Hockey

“How To Set Your Own Face On Fire: Vol. 486” – by The Chicago Blackhawks

By Sam Fels 3220 0

There are two things that are true about Brent Seabrook. Two things that you have to keep in mind simultaneously. And two things the Hawks have not been able to square away in their heads simultaneously, and they’re the only ones.

Brent Seabrook is a Hawks legend who was an integral part of their three Cup wins and will most likely one day have a dual number retirement ceremony with Chris Chelios.

Brent Seabrook is no longer one of their six best d-men, and possibly not even an NHL defenseman anymore.

For at least two seasons now, the Hawks have used the first statement to blind themselves to the second. And now apparently, they’re using the second statement to blind themselves to the first.

I want to get this upfront. If Seabrook plays last night, the Hawks still get torched. I have no idea if that kind of effort has anything to do with a dressing room in turmoil or not, because the Predators are that much better, and more to the point, that much faster. So I’m not making that connection.

That said, the way the Hawks and Jeremy Colliton, or how they’re making it look like Jeremy Colliton, have handled this Seabrook thing this week is unacceptable. And it was so easy for it not to be.

Oh, and let’s put this at the top too:

So either someone is lying, or Jeremy Colliton quite simply is a coward. Joe Quenneville could get away with this kind of thing, and sometimes did, because he had the rep and it was clear what he wanted out of practice and games. He had other things to do than explain every detail of what was missing from someone’s game (not that I always thought this was a good policy, especially with younger players).

Colliton has none of this. To boot, Seabrook was his ally in that dressing room last season when veteran players were rolling their eyes, given their past relationship. It’s probably why the front office bent over backwards to make sure Seabrook would have a roster spot this year, because they knew how tenuous Colliton’s hold was on the team and how much Seabrook’s voice was worth.

So much for that:

This isn’t necessarily a “Come and get me!” plea. But it isn’t not one either, and it’s generally how they start. Now you’ve got an angry and respected vet publicly rebelling against a coach I’m fairly sure isn’t equipped for this and then getting your ass waxed to for the second time in four games. There are better looks.

Is scratching Seabrook a necessity? It surely was going to be whenever Adam Boqvist is ready. And on the second of a back-to-back at home, that’s actually not a bad time to introduce it. It gives you the cover of “rest,” and even if no one buys that (no one did) everyone can kind of just pretend they do and move along. This is a fanbase and media that saw it enough with Marian Hossa, an actual contributor, in his last couple years to get it. Considering how Seabrook had gotten his doors blown off in Carolina, no one would rock the boat on that. If it was preparing the field, it was about the only way you could do it.

Doing it a second straight game, after Seabs would have had two days off, blows off that facade we were all doing our best to hold in place. Now you’re embarrassing him, somehow more so than his play has, and he apparently had no indication this is how it would go.

We and many others laid out how to handle this during the offseason. The front office needed to go to Seabrook and tell him how much he’s meant to the team, the organization, and the fans, and how his name will pretty much live on forever in Hawks history. But they also needed to make it clear where they thought he stood in the pecking order, and how they needed to start to turn their blue line over. They needed to say to him, “You’re going to be #6-#7, if that, and you’re going to spend more than a smattering of nights in the pressbox. If that’s not ok with you, we will do our best to find you a solution that is, even if it means eating half your salary. If you feel you can come into training camp and prove us wrong, ok. But this is where we have you now and that’s the risk you’ll take.”

And maybe they did, because the feature of that method is to keep it quiet and everyone gets to save face at the conclusion. But I tend to doubt it, because the trade of Henri Jokiharju sure seemed like it was made to keep Colliton from having to make any hard decisions. And again, Seabrook is claiming he’s never heard anything.

Again, this was always going to happen. But when you’re scratching a guy with a rep and voice that Seabrook has so you can keep Dennis Gilbert or Slater Koekkoek or Erik Gustafsson (who’s been worse this year and not by an eyelash) in the lineup, and you’re doing it without being open to the player, that’s a slap in the face to a player who deserves much, much better no matter what his performance has been.

