christmas Story” on TBS for the ninth time,” he wrote.
It is strange that the more comfortable we get — indoor parking spaces are heated, for goodness’ sake — the more ashamed we are to be comfortable. The NFL was right, by the way, to avoid unleashing nearly 70,000 fans into a blizzard.
Speaking of weather forecasts, the average Feb. 6 in Dallas, host of the next Super Bowl, is in the mid-50s and sunny. If it gets chilly, the stadium can close the roof to make it a balmy 72 degrees.
That means if the Bears get there, linebackers Lance Briggs and Brian Urlacher can fly across the field instead of sloshing in the snow. Devin Hester can be a human pinball without slipping on a slushy patch. Jay Cutler can air out his passes without the ball sliding from his grasp.
Now that’s Bear weather.
