Hawks
Notes: Strome could return tonight, Shaw doesn’t sound likely and Caggiula definitely won’t. If Strome can’t go, Hawks might be one short again or go with seven d-men. You can hear the complaining now…We assume after Crawford took the loss and the Bruins firepower being what it is that Lehner is getting the start…Keith won’t play on the trip…Anyone up there you comfortable with checking Pastrnak? Didn’t think so…
Bruins
Notes: Bergeron is skating again but isn’t ready to come back, and you’ll never believe this but the Bruins don’t feel the sense of urgency to rush him back tonight…Pastrnak didn’t score the last game. This is actual news…With Bergeron out, they’ve split up Marchand and Pastrnak to spread out the threat…John Moore could make his season debut tonight as well, replacing Clifton…
Tony: Are the Bears cursed?
It’s a funny question, I know. Obviously sports curses aren’t real, except for the very real Curse of Colonel Sanders placed upon the Hanshin Tigers in (creepily) 1985. Yet every Bears team that has come close to the ’85 Bears have fallen short, for myriad reasons: QB injuries in the NFC Championship game, Danieal Manning forgetting that Peyton Manning can throw deep, the double doink… I could go on but I won’t. Could curses be real, and is the Bears franchise carrying some demons that need to be exorcised?
Today’s Matchup is going to look at the way the Chicago Bears franchise is haunted by the ghosts of the ’85 team, and why it’s time we forget those ghosts and stopped holding the current team up to that legendary group every year.
Every new coach says on day one that they need to beat the Packers first and foremost, a cute little throwback to the era before free agency when players stayed with one organization for their entire career and developed a passionate hatred for their division rivals, and not necessarily what I want to hear from a new coach. I will defend to my grave that if the Bears went 14-2 and won a Super Bowl but lost both games to the Packers, I’d be just as thrilled. This is totally a throwback to those 80s Bears/Packers bloodbaths that I wasn’t even alive for, so just drop it! I hate the Packers, sure, but I’d rather see the Bears win a Super Bowl.
The Bears franchise narrative has been rooted in the identity of the ’85 team for my entire life (I was born in ’86). They are supposed to have a handful of things, regardless of anything else:
-Bad QB play
-A stud RB
-Great defense
-Fantasy football irrelevance
As crazy as it sounds, I feel like the front office drafts to this identity either consciously or not. Mitchell Trubisky is the highest the Bears have taken a QB since 1951 when they took Bob Williams (and also in 1939 when they drafted the QB that most consider the best in Bears history- Sid Luckman). Considering they passed on two other signal callers who have much more success in the league thus far, it’s an interesting thought that maybe this was a concerted effort to trade up and explicitly break the narrative. However, Mitch is, well, Mitch, and the Bears are like the Weedians walking through the desert on the cover of Sleep’s “Dopesmoker,” wandering in a haze forever on a permanent search for the franchise’s first amazing QB.
Shitty QB play isn’t the be all end all: Tampa Bay, Baltimore (twice!), and the Giants (also twice!) have won with 1uarterbacks that are at or below The Dalton Line. It’s the defensive side of the ball that has to consistently be held up to the ’85 team in a totally unfair way. Offenses in 1985 were way more run-heavy: only two teams had over 4000 passing yards on the season, whereas 14 teams threw for over 4000 in 2018 (with two teams breaking 5000 yards). Buddy Ryan was a genius and that defense was stacked, but given the way the league was at the time, you could stack the box and force the issue like the 46 did. One of the two teams that threw for over 4000 yards that year was Miami, who as you surely know were the only team to beat the 46.
Let it be said that the current year and a half run of the Bears defense should be considered the best this team has ever looked. We are blessed, but nobody is going to do anything but compare this team to ’85, and the current defense is so much better. Over the last 28 games, they have totally dominated and are easily the best defense in the league. Argue with me about stats on this team all you want, but they haven’t gotten to play with a significant lead very often and usually spend 65% of their time on the field after multiple three-and-outs by the offense. The ’85 team used talent and a revolutionary scheme to field an absolute monster, but this incarnation of the defense beats an offense simply by being better. They might be better if Vic stayed, but they can still get after people.