It feels like the Hawks wanted to avoid going down this road as long as possible, and were just hoping that an injury or divine providence would help them avoid it altogether. Boqvist and Mitchell are arriving one day soon, possibly March or April. That’s when all the bills were coming due. They’ve sped up the process now. But not on purpose.

Nothing the Hawks seem to do these days has a purpose. Or a plan. So you get not even sniffing the playoffs for a third straight season, and no discernible map on how they plan to correct that in the future.

Hockey

Game #11 – Hawks vs. Predators Preview: Don’t You Eat That Yellow Snow

By Sam Fels 1629 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 3-5-2   Predators 7-3-1

PUCK DROP: 7pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

NO HUGGY NO KISSY TIL YOU MAKE ME A WIFE: On The Forecheck

The cushy start to the season is over, and the Hawks will remember what it’s like to have a road trip. They’ll also remember before too long what it’s like to play some real opponents night after night. And those memories might not be too sweet. But that’s for later in the month. For the first time this year the Hawks will embark away from the UC for a while, with a four-gamer that starts in Nashville before the California songs starting this weekend. Could have asked for an easier start.

The Nashville Predators are in fine fettle, as has been the custom, as they’ve taken 15 of the 22 points on offer so far this year. They also come off having just gotten both points (the second in OT) off the Lightning in Tampa and having won three in a row. They did the first part without Matt Duchene, their shiny new toy, and he’ll return tonight.

Look under the hood a bit, and it’s not quite as rosy. The Preds are one team when Duchene is out there along with Ryan Ellis and Roman Josi (the newly rich Roman Josi), and another when just about anyone else is out there. Those three and those who join them carry the play at 55% of chances and attempts. Every other time the Preds are below water. They have the highest shooting-percentage in the league at nearly 12% at evens, which isn’t going to continue. They also have a top-ten SV%, which probably will given the recent track record of Pekka Rinne . Although Rinne most likely isn’t going to ring up a .931 all season. When he comes to Earth a bit, the Preds current PDO of 104 is definitely going to deflate.

Maybe Treat Boy Johansen is in a sulk because Duchene has replaced him as the #1 center, or he’s in a sulk because the Halloween candy hasn’t been discounted yet and his usual wheelbarrow of it is feeling the effects, but he’s been getting caved in and he starts most of his shifts in the offensive zone. Kyle Turris has showed a pulse after going cold and grey last year which has mitigated Treat Boy’s struggles a touch.

Still, this team might need to figure out what they’ll do beyond the top pairing, as new kid Dante Fabbro hasn’t been able to do the things PK Subban did yet, except for not being popular and black which were two things the Predators were definitely after by moving PK along to make room for him.

The Preds also might have some issues when they need the power play to chip in, as it’s been worse than the Hawks’ if that’s even possible. Maybe they could use a right-handed bomb from the point and circle? No? Ok. So yeah, there’s some air in this cake, let’s say.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t going to be a world of trouble for the Hawks, as they have more speed basically everywhere and will use it aggressively. The Hawks were able to hang around the Knights earlier, but they had caught them on a back-to-back and were at home and maybe had their best effort this season or even last against them. They also had Connor Murphy. Even with Seabrook scratched again (and not a happy camper) Preds will be fighting each other to get over the boards when any of Maatta, Gilbert, Koekkoek, and Gustafsson are out there. Hey, that’s most of the Hawks’ defense!

As for the rest of the story for the Westside Hockey Club, Robin Lehner will get another start as he is more worthy of the harder tests right now. Crow will get at least one start in California, and starting with that swing the Hawks will basically be playing every other day for all of November so there will be more than enough starts for everyone.

