Green Bay running back Aaron Jones tries to get a leg up on the Bears’ Jaylon Johnson last season at Lambeau Field.
OFFICIALLY, NBC SPORTS will be presenting a “Sunday Night Football” game between the Bears and Green Bay.
Unofficially, it’s really a TV game show called “Organic or Nonorganic?”
If Aaron Rodgers and the Packers are allowed to act naturally — which would be “Organic” — they roll, somewhere in the neighborhood of 38-10.
If “The League and The Peacock” summon the yellow pixies to dance the northern Wisconsin night away, the Bears and lame quacker Matt Nagy will be enabled to hold audience into the fourth quarter.
With a spot of 12 or 13 points, that means McMuffin backers likely cash.
And that would be “Nonorganic.”
THICKENING THE DEMI-DRAMA are two questions:
• Why didn’t NBC flex out of this game to anything better, up to and including a three-hour package of Jussie Smollet trial highlights?; and,
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• Why is “franchise future” Justin Fields playing?
EASY ANSWERS ARE “dumb” and “dumber.”
More lightly seasoned responses include:
• How many times can the NFL showcase Baltimore-Cleveland, Dallas-Washington or some variant in prime time?; and,
• Fields has been told by Nagy and Bears offensive coordinator Bill Lazor to essentially “play safe, stay safe.”
So everything will be OK in a game that should mean absolutely nothing to the future of the league’s “charter franchise.”
Unless Fields is KO’d by yet another brutal bash. Then, George McCaskey and advisers head into 2022 with a pathetically self-induced second-and-long.
INSTEAD, EVERY HIT that Fields takes, Bears fans will be closely watching him.
Meaning, a truly “safe” game plan would encompass Fields taking a knee on every snap from opening whistle to closing snow flurry.
Knee, knee, knee and Patrick O’Donnell punt.
Then hope for a GB gaffe or two and a 14-10 final.
And, in a sense, fans of everything but compelling, organic, prime time NFL football can cash.
Or at least hold all gasps.
STREET-BEATIN’: Reports that Troy Aikman is trying very “harrud” to get Tony Romo-level money — as in $18M per-season — are back in play. Smart minds are saying the high-mileage sideman would have to figure a way to combine FOX dollars along with dough-re-mi from Amazon Prime Video’s exclusive new “Thursday Night Football” package beginning next season to get it done. …
Speaking of Amazon’s “TNF” deal, authoritative monitors are indicating that Al Michaels is all but signed, sealed and delivered as the startup’s p-b-p man. But if they’re going for the sharpest network-quality young voice in the game, the surprise choice will be Adam Amin. …
Back to Romo: The broadcast pride of Eastern Illinois will call his 100th CBS/NFL telecast alongside Jim Nantz Sunday with the Bills-Bucs clash (3:25 p.m.). No surprise, 24 of the Romo-Nantz games have involved Bill Belichick and the Patriots. …
The holiday dance card of hustling Jason Benetti is filling up. He and Andre Ware are in line to call two bowl games for ESPN on TV including the Hawaii (Dec. 24) and the Alamo (Dec. 29) plus the Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl match featuring Marcus Freeman-Notre Dame vs. Oklahoma State on ESPN Radio. …
Ohio has become the 31st state to legalize sports gaming. Former Buckeyes QB Art Schlichter will not be making the first public bet. …
All “kujos” to Blackhawks HC Derek King: His 9-5 turnaround of the team since taking over is all that more remarkable given the group can’t score 5-on-5. (King’s flowing pipeline to Rockford IceHogs successor Anders Sorenson doesn’t hurt.) …
Memo to budget-plagued NBC Sports Chicago chief Kevin Cross: A visit to an At Home store might provide an aesthetic upgrade to the current studio set used during Bulls telecasts. Kendall Gill is framed on a greenish couch between two yellow squares that are probably pillows but might be free cheese blocks left over from the Ronald Reagan presidency. …
Former Chicago Public League baskets machine George Demos informs that longtime sports attorney George Andrews is a cousin of Patriots guard Ted Karras. (If that doesn’t call for a round of ouzo, what does?) …
CONTROL-CHAOS people peepers are asking: If Steve Kerr replaces Gregg Popovich as HC of Team USA, will he, too, be asked to join the CIA? (Or is he already in?) …
And balcony sage Michael Bunny-Miller, on how the Bears should conduct their search for a new head coach: “Borrow from ‘Jeopardy!’ — have someone new at the controls each game through the end of the season. That way even Katie Couric might get to be a finalist.”
• Jim O’Donnell’s Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.