Are Bears fans destined to spend the next 20 years making up “Buddy Ryan’s Curse” theories until the team finally wins a championship? Fuck, that’s depressing. The Bears need to win a Super Bowl soon, but I’ll be looking forward to it so we can forget 1985.
Wes: I can’t think that the Cowboys or any of their fans would say they’re cursed, but they definitely have the ghost of lofty expectations haunting them.
Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin and Jimmy Johnson made up the NFL dynasty of the 1990’s in Big D and crazy asshole Jerrah Jones has been chasing that dragon for nearly 30 years. Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott and Jason Garrett are the most recent trifecta looking to succeed where so many others have failed…but their window is closing quicker than Jones pal Papa John’s decline.
While Chicago chases one title from over 30 years ago, Dallas is looking for a fix of 5+ years of dominance and three straight Super Bowl Titles from 1992-94. We could take it back to the 70’s too when the Cowboys went to five Super Bowls and won two with QB Roger Staubach and Legendary Head Coach Tom Landry. Cowboys fans were used to success, even if that success was every other decade.
Well, the ‘boys are staring at 25 years since their last NFL title and almost as long since they appeared in the NFC Championship. Jones has burned through coaches like Bill Parcells and Wade Philips and quarterbacks like Tony Romo and…umm…Jon Kitna, winning plenty of Division titles, but watching the Giants and Eagles come out of the NFC East and win NFL titles (and do it over the current and possibly best NFL dynasty in history in the evil empire of the New England Patriots).
Dallas and Chicago have actually had a sort of similar run since the late 90s, with Chicago arguably seeing better success having made it to a Super Bowl and a handful of deep runs through the NFC playoffs…albeit not recently. Similar QB issues, similar coaching issues, similar disappointed fans.
Dak, Zeke and Garrett are the latest to take a stab at conquering the NFL and bringing glory back to big D, with Garrett currently holding on as one of the longest tenured HCs in the league despite a scant 2-3 record on three playoff appearances since 2010. Nine seasons, three NFC East titles and three playoff flame outs (including the infamous Dez Bryant non-TD catch being reversed on replay in Green Bay back in 2014). He’s probably gotten such a long leash because he took over a dumpster fire – points if you remember the Stephen McGee days – in 2010 and is working on a fourth NFC East title in six years. Garrett’s seat is seemingly forever hot, though, with Jones as a boss. He’s routinely discussed as finally losing his job, and failing to win a very disappointing 2019 NFC East and surprising in the playoffs will probably see his run come to an end. Maybe a fitting way to end the decade?
Dak Prescott rose from relative mediocrity as a mid-round draft pick to surprise as a very capable NFL QB, much like Romo before him, but even with Zeke and now Amari Cooper to help on offense the Cowboys haven’t been able to put enough competent performances together this season to make anyone believe they can upset the NFC hierarchy come January. Elliott has been good but not great on the ground; games the defense shows up the offense seems to lose it’s way and vice versa. Dallas has beaten every sub-.500 team on the schedule, save for a shameful loss at the Jets, but also haven’t been able to beat any team over .500. Sound like any team you’re used to seeing, dear reader?
Matching 6-6 records and an oddly similar two decade stretch culminates in a TNF matchup of mediocrity. Dallas has the luxury of still being very much alive regardless of the outcome, but in the grand scheme they’re still stuck in the NFL purgatory the Bears find themselves in. The NFL is so widely popular because worst to first is doable with a solid draft and some good signings and hires…but they don’t ever talk about how worst to first and back to worst is just as easily attainable.
Chicago and Dallas are great examples of the latter, without either reaching the heights of the ghosts they’re stuck chasing.
We’re back after the Thanksgiving break, and boy are our arms tired. There’s been some stuff happening, and Sam, Pullega, and I get elbow deep into it. No subscription required as always, links abound after the jump.