For all the buzz coming off a 5-1 win over the woebegone cattle ranchers that ended up as LA Kings, the Hawks gave up too much possession and shots in that one. That kind of effort here would see them give up nearly a touchdown or 50 shots or both. This can be a game too fast for the Hawks if the Preds want it, so the Hawks defense is just going to have to get rid of it ASAP, get it off the glass and out to the neutral zone and hope the forwards can win those races. If the Hawks can get the pucks to their forwards with any frequency, they can have at the bottom two pairs of this Preds outfit. Then they just have to beat Rinne, which takes more than a smile these days.

There are going to be some ugly shifts either way tonight, and hopefully Lehner is up to the task. But if the Hawks are going to be what they say they are, they have to get points off teams ahead of them. So far this year their wins are against terrible Oilers and Kings teams. That’s not going to get you anywhere in the long run except back in the lottery with those Kings and Oilers teams. Fuckin’ figure it out.

Hockey

Game #11 – Hawks vs. Predators: Hedley Lamarr’s Nitwits, Halfwits, Dimwits

By Sam Fels 1218 0

Ryan Johansen – Treat Boy here always gets labeled as one of the top centers in the game, and we still can’t figure out why. His numbers the past two seasons mirror that of Jonathan Toews, and everyone’s relatively sure he looks like the host of “Tales From The Crypt.” RyJo Sen played his ass off just long enough in 2017 to get a fat new deal from the Preds, and then he became a fat new deal. The dude has one 70+ point season. When the Preds get bounced early again, it’ll probably be because Ryan O’Reilly or Nathan MacKinnon hand him his considerable lunch.

Matt Duchene – Rich kid face with an Oakland booty!

Austin Watson – Any day now, David Poile is going to yell, “I’m so fucking glad we have Austin Watson” at some female reporter. Except it’s Nashville, so that’s probably like an every day thing there.

Hockey

Game #11 – Hawks vs. Predators Spotlight: Gran Turris-mo

By Sam Fels 1185 0

If you feel like the Predators acquire a tweener center every season — one who’s not quite a #1 but can be more than a #2 pivot — you’re not alone. Three years ago it was Ryan Johansen. Two years ago it was Kyle Turris. Now it’s Matt Duchene, whom they got because they weren’t sure what they had in more in the second one of those. Or maybe they realized Johansen isn’t what they claimed either. Maybe it’s both. Or maybe it’s the Preds just have to have all the lightning quick forwards with faces you want to turn into ground chuck. It’s a rich elixir.

The Preds were always rumored to be after Duchene, and he them, for years. So that signing might have happened no matter what kind of year Turris had last season. It gained more urgency when Turris played most of the year as if he was hit by a bus. When he wasn’t injured, he was terrible.

Turris only put together 23 points in the 55 games he claimed he was upright for, and missed the rest. The two points in the Predators’ playoff loss didn’t really do much to put any kind of gleam to it, either. Digging deeper, the look only gets worse.

Hockey doesn’t have a “chances created” category really yet, like soccer does. So it’s hard to suss out how far Turris’s passing game went into the toilet. We can fairly assess how much his scoring became El Disparu. His goals/60 was a career-low 0.17. His individual expected-goals per 60 was also a career low 0.37. Scoring chances, shots, attempts, whatever you want to look at were all the worst marks of his career.

On the flip side, the team’s overall numbers with him on the ice weren’t staggeringly bad. So Turris was either still doing some of his old work, or his teammates were carrying him around like a pool noodle.

No question Turris struggled with injuries. He had two separate stints on the IL to total those 27 missed games, both to his legs. Perhaps he just couldn’t get around the ice as well as he would normally.

Things have turned around of Turris this year, though. His goals/60 so far in 11 games is the highest of his career, though that has a little to do with the highest shooting-percentage at evens and overall of his career as well. But his individual expected goals is back to where it was in his halcyon days in Ottawa (if such a thing can exist in Ottawa), and his individual attempts are the highest he’s managed as well. Turris has never been a great sniper, as his career 10.9 S% would show you. So the volume of attempts and chances has to go up for him to score.

