Rex rules didn't help former starter

Where are they now?

Like so much hot air, the many members of the Grossman Apologist Society have dissipated and disappeared.

So vile, vehement and vapid only days or weeks ago, after having spent a year singing the praises of Rex Grossman, the GAS is gone and not even a whiff remains.

Grossman was supposed to improve much in his second full year as a starter. That was the stock line offered as public relations prattle, and yet the 2007 Grossman looked precisely like the 2006 model.

Most couldn't see reality a year ago because the defense and special teams gave him spectacular field position and big leads, and the occasional bomb to a burner against bad teams added to the sham.

His play wasn't much better the first half of last season than it was in the second half or the playoffs -- or the first few games this season -- but with orange-and-blue colored glasses, there was great refusal to see the truth.

Even those who pandered to Grossman for personal gain have gone quiet, like a submarine hiding until the smoke on the water clears.

But deep with purple bruises are the legions that admired and conspired, and the sycophants have left Grossman to die a lonely and painful football death.

And it's brutally unfair.

Maybe if the owner, GM, coaching staff and players -- not to mention media -- hadn't gone so overboard in protecting, coddling and enabling Grossman's failures, maybe he would have recognized his need to improve.

Or maybe this was inevitable.

But the fact that he was surprised to learn he was being replaced shows just how insulated he was from reality.

Grossman had no idea how bad he was because everyone around him insisted he was terrific.

If not the emperor with no clothes, he was most certainly the quarterback with no clue.

And it's not the fans or cheerleading flip-floppers who destroyed this man.

The Bears did that, with the "Rex is our quarterback,'' the lack of competition at QB, and the incessant statements about "his strong arm.''

Grossman must have believed he was as good as they said, and not surprisingly he hasn't improved a bit since his miserable playoff performance against Carolina following the 2005 season.

So why the change at QB now?

Grossman hasn't regressed. He just doesn't have defense and special teams bailing him out.

If you watched those games early last season, you know this is the same player making all the same mistakes, but while Green Bay, Buffalo, Arizona and San Francisco all dropped easy INTs that could have significantly changed games in the first half of 2006, Grossman's luck has since run out.

As for the strong arm, have you ever seen him throw a 15-yard out pattern? He's not Brett Favre, but the coaching staff kept calling the play, and the same throw occurred over and over and over again.

It was painful to watch.

So it's on to Brian Griese, and it may be that he can't save this season, not with the injuries on defense, the play at running back, and the age of the offensive line.

But had Griese played in the Super Bowl, after having a few games to get locked in, had the Bears played a QB who could throw to his own team instead of the other, who didn't shrink at the very mention of a pass rush, who didn't bumble and bobble and blame the rain, the Bears would probably be wearing championship rings today.

Of course, we'll never know because head coach Lovie Smith wouldn't even consider it.

What we've learned from Lou Piniella this year is that it's still possible in pro sports to play the players who deserve to play, and not give a darn about the fragile confidence of millionaires or high draft choices.

They get paid to perform, and Piniella sits them if they don't. Some return to past glory, while others give up and turn to dust.

What's sad about the Grossman debacle is we'll never know if he would have been better for getting benched last year when he should have sat, when he retained some shred of confidence and dignity.

After answering the same questions about his emotional stability for a year, what's left now is a wreck, and you wonder if there's any way to salvage him.

Who knows, maybe Griese fails or gets hurt, Grossman returns and is a completely different player, and maybe the Bears treat him like a man this time instead of a pampered child, holding him to the same standards as every other player.

Maybe there's something still to save.

All Grossman has left now is the right to hope.