I understand that any sports media loves any player that gives them quotes that are beyond the usual cliches, even if they’re just horseshit. Call it “Trevor Bauer Syndrome.” So that’s the treatment Robin Lehner is getting right now. You should also keep in mind, which went under the radar but our friend Al Cimiglia had it. Lehner let slip his true colors when he asked the press after the second Colorado hammering, “Which goal should I have stopped?” And he’s not wrong. The defense sucks in front of him and everyone knows that. But Corey Crawford has played behind the same defense for three years (arguably four) and you’ve never heard him bus toss anyone. Tells you a lot.
The fear is of course to minimize Lehner’s previous struggles. I don’t want to undervalue what he’s gone through, but for one he’s comparing his struggles to those of actual abuse, and second he’s on the verge of becoming another Brandon Marshall. “You have to listen to me not matter how much crap I spew because I have mental health issues!” The thing is, I don’t.
Lehner isn’t completely wrong in this conversation with Mark Lazerus. He is right that we do need better education and mental health care for athletes and everyone in sports and really everywhere. And there is a fudged line about how far back we can go and I have often said that going back to what people tweeted or said as children isn’t really fair. Kids have to be allowed to make mistakes, which is why I don’t really get on Artemi Panarin’s or Josh Hader’s case too much.
But these weren’t kids we’re talking about in hockey. These were middle-aged men. These were grown adults, and never under any circumstances is hurling racial slurs or physically abusing players who aren’t really in a position to retaliate or had their reports upstairs about them ignored simply a “mistake.” It’s abuse of power, and I don’t give a flying fuck if “that’s how things were done” in the past. We know better now, and they knew better when they were doing it, and they did it anyway because they didn’t think anyone would bother to call them on it. Someone did, and now they’ll reap the consequences.
Second, Mike Babcock or Bill Peters or now possibly Marc Crawford aren’t having “their entire lives canceled.” They’re not getting to coach in the NHL and make further millions than they already have. There’s plenty of things they can do. Working in the NHL isn’t a right. It’s a privilege. And they’ve lost it. And fuck, Crawford doesn’t have to lose it. He could come out tomorrow, admit he did these things, say he was wrong, say he’s willing to take any and all steps to learn and evolve from it, and specifically apologize to those he abused. An achievement that somehow eluded Bill Peters when he tried it. Most would probably accept that.
This is the same bullshit that all conservative dipshits or whiny pissbabies (big overlapping circle on that one, though sometimes it’s just lazy ass comedians) pull out when someone gets caught being an unrepentant asshole. Where was Akim Aliu’s second chance? Where was the outcry for him? How about John Franzen’s years long anxiety thanks to Babcock? Don’t hear that much. It’s the same for the women Louis CK assaulted, and instead all we hear is how unfair it is that Louis can’t play large theaters anymore (except he is).
No one’s being thrown in jail over this and no one’s acting like he should, but that doesn’t matter to people like Lehner who with all his issues still wants the right to be a jackass, and then probably hide behind his previous issues when he does. Oh, and did you notice how quickly “rappers” escaped his lips when moving beyond hockey? Always interesting when that happens, isn’t it?
Lehner goes on to mention domestic abuse and sexual assaults and he’s absolutely right on that one, but that isn’t so much a second chance as it is a complete ignoring of those things that keep those players in the league. These days there is some sort of suspension, and most would argue it doesn’t go far enough. But at least there’s a hint of consequence. Barely a whisper, but it’s something.
And these are the consequences for these coaches. They don’t get to work right now. Perhaps with the proper contrition they will in the future. They are hardly “canceled.”
Here’s a pretty succinct summation:
It’s actually a pretty fucking simple principle to understand. For example, if your kid stole something, your punishment would be very different if they confessed and paid back what they stole than if they said “You ppl are so sensitive. It’s like you can’t even steal anymore.”