Health is certainly part of it, as thanks to the Preds’ first-round hairball against Dallas he had plenty of time to heal whatever fell off of him last year. It could be linemates as well. Last year, Turris spent most of his time with Craig Smith and Kevin Fiala. Smith is a fine player but something of a battering ram, and Fiala sucks and you know he sucks because he ended up in Minnesota. This season, Turris is playing between Mikael Granlund and Rocco Grimaldi. Grandlund has by far more verve and dash to his game, which means Turris doesn’t have to do all of the creating. Grimaldi’s speed, when not carrying his cross around to wave in everyone’s face, opens up more space than Smith and Fiala could have managed.

Maybe it’s also getting to slot behind Johansen and Duchene, when Duchene plays center at least. All of it must be a relief to the Preds, who watched Turris eat it in the first year of his $6M-a-year extension. Turris was, and might still be in the near future, looking at being a cap casualty. The Preds have $22M in space next year but they also have Roman Josi to sign, and he’s going to be looking for quite the raise from his current $4.5M hit that gave the Preds one of the biggest bargains in the league for years. They’ll have some holes at forward as well to fix with the rest of it.

At worst, if Turris plays himself into a useful trade piece, that’s probably enough for the Preds, who can roll with Johansen and Duchene 1-2 from here. Which makes it seem like this has to be the year for Nashville, or it’s never going to happen.

Hockey

Game #11 – Hawks vs Predators: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 988 0

Hawks

Notes: Lehner had the starter’s net at the morning skate and that’s probably the right call, as this is a stiff test and Crow didn’t exactly prove he was worthy of it against similar in Carolina…no word at time if Seabrook will remain scratched. There’s not much point in regularly doing this until Boqvist is here, if that ever happens. We don’t need more Dennis Gilbert in our lives, especially against this swift outfit…amazing what happens when you give every line at least one puck-winner, isn’t it?

Notes: We’ll be honest with you folks, we aren’t really sure what the Preds lines will look like. Duchene missed out last time and they’ve had other injuries as well as Laviolette still trying a bunch of shit. This is our best guess but Scumbag Watson could be in there, Duchene could play wing with Johansen, Granlund and Smith could switch spots, it could be anything…Josi signed a huge extension today for eight years that clocks in at a tick over $9M per on the salary cap. It’ll take him to 37, which won’t be a problem at all…

Baseball

We Know Your Nature – 2019 Cubs Player Reviews: Jose Quintana

By Sam Fels 1376 0

Jose Quintana has probably lost his chance to win over Chicago Cubs faithful now, given that the return for him has washed up on the shores of Comiskey Bay. It’s hard not to cast longing eyes at Eloy Jimenez’s bat, even if I’m skeptical that Dylan Cease will ever have enough control to be as effective as the stuff promises. And even if Q had one more season to create a legacy, you can certainly see a scenario where that season will be shipped somewhere else. Let’s take a look at Q, and where it went wrong for him this season.

2019 Stats

31 starts   171 innings

4.68 ERA   3.80 FIP

8.00 K/9  2.42 BB/9  1.39 WHIP

44.5 GB%  38.1% Hard-Contact rate . 12.1% HR/FB

107 ERA-  3.5 WAR

Tell Me A Story: I hadn’t really looked at Q’s season closely until now, and what’s kind of weird is that even with the last third of it being so bad, it was still a way better season in terms of WAR or FIP than 2018. Which I’m having a hard time reconciling. It might have to do with luck, as Q was laced with a .326 BABIP this year whereas he had .282 one the previous season, both of which nestle comfortably 20 points either side of his career norms. So while his ERA was markedly better in ’18, what the underlying numbers are telling us is that it probably shouldn’t have been. Q cutting his walks and homers significantly this year also speak to that.

