Are you a Tom Brady or a Grabowski?

As Mike Ditka might say, in life and football there are Tom Bradys and (choose one: Mike Tomczaks, Rex Grossmans, Kyle Ortons, Jay Cutlers and Mitch Trubiskys.)

I think about Ditka when I hear how happy the Bears and local media seem to be after moving on from Trubisky. Or as Bernie Lincicome recently wrote about Trubisky, the Bears' latest "rescue mutt."

Sports radio will always have what-might-have-been stories like this to death, but moving on is good.

So is perspective. We fans could use more of it. NFL players make a lot of money, are spared the indignity of unemployment lines and generally live well.

They also have job reviews like we do, are scolded privately and publicly, play hurt and live with the risk of brain injury. That's asking a lot of anyone. Even the prodigies have finite talent and longevity, Tom Brady notwithstanding.

"There are teams that are fair-haired, and those that aren't so fair-haired. Some teams are named Smith, some Grabowski," Ditka philosophized, specifying, "We're Grabowskis."

Do you feel any differently about your job?

My career included sales, broadcasting, customer service and factory work. There were days when my best efforts only yielded acceptable or slightly better results. I considered myself a Grabowski, but on the productivity scale I was sometimes closer to a Tomczak or Trubisky than a Brady.

If you're an assembler, call center rep, sales, marketing or gridiron phenom, good for you. But someone, at work or on the field, has to make up "the rest of us." There are worse things.

Good luck, Mitch. Thanks for the effort.

Jim Newton

Itasca