— Todd™ (@Totally_Offside) December 4, 2019
I don’t see Lehner taking up Colin Kaepernick’s cause (big shock there) who didn’t actually do anything wrong and yet lost his job forever. That would seem to be canceled to me, but yet I never hear anyone pissing themselves over “cancel culture” taking up his cause. Wonder why that could be?
Robin Lehner just likes to hear himself talk, and thinks you have to too because of his previous struggles. Again, I don’t. Nor should you.
As the Cubs continue to emulate that “C’mon, do something” meme in real life this offseason, there was a charge of excitement, I don’t know why, when the non-tender list came out. Some of that was from Addison Russell being told to do one, which is understandable. Most of it though is from wannabe GMs who see no problem with the raft of pretty good players being cut simply because they were do a lot of money and want to do everything with the first aim being saving money and looking economical. Welcome to baseball before the 2020 season. Isn’t it grand?
But that’s life these days, so it’s probably a good idea to sift through a couple names that are making the rounds in greater Cubdom that could be help not so expensively.
Blake Treinen – The appeal of getting to make a lot of “Les Weinen” Sideshow Bob jokes is a big one, but that doesn’t really help the Cubs on the field. And Treinen might not either. What gets people’s pants to tighten is that Treinen is only one year removed from being the most dominant closer in the game, with the theory being he can’t completely have lost that. Oh, but he could have!
It’s vital to understand that Treinen’s 2018 had some clearly unsustainable numbers. Namely a .230 BABIP and a 4.4% HR/FB ratio. These are things that are simply not going to happen again. 2019 saw a violent market correction (BABIP is violence, Perry Farrell), with those numbers rebounding to .306 and 16.4%. And Treinen’s ERA went with it, to nearly five with a FIP that was over five.
More worryingly, Treinen’s strikeouts shrank from 31% to 22% while his walks more than doubled. That’s not just bad luck, that’s bad stuff. And that is born out by his fastball losing nearly a mile an hour of velocity and his slider losing both vertical and horizontal movement. It led Treinen to go away from it to a cutter that didn’t do all that much except make his outfielders run a lot.
The hope with Treinen would be that you could rediscover how he could regain some of the movement he lost in his slider or cutter, as well as maybe rediscovering the ways his sinker can turn into grounders again (51.2% ground-ball rate in 2018). And maybe that’s what the pitching lab is for, but it doesn’t appear that his arm angle or release point changed all that much. Remember, 2018 is really the outlier in his career, and though 2019 was excessively bad it more accurately reflects what he had been in DC. If he can find more ground-balls he can be effective again, but he maxes out at a Brandon Kintzler and you already have a Brandon Kintzler. Or you did. Could again.
Kevin Pillar – Oh goodie, an older Albert Almora. Just what I always wanted.
Charlie Culberson – You see how people got here, as he also is only a year removed from a 108 wRC+. But he strikes out a ton without providing much pop, and his infield defense grades out as “Haunted House Prop in May.” The Cubs don’t need him in the outfield, so this is going to be another hard pass.
Cesar Hernandez – Probably still expensive even after getting non-tendered, and his offense has been trending the wrong way for a couple seasons. Hernandez used to be able to get buy a little bit with speed, but was down to nine stolen bases last year which dropped his BABIP to .317 from the heights of the .330s before. He does make a ton of contact, though not much of it is hard. Both his walks and strikeout fell off a cliff last year, which is just weird, but he never struck out much before and you can expect that to continue. Still, he can only play second, and the Cubs at the moment have Bote and Happ who can do that and likely Hoerner at some point. Move along.
Steven Souza Jr. – Intriguing, given that he’ll be dirt cheap after missing all of last year with knee problems and having 2018 basically ruined by a couple injuries. In 2017 he hit 30 homers for the Rays, though that’s getting a bit in the rearview now. He couldn’t buy a bucket in 2018, and might as well put the glove on his head when in right field. He also saw a quarter of his fly-balls leave the park in ’17, which isn’t sustainable. Though his career-rate is 19.6%, so it’s not as outlandish as it might normally be. On the plus side, even in his ravaged ’18 season he managed a 44% hard-contact rate, before it became de rigeur. You have no idea what you’d be getting after a year out, but the dream scenario is he’s Castellanos on the cheap. But if you want that…just sign Castellanos because I know and you know and they know they have the money to do that.