Q came into the season saying he wanted to use his change-up more, and for the most part he did. He had never used it more than 6% of the time in previous seasons, but was up near 12% this time around. He got gun-shy with it at times early in the year, but overcame that. The problem was it became less effective as the season went along, and was pulverized by hitters in September where everything went wrong. The whiffs-per-swing rate on it in the season’s final month was a paltry 16%, and hitters ran up a .462 average against it. The problem was that it lost its sink as the season went along…

That’s one reason Q’s September looked so horrible, with an ERA nearing 6.00. Another was that in the last month, when the Cubs really needed him, Q had a BABIP of .447. And that’s with his contact numbers remaining the same. I can recall off the top of my head two starts, against the Nats and the Padres, where he couldn’t get his defense to make an out if they had that Bugs Bunny glove.

But still, Q gave up way more hard contact this year than we’d seen in the past. Then again, that was the story for most pitchers this year. There was a change in approach from Q, who went to a sinker more this season than ever before and also tried elevating his fastball more when he did throw it. Q used to try and Lester it by burying his four-seam on the hands of righties, but maybe he didn’t feel he has quite the hop on hit anymore to get in there. The zone-look on his career and this year’s fastball due bear that out.

Which makes you wonder where he goes from here, as it’s unlikely that his fastball is going to pick up a tick in his 30s. He’s a pretty smart pitcher, so you’d have faith he’ll come up with something. As September showed, hitters could just start leaning out and taking balls on the outside corner wherever they wanted, which is noted by the 43% pull-rate hitters had in that month even though Q was concentrating most of his stuff on the outside corner.

Contract: $11.5M team option for 2020, $1M buyout, then free agency in 2021

Welcome Back Or Boot In The Ass: Even if the Cubs would rather move on from Quintana or upgrade in the three or four spot, to be more kind, picking up his option is a no-brainer. Even half-dead fifth starters make more than $11.5M, so Q remains an absolute bargain. He would have some trade value simply due to that, and then add whatever bounce-back an interested team would anticipate on top of that.

There are obviously big warning signs. The decreasing velocity and the inability to get inside on righties. His durability isn’t what it was, as he hasn’t come near 200 innings in the past two seasons. That was one of the draws. The WHIP and contact numbers are headed in the wrong direction.

Still, the Cubs need an upgrade in the rotation even with Q in it. Moving him along means they would have to fill two spots, and Q as a #4 or #5, which is what he was really supposed to be this yea before Hamels got hurt and basically was, it a good spot to be in. If the Cubs can find one other starter to slot ahead of him and Lester and up among Hendricks and Darvish, they’ll be just fine. If Q can find a way to get inside on righties or find a way around not being able to, he’s an excellent candidate for a return-year.

The urge to upgrade is reasonable. The path to doing so isn’t so easy, and considering what he costs and what the Cubs might have to spend, having him slot at the bottom of the rotation is nowhere near a death sentence.

Baseball

We Know Your Nature – 2019 Cubs Player Reviews: Yu Darvish

By Sam Fels 1466 0

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.

Actually, it was the reverse for Yu this season. He was fighting it for most of the first half of the season. Then he was able to locate his fastball, started throwing a knuckle curve simply because he thought it would be fun, and put up some of the more ridiculous numbers you’ll see. Unless you think a 17-to-1 K/BB ratio in the second half isn’t ridiculous. There is some noise in there, and it’s hard to know what exactly the Cubs will get moving forward here. But let’s try and pick out what we can.

2019

31 starts   178.2 innings

3.98 ERA  4.18 FIP

11.5 K/9   2.82 BB/9   1.10 WHIP

45.5 GB%  31% Hard-Contact Rate  22.8% HR/FB Rate

91 ERA-  2.6 WAR

Tell Me A Story: So yeah, the big thing with Yu was the split between his first half and his second half. He had an ERA over five in the first, and 2.76 in the second. We could keep going with these stats, but you already know the deal here. Yu stopped walking anyone in July, started striking out everyone, barely gave up a hit as he had a WHIP of 0.81 in the second half. So yeah, that WHIP, that ERA in the second half, that K/BB rate over a full season puts you in Cy Young discussion. The question is whether Yu can do it over a full season. Maybe it’s best to try and find what changed to figure it out.

