DEION SANDERS, MACHO MAN

I never saw much of either NFL playoff game Sunday, that being a time for me to do much of my work filing reports on college basketball for the Sports Xchange. So I can’t comment too much on the games.

I certainly was glad to see the Steelers hang on to beat the Jets (See my posting on “Pats out, good; Jets in, bad.”). It has nothing to do their loudmouth coach, Rex Ryan, whose name sounds like an old western movie star. He can be funny, especially when he is slamming his headphones to the ground when the game has been decided.

I disliked the Jets long before he came along. So, yea, Steelers!

I would have preferred the Bears over the Packers, just because of the long ago days when I watched the Bears on TV.

But it didn’t upset me that much that the Packers won. It’s hard to root against the Packers (unless you are really strong Bears fan, which I’m not any more, or a Vikings fan, which I’m definitely not).

What I find interesting is the criticism of Bears QB Jay Cutler for coming out of the game because of a knee injury. Yes, the coach pulled him because Cutler hurt his knee. Reports are today that it was a sprained MCL (medial collateral ligament) that put Cutler out of the game.

I’ve never had one of those, but considering it was a knee, I’d say it can be painful and debilitating. According to sources on the Internet, recovery time is a matter of weeks, and Bears coach Lovie Smith has said that if his team had beaten the Packers that Cutler would be considered questionable for the Super Bowl.

But some fans apparently were burning Cutler’s jersey out in the parking lot after the game in protest (Hey, it wasn’t like he was lighting up the Packers defense in the first place.) and now some “macho” football players are coming out and criticizing Cutler’s toughness.

One of the players, former player in this case, doing the criticizing is big mouth Deion Sanders. There is irony there.

First, Sanders was not exactly known as a courageous hard hitter in his playing days. He was a great cover cornerback, but not a hard hitter. Someone pointed out he probably had more interceptions than tackles, which is overstating the case but not by much. A check of the records showed he averaged about two-and-a-half tackles a game. Darrell Green and Champ Bailey, for instance, averaged four a game.

According to pro football records, Dieon had a grand total of 20 assisted tackles in 188 games to go with his 492 solo tackles. Charles Woodson, who will be playing for the Packers in this Super Bowl, has 131 assists in four fewer games to go with 690 solo stops.

Second, as has been pointed out on some other blogs, Sanders is a guy who missed two entire seasons because of turf toe, which is toe that has sustained ligament damage. (Maybe like the ligaments in Cutler’s knee?)

Dieon was out for not just a game, not just a season, but for two seasons.

 And he’s calling out Cutler?