Jimmy Nelson – It would help if he weren’t made of boogers and wish fulfillment. Still, you remember him being utterly dominant in 2017 until his shoulder turned to cheese. Nelson missed all of 2018 and might as well have missed all of last year, starting just three games. He might not be able to even pick up a baseball. Still, he was hesitant to use his fastball last year which had lost some steam, but that could be simply because of the time off. Could be worth a spring training invite just to see if you can regain his downward tilt on pitches, but you wouldn’t be counting on anything here.
As the Hawks call up yet another d-man who isn’t Adam Boqvist, for some reason I’m thinking about Kris Versteeg.
I know that sounds strange, but come with me. When Versteeg “retired” from the Icehogs a couple weeks ago, he cited the far more physical nature of the AHL. Because it is filled with guys trying to get noticed, and there are far too many people on both sides of the discussion who think getting noticed means throwing your body and fists around like you’re caught in the Oz tornado, it simply was too much for Versteeg. He said it was in a lot of ways “easier” to play in the NHL. We’ve heard this about the A for eternity.
Well…why?
If the idea of the AHL is as a developmental league, why wouldn’t more teams want their farm teams to play the way those players will play when they’re called up? This was a big question in the last years of Joel Quenneville‘s reign here, as the Hawks prospects and fill-ins were playing one system in Rockford and it was little secret why they looked a touch lost up here.
The only comparison is baseball, which has its own established developmental system (I recognized the NBA does too but that is for more fringe players). And yet I don’t believe Dylan Cease was being instructed to throw at everyone’s head when in Charlotte or Javy Baez was told to take any shortstop out at the knee trying to break up a double-play (don’t tell me Sox fans wouldn’t have loved it if he was though). Both baseball front offices in town have talked endlessly about instilling a way to play throughout the entire organization. Why do you never hear this in hockey? Is it because a lot of players don’t even enter it, coming from college or Europe? That would seem a tad flimsy.
I ask this because the I don’t get the impression that Adam Boqvist is going to learn much about the NHL game in Winnebago County. I’m not sure anyone does. And the longer the Hawks keep him there, either they’re souring on him, or they’re putting off any Seabrook decision as long as they can, or he’s going to just plateau in a game that doesn’t reflect the one the Hawks eventually want him to flourish within.
While there’s certainly a physical element to the NHL game, teams are much more concentrated these days on being fast and carrying the puck in whenever possible. The real skills Boqvist needs are gap control and angles, things which he actually already is pretty decent. Yes, there are times he’s going to have to learn how to retrieve a puck in the corner and not get massacred, but he also can’t emulate NHL speed at the AHL either. And he has to do that far more often in a league that seems only to care about hitting and grinding. It’s just not the NHL game.
I ask these questions, not because the Hawks called up another plodder in Dennis Gilbert (though that’s part of it), but look around at any good d-man under the age of 25 and see how many games they played in the AHL. I was watching Carolina last night, and Brett Pesce and Jakob Slavin–the anchors of that blue line on a very good team–played a combined 21 games in the AHL. We know the current two best rookies, Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes, never stepped foot there. The argument is that Makar had two years of college and Hughes one, while Boqvist only had one year of juniors. College probably is a touch higher, and maybe even more so, which would lead one to wonder why more teams don’t steer their prospects to college but that’s another discussion.
Jacob Trouba never played in the AHL. Hampus Lindholm half of a season. Seth Jones came out of junior and never stepped foot there. Neither did Ivan Provorov, who came from juniors as well. Brandon Carlo played seven games there. Mikhail Sergachev never played there either. Neither did Miro Heiskanen. Samuel Girard played six games. The Hawks might say that Jokiharju spent a half season there and now he’s flourishing with the Sabres, or at least playing well, but that won’t make you or me feel any better.
