I am a big fan of David Ross of course for all the members who were on the team that broke the Cubs 100 plus year drought. Since he’s taken over the Cubs have been entertaining even at their most painful points because we just didn’t have the players to win with. I’ve noticed that Ross’s teams start off well and then settle into what they will be. 2023 being no difference and with the amount of money the Cubs spent in the off season I’m not surprised they are around .500 right now. A new team almost but the talent to at least make a wild card game/series. After a weekend series in Minnesota where the