It’s a little hard to do that with Yu, because this crazy motherfucker throws like seven pitches. So he might go to one or two of them more often in one month simply because he’s bored or because it looks like one of his other pitches that he’s just changing the speed on. So his slider and cutter can get confused for each other, so can his curve and slider. Then a split and change and we could just go on here but before too long the room will be spinning.

In July, when things turned around, Yu started using his cutter about three times as much as he had before. It was his go-to pitch when he needed a strike. But in August he went away from it and not much changed. And then he went back to it in September. Yu definitely started throwing his curve in July and stuck with it for the rest of the season. And you can probably see why:

Which probably was due to this:

Clearly, picking up Craig Kimbrel‘s knuckle curve, mostly because he thought it was interesting, gave his curve more bite and something of a wipeout pitch. Or another wipeout pitch, as he’s got a couple.

Yu was very slider heavy throughout the season, although sometimes that can be his cutter too, and he threw it at Corbin-levels of 40% throughout the season. But it maintained a whiff-per-swing rate over 30% for the season, so I’m not going to complain too much.

Yu’s biggest problem was the home-run ball, as it was pretty much everyone’s this year. Yu had a HR/FB rate of 22%, which was miles beyond his career-high. Even in the 2nd half it was 19.7%, which is still very high. But as we said as it was happening, this is mostly luck. Yu’s hard contact-rate against was fifth best in all of baseball, so it’s not like he was continually getting crushed. He just watched fly balls, and some that weren’t even hit all that hard, continually float out of the park. This could simply correct because baseball is gonna baseball on you. He did give up a higher hard-contact rate on fly balls this year than ever before, but then so did pretty much every other pitcher on the planet.

If there’s one thing we can point to, it’s that Yu was concentrating his fastball and cutter a little higher in the zone a little more of the time this season. Which leads to more fly balls obviously…except that Yu had the highest ground-ball rate and lowest fly ball rate of his career this past season. Again, I have to chalk this up to weirdness.

And homer issues have plagued Yu before. He gave up 26 in 2013. He gave up 27 in 2017. He was giving up a homer per start with the Cubs in ’18 before getting hurt. It might just be his thing. If he runs an ERA around 3.00 while giving up a fair amount of solo homers, no one’s going to care all that much.

The usual luck alarm-bells only half-ring for Yu and his split season. His BABIP was actually higher in the second half, though .276 is lower than his career average and probably will come back a little. Except for the caveat of just how little hard contact Yu was giving up. Though that’s balanced a bit by the greater amount of grounders. Yu also had an 85.2% left-on-base percentage in the 2nd half, which is a tad high. He got some good sequencing there, and that could correct some next year.

Contract: Signed for four more years for $81M. Opt-out this winter.

Welcome Back Or Boot In The Ass: Well that’s up to him. Yu could chase more money this winter with his opt-out. But considering what the free agent market has been the past two winters, and he turns 34 next August, it’s hard to see how he’ll do better than the average for $20.25M he’s got now. And he hasn’t expressed any interest in doing so, though we know how these things could change when teams start whispering into his agent’s ear. Still, unlikely.

So the question for the Cubs is what can they bank on from Yu at 33. Can he be that second-half guy for a full season? You’d be asking for some career-best numbers in his 30s, which generally doesn’t happen. He’s probably not going to strike out over 13 hitters per nine innings again. But he’s consistently been over 11 for his career, which is what you’d expect. The thing is, his low-walk ways are the norm, not the wayward inflatable clown he looked like at times in the first half. He ended the season at 2.82 BB/9, which is basically where he was ’15-’17. He found a rhythm in the second half that he’ll have to keep.

The question for Yu is if he can quiet down the home runs. If he has the near 6-to-1 K/BB rate that his 2019 season totaled, but can bring the homers in under 25 or even 20, his ERA naturally is going to sink to between 3.00-3.50.