I’m not saying Boqvist has already missed the boat here. A couple of these guys played 30-40 games in the AHL. And even if the Hawks keep him there all season simply because they’re too scared to sit Seabrook long term, or Maatta, or are waiting to buy either of them out in the summer, it doesn’t mean Boqvist will have turned. The Hawks could get away with it.
It would simply be a waste of time. He’s not learning that much there, and a lot of what he could be learning doesn’t apply to the NHL. And that’s if you trust the Hawks developmental system in North America, which in recent seasons has given them…um…hang on I’ll get this….Phillip Danault? Yeah…that was four seasons ago. If you want to find the last defenseman…well, we’ve had that talk and you didn’t like it the first time.
It seems the Hawks are still counting on their Niklas Hjalmarsson and Nick Leddy path (something about guys named Nick). As we know, Hammer spent about half or more of the 08-09 season with the Hogs after getting a brief look in 2008 before coming up, pairing with Brian Campbell on the Hawks run to the conference final and was entrenched therein. The Hawks gave Leddy a sampling in the AHL after bringing him straight from The U., but he got a bonus half-season there thanks to the lockout and was something of a different player when he returned to the ’13 team.
But that was an awfully long time ago, and though the Hawks’ front office hasn’t changed, the game has. Remember all this when Dennis Gilbert is staring down David Pastrnak tomorrow.
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Happy Thursday and welcome back to THE VAULT, my weekly sermon where my pulpit is a Dave Wannstedt-run sideline and my scripture is just whatever relevant pages and boxscores I can find on Pro Football Reference.
Today’s Vault is a deep dive into the Monday Night Football tilt between the Bears and a visiting, defending Super Bowl Champ Dallas Cowboys team that took place on September 2nd, 1996. It was a Week 1 surprise Bears victory over a Michael Irvin-less Cowboys team where Deion Sanders had twice as many passing targets as any Bears player, and seven more targets than anyone else on the Cowboys. Of Deion’s 67 passing targets in 1996, 15 of them came in this Monday night opener. What a weird fucking timeline.
How weird was this game? Take a look at some of these goofy ass stats:
-The only passing TD thrown in the game was from Curtis Conway to Raymont Harris
-Bears punter Todd Sauerbrun had more passing yards than Curtis Conway, also from a pass that was completed to Raymont Harris.
–Bryan Cox was responsible for as many points (6) as the entire Cowboys team
–Herschel Walker caught two passes for some reason
This Cowboys team was still stacked with declining talent left over from their time as the dominant team in the NFL: Aikman, Irvin, Smith, Sanders, Moose Johnston, Leon Lett, Charles Haley, Darren Woodson. The Bears had Curtis Conway, Raymont Harris, Erik Kramer, Walt Harris, and Mark Carrier. Yet somehow, they came out on top.
I was looking back on the 1996 NFL Draft because I love second-guessing Bears drafts from the past, and aside from the amazing players they passed on, it should be noted that current Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri came out in the 1996 NFL Draft. Surreal.
The Bears were overmatched in this game, but they pulled out all the stops and got a W. A ton of trick plays and some key turnovers were the difference, so with that I’d like to take a second and praise Raymont Harris, or as you may know him, THE ULTRABACK (emphasis mine).
It’s hard as hell to find any good Raymont Harris tape on Youtube, and it’s a damn shame. By comparison, I found dozens of Jason McKie videos, and he wasn’t nearly as cool and certainly didn’t have a dope nickname. Raymont Harris has a fan page on Facebook with 39 likes and no profile picture. Players from the 90s that weren’t superstars will always get a raw deal in my eyes because they’re young enough to still know how to open a PDF but don’t have their middling highlight tapes available for me to peruse when I’m avoiding lesson planning. Like, they know they’re missing out, you know? Think about the fact that Donnell Woolford doesn’t have a sick Youtube compilation. I guess I’m really just hoping to watch old Bears videos and see if these players were actually good or fun to watch, and while there’s no good Curtis Conway videos there’s a Marcus Robinson 2000 highlight tape that I could watch if I so choose. It should be noted that I chose to watch that Marcus Robinson hype video and they spend half of the time talking about Dez White, Bobby Engram, Marty Booker, and Kaseem Sinceno.
