Brian Urlacher, marketing genius

August 6th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanE

Interesting interview in Peter King’s seemingly caffeine-free (hey, the season hasn’t started yet; PK better not be on the white pony already) MMQB column today: apparently, Brian Urlacher knows how to generate positive brand identity.

You know the awesome Vitamin Water commercial with David Ortiz? Yep: Urlacher’s idea:

Me: Tell me about the badminton commercial you made with David Ortiz. What was that like?

Urlacher: “He’s a great guy. Great guy. The one problem was, I couldn’t understand half the stuff he was saying. It took us about eight hours one day in the spring. We did it down where he has spring training [in Fort Myers, Fla.] with the Red Sox. The interesting thing about how the commercial came about was, I told vitaminwater we play badminton in the locker room sometimes, and it’s a cool company. They designed a commercial with me and David playing.”

That’s right, folks: not only are we currently faced with the revelation that members of the Chicago Bears play special teams in the locker room (somewhere, George Halas is spinning), but that Brian Urlacher took that abnormality and, with the help of Vitamin Water, turned it into a high-concept television spot.

Now, if only he would take up some ground level promotional gigs …

Joey Harrington has lost all touch with reality

August 14th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanE

It’s all the media’s fault, and the fans’ faults, and the “attitude’s” fault, whatever that means. From Peter King’s MMQB column today:

Am I going to change? No, nobody will ever change me. I love who I am. I’m very solid in what I believe and who I am as a person and how I approach life. How you approach life should be the same way you approach football.People said, ‘You may have the toughest job in all of pro sports, being the quarterback in Detroit. Being quarterback in the NFL is one of, if not the toughest job in professional sports. Now do it in Detroit. Do it in an environment that’s been so negative and had such a losing connotation to it. I knew the first thing I needed to do was change the attitudes, because if people still believe the same things they always believed, nothing’s ever going to change. No matter what you do out there, nobody’s going to rally around you because the second they see something go wrong they are going to go in the tank, and that’s not how you play as a team.

Yeah, I think I was misunderstood when I first came in there, but that’s not going to change who I am.

Where to fucking start? As Peter King said right after this quote in his column, Joey, you didn’t do much to “change the attitude.” But what’s worse, I don’t even know what attitude you’re talking about. The attitude of negativity? I’m guessing it had more to do with your inability to understand your offense or to execute it efficiently. Or, maybe, that your team is just terrible, year in and year out, thanks to our big mustachioed friend Matt Millen. Maybe you guys just sucked, and fans tend to not like it when their team sucks.

In any case, Joey, you were misunderstood? You needed to change the attitudes? Not buying it, honcho.