It’s ambitious or more to expect Yu to be the #1 Power Cosmic he was from July on last year, because it’s not really what he’s ever been. But solid #2 or plus-#2 starter production is certainly in the wheelhouse. It’s not Yu’s fault the Cubs don’t have a genuine #1. If they get more than that, all the better.

Football

Three Things We Learned In Week 8: It’s All A Problem

By Sam Fels 1252 0

Matt Nagy Is The Weirdest Combination Possible – I’m not sure how a coach can both be as far up his own ass as Matt Nagy is that he probably came back around again and also coaching scared all the time. They don’t seem to go together at all, but Nagy has managed it. “Be You” means so many things now.

Let’s get to the top story right here. The end of the game, why are the only results in Matt Nagy’s head are a run for a loss, fumble, or incomplete pass? Why do you just assume that you can’t find one or two plays that you know you can hit to give you just five yards? There’s gotta be something you can just go to.

They’d actually run the ball. You can’t line up in the I-formation and get a few yards? And if you’re so convinced the Chargers are going to know you’re running, you really don’t have a play-action fake with that rollout and the tight end and receiver behind him that every team runs in the holster? That’s a play where even Mitch can probably figure out if I can’t complete this, I can just throw it into row three. Simple stuff, every team runs it, and those yards would have made a difference.

But that didn’t lose the game all by itself. Nagy actually adjusted and ran more conservative formations to run the ball kind of effectively. But then being up his own ass gets in the way. You get to the goal-to-go, and suddenly he has to be Matt Nagy again. Five receivers from the four. A screen to Cordarelle Patterson we all saw coming, including the Chargers. RPOs. Tough reads. Things the Bears haven’t shown they do well. He’s got to do it his way. The one touchdown they got is when they just lined it up and let Montgomery just run the fucking thing in there.

Nagy got out of his comfort zone between the 20s, actually running simple run plays. Play action off it. But when it mattered, Nagy was too scared to stay out of his comfort zone, and went back to what he wants to work. What he thinks has to work. But it doesn’t, and he’s the only one who doesn’t see that.

He coached scared as the Chiefs OC. He coached scared in the playoffs last year. He’s coached scared this year, all while convinced he has all the answers. I don’t you know how you do both. Pick a lane.

It’s Rex All Over Again – There comes a moment with every Bears quarterback who shows any promise or has any billing, where you realize it’s just not going to happen. It’s like my father said about horse racing, “There comes a moment in most races where you say to yourself, ‘I’m gonna lose here.'” A lot of people are long past that with Mitch Trubisky. I’m there now, mostly because I just didn’t want to keep doing this for my entire life.

Mitch has some obstacles. He only started one season in college. He came to the pros into a mess of a team, and basically everything he learned his rookie year had to be thrown out. His coach very well might be a madman who doesn’t know what he can and can’t do. He’s battled injuries. Fine.

But Mitch can’t make the throws. That Taylor Gabriel miss… you can’t miss that. That’s the game. Second tier QBs hit that. He’s not accurate enough to be the cowboy he wants to be. Not being able to move a safety with his eyes, that’s baseline skill stuff. If you don’t have it you don’t have it. You can scheme all you want, but if Mitch misses too many throws that are open, what does it matter?

The thing is if the season is truly lost, and I think it might be, the rest of it probably should be used to see if there’s anything to be salvaged with Mitch. There’s really no other option. Even if it’s just to pump up any value if you decide to swap him out. You know where the Chase Daniel road ends.

I Don’t Want To Hear The Defense Talk Anymore – Yeah yeah, 17 points surrendered is more than good enough to win. They got a couple short fields thanks to Mitch. Whatever.