You read that right, during a Marcus Robinson highlight video, the name Kaseem Sinceno was said.
I digress. Obviously fullbacks don’t have much room in today’s NFL so it’s not really that interesting of a thought experiment to ponder how well he’d do in the modern league, but he had a rare size/speed combo that looks good in the videos I can find of his time at Ohio State and various Sportscenter clips of Bears games from this era (I miss your voice so much, Stu Scott). He was apparently named the “toughest running back in the NFL” by a poll hosted by the Denver Post in 1997, and signed a one-year tender to compete for lead back duties that season with Rashaan Salaam, another player I loved.
To really wrap this Vault, I should mention that while Rashaan Salaam has a couple dope highlight videos of his on-field play, all the videos you can find of him came after his tragic death on December 5th, 2016; I’m not complaining but in an age where I’m so used to watching highlight tapes where players are making huge plays with like a Lil Wayne track as the backing music, it’s surreal to watch Salaam run through people at Colorado while Erik Satie’s “Gymnopedie No. 1” plays in the background.
Bears won in 1996, Bears win in 2019. Go watch some obscure Bears on Youtube if you can. Or just settle for watching Raymont Harris do a cameo on Married With Children.
Back to .500, Mitch had a decent game and actually bailed out the defense a bit, game against a rocky Dallas team at home…any reason for optimism now?
Tony Martin: I think there’s a little bit of room for optimism, but only that they’ll finish the season looking somewhat competent. There is no chance at the postseason in my mind, but looking back at some of the games the Bears could’ve won earlier in the year is a heartbreaker, because this team could be in the thick of it. They won’t win out, but with a break or two here or there they wouldn’t have had to.
The offense looked good and the defense wasn’t perfect but it’s still incredible to reflect on how badly they’ve played on offense all season and how close all their games were. This team still has a championship window next year, and I’m hoping the rest of the schedule gives the Bears something to build on, assuming nobody misses a field goal in these last few games and Nagy obsesses over it for another offseason.
I think Dallas sees the Bears game as a get right game, but this one could go either way.
Brian Schmitz: As poorly as this team has played pretty much over the course of the entire season, it’s crazy to think they are in a position to actually make the playoffs. But this week represents a far more capable opponent that the Bears have seen over the past month or more. The Cowboys are struggling, but they are certainly better than the Lions, Giants, and Chargers. I’m concerned the Bears May provide a “get right” week for the Cowboys, much like the Lions defense was a “get right” game for Mitch.
Wes Frenh: There’s a case to be made for optimism, but not one I’d subscribe to. We’ve been waiting for this team to rise up and put away the dregs of the NFC the last few weeks, and each game has been anything but smooth. Seeing some potential for improvement from Mitch was nice this week, but it really does just make me irrationally angry at Nagy for trying to force his offense to do things it clearly wasn’t capable of/ready to do early in the season.
Dallas presents a difficult matchup on Thursday night, mostly in that the fire is cranked up under Jason Garrett’s seat. The Cowboys are still in the best position to represent the NFC East in the playoffs and they’re going to try to do all they can to fix their own running game and likely build some defensive confidence. I think the biggest thing going for the Bears in this game is getting to play at home, and that the weather on Thursday night (low in the 20s) could make things difficult for all involved.
Obviously it’s only the Lions. And Matt Patricia was dumb enough to keep playing man coverage. But why does Mitch look so much better when not seeing zone coverage? This comes after he pretty much told the coaching staff through the press what he wanted to do after the Giants game? Are they actually listening?
Brian: The reason why Mitch looks like a serviceable NFL QB against man coverage is fairly simple to see. During man reads, you see what your target is doing and if he’s open you throw the ball to him. Against Cover 1, 2, 3 or any man up or man over coverages, your target may look open, but you can’t see who else is defending their area. For an offense, Man reads are simply personnel reactions – if your guy is better than theirs, you are going to be successful. But when you are going against zone reads, it’s up to your system and scheme to get guys open, it’s not all on the players.
