NFL Football Preseason Week 3

by FanYard Blake | August 20th, 2008

Well, we are half way through the 2008 NFL football preseason games, thankfully. While, for most teams, these games are simply glorified practices, there are always the odd teams that actually have important decisions to make based on them. The two teams that will kick off Week Three NFL Preseason action are two such teams.

Heading into training camp, the Chicago Bears were unsure as to who would be their starting quarterback when they open the 2008 NFL regular season in Indianapolis against the Colts. In the past two weeks, however, it became clear to the coaching staff of the Bears that they should go with Kyle Orton over the inconsistent and oft-injured Rex Grossman. The Bears have a 12-6 record in the games that Orton has been a part of over the past three seasons.

Meanwhile…

…in San Francisco, 49ers brass has been having a hard time grappling with the apparent reality that their number one quarterback of the past few seasons - and that is only due to the fact that he has actually played downs and certainly not due to the way he played - and number one pick of the 2005 NFL draft, Alex Smith, is going to go down as a true bust.

All signs seem to point to the fact that the Niners will be starting JT O’Sullivan at the pivot position in Week 1, when the Niners play the Cardinals on September 7th. The kicker for the organization if the cards do fall this way is that they decided in March to exercise a $12-million buyback clause in his contract that they cannot get back. The buyback extended Smith’s contract through the 2010 season.

By comparison, they signed O’Sullivan for a mere $685,000 this year.

What a fall for this once-proud and well-run organization. They have no one but themselves to blame, however, as even the most ardent Smith fan not a part of the Niners brass, would have been hard-pressed to say they thought he was deserving of anything other than a release form.

Whatever happens, we’ll see both O’Sullivan and Smith tomorrow with San Francisco at Chicago. The Yardstick for the game now favors the Bears by seven points.