Monday I wrote a piece endorsing the return of Ryan Pace, Matt Nagy and Mitch Trubisky in 2021. The piece in no way insinuated any of these individuals be given ferry boats of cash or long-term extensions. It simply suggested that the offense’s long-awaited improvement, which is now historic for this organization, warranted another look. Players, coaches and systems all develop on their own unique timelines and perhaps this player (Mitch), this coach (Matt) and this system (Matt by way of Bill Lazor) took this long.
“But Jeff, didn’t you say…”
“Jeff, weren’t you the one who suggested…”
“Jeff, after Detroit, you wanted to…”
Yes, I did.
Yes, I was.
Yes, I would have.
But I chose to headline Monday’s column with the words “I Was Wrong” for a reason. Why are we so afraid to be wrong when it comes to sports? What does it matter? We have opinions on things in life every day and circumstances often change those opinions. Hell, there were 782,000 divorces in the United States last year alone.
But a better example…
Jim doesn’t like spinach for the first 32 years of his life. Whenever his wife cooks it, he complains about the smell, complains about the look, tells stories about his mother forcing it on him as a child.
Then he goes to Gene & Georgetti, tries it sautéed with garlic and lemon, and discovers, “Yea, this is good.” Now Jim likes spinach. Does Jim keep telling his wife he doesn’t like it? Does he stay beholden to his previous opinion because he held it for so long he believes it to be part of his culinary identity? No. Of course not. Because he’s not insane. (Unless he is insane, and in that case he would continue to endlessly bash spinach on Twitter while consuming it at levels that would make Popeye blush.)