Tony: This Dallas game is like performing a litmus test when acid is already eating away at your legs, but shit we might as well try to put the strip on the festering remains of this Bears season so that next year will keep the fire out of the dumpster.
Remember “Quiz Show?” Pretty brilliant Robert Redford-directed film. Great cast. Maybe the one time Hank Azaria played an unrepentant asshole. David Paymer and John Turturro are just awesome, and pretty much showcase the entire Jewish spectrum. Somehow it starred Rob Morrow, which gets funnier and funnier the more you think about it.
Anyway, the climactic scene is when Ralph Fiennes’s Charles Van Doren sits before Congress and admits he got the answers before the shows. And senator after senator compliment him for his statement, until the surly, frumpy one from New York (of course he’d be from New York) finally says that his colleagues are full of shit and that he shouldn’t be commended for doing what’s right. Which earns standing applause from the gallery.
That’s kind of how I feel about the Cubs non-tendering Addison Russell yesterday. It really deserves no more applause than getting a vaccination. It’s what you’re supposed to do. Except in one light…is it?
I’ve always been a shade toward the middle on the whole thing when it started last year. Obviously, Addison Russell is a giant piece of shit and I would have been sated had they tossed him in the same dumpster as the giant Wrigley cake from years ago. But, and I could just be drinking the Kool-Aid, I believed Theo when he said they were genuinely interested in his rehabilitation and what was best for Melisa Reidy, who they said had requested that Russell not be released. Multiple times when they announced they were not letting Russell go last year, Theo stressed that Melisa and their child’s well-being and wishes came first.
Sure, deep down I knew it was about not losing an “asset” for nothing, and the hope would be that he would hit for at least a month or two and not spend the season shoving his cleats up his ass every which way so they could trade him and get something in return. But it seemed a pretty good cover story at least.
Of course, Russell sucked all year and proved to be an inattentive dope as well. And the first paragraph of the statement tells you everything: If you haven’t seen it in full:
The first thing they mention is that his contribution on the field would not be anywhere near what he would have to be paid. And normally that would be enough. But Addison Russell isn’t normal.
Last year, they said they were keeping him because they wanted to be on the frontline for his rehabilitation, to make sure everything was being done for Melisa and their child, because they didn’t want to simply wash their hands. They wanted to be involved. They wanted to be on the front-line. They wanted to be at the head of change throughout the league. They wanted you to believe then that his performance didn’t really matter.
And now it’s top of mind.
Of course, they say that his adherence to whatever they set out for him off the field has been up to the standards they set. No one knows really what this has been, and I’m not sure anyone should, although some idea of how intensive it’s been would certainly help. Whatever it is, it certainly can’t have been “completed” in just a year. But now the Cubs aren’t really worried about it, because he’s not their player anymore.
They also didn’t miss the chance to trumpet their own horn, but at least they didn’t lead off with it, so they’re one step ahead of John McDonough. Still, using this at best uncomfortable situation and at worst abhorrent as a platform to boast about your accomplishments and changes, ones we can’t really put a finger on, doesn’t really scan fully either.
Clearly, the Cubs had no choice in the public’s eyes, and no one is going to criticize this move. It’ll be on Addison’s new team to make sure he keeps adhering to his growth and change as a person. Except if there is no new team, what then? What if it’s just on him until April or May? Or longer?
I’m certainly not unhappy he’s gone, though I bet I see even more #27 jerseys in the stands from jackasses who have to prove just how uncaring and menacing they can be simply because. But if it was all about his change and growth, and you were so involved, wouldn’t the Cubs have to keep him so they could as closely monitor it as possible?
That would have been an impossible choice to make. This was certainly easier. But if you take them at their word, always a bad idea when it comes to front offices in any sport, it might not actually have been the right one.