One sack. One turnover. Up 16-7, and you let aged Marmalard march it down on the field on you. Melvin Gordon drags Eddie Jackson some five yards like a grocery bag. When the Bears have needed a big stop all season, they haven’t gotten it. When the defense could win the game, they didn’t. They let Joe Flacco march it up their ass. Derek Carr got to as well. Now Rivers. Aaron Rodgers is one thing. This is another.

At some point Chuck Pagano is going to have to figure out something else. I don’t know if becoming Blitz-burgh Reincarnated is the answer. But Khalil Mack isn’t getting home through either three blockers or quick passes. Leonard Floyd is at the Kerry Wood Memorial Zoo. Maybe we should see if Roquan or Trevathan can bring it a little more often. You need more turnovers. You need more sacks. The defense isn’t getting them. There’s too much talent on the field for this, even without Akiem Hicks.

Of course, the real question might be can Matt Nagy hold together a team when the defense mutinies. If he keeps coaching scared, I’m fairly sure I know what the answer is.

Hockey

Game #10 – Kings vs. Hawks Spotlight: Has The End Come For Jonathan Quick?

By Sam Fels 1313 0

Of course, we asked this question about Braden Holtby when the Caps were here and he proceeded to have his best game of the year against the Hawks. So we know what we’re getting into here.

There’s no soft way to put it. Jonathan Quick has been simply awful this season. He’s made six starts, and his SV% is .854. And it’s not like Corey Crawford, his main foil in that three year stretch in the middle of the decade, who has good numbers at evens but is getting clobbered and stripped of his soul on the penalty kill. Quick is at .850 at evens. That’s…real bad.

It would be the second straight season that Quick has been some kind of unnamed horrid beast in net for the Kings, who would probably have some serious decisions to make after the year if this continues. Quick put up an .888 last season over 46 starts, to go with some injury problems. It was those problems that probably gave the Kings the wiggle room to think that greater healthy would bring Quick back. So far, that hasn’t worked out at all.

But unlike the Caps, the Kings don’t have an immediate, in-house answer. They drafted Matt Villalta a couple years ago, but he’s only in his first year in the AHL and his numbers in the OHL aren’t exactly glittering. Then again, no goalie’s ever are there, given the offensive environs. He’s years away if he’s anything, though then again, so are the Kings. There are also a couple European goalies they’ve taken, but just like Villalta…who the fuck knows?

The Kings might not have the pressure to solve this anytime soon, because it doesn’t appear they’re aimed to do anything for a while. Alex Turcotte is clearly meant to take over for Anze Kopitar as the #1 center one day. But he’s currently getting drunk on State St. in Madison. That’s a couple years away. Kale Clague was another primed to be on the first pairing in visions of the future, but he’s in his second year in the AHL, and if the first one had gone that well he’d certainly have been able to scratch out a role on this Kings blue line. It’s kind of a mess. That’s what happens in the rubble of sustained success though, as we well know.

So what do the Kings do with Quick? He’s due $5.8M for three more years after this one, which will take him until he’s 37. And if he looks like this at 33, no one wants to see what’s going on at 37.

There’s probably always a team you can sucker into taking a chance based on simply his two rings and the idea of new scenery being a charge. Hockey is weird that way. You wouldn’t be able to recoup much, but you’d have the cap space. Again, given the trajectory of the Kings, are they really going to need the cap space anytime soon?

Quick’s legacy in Los Angeles is set, as he’s the only goalie to win a Stanley Cup there. And his 2012 performance basically brought the Kings to that one, even if he wasn’t all that good in 2014. Having two rings probably ensures he’ll get into the Hall of Fame, as every goalie who does ends up there. Unless you’re Chris Osgood. But that 2012 season was the only one where Quick had a SV% over .920, aside from two seasons ago which got the Kings four games in the playoffs where they were thoroughly outclassed by an expansion team.

The Kings aren’t going to be anywhere before Kopitar and Brown and Doughty are too old to do anything about it. Maybe they might as well hold onto Quick, cash in on nostalgia, and hope for a brief spurt of competence that gets him a trade to the Sharks. It’s just about their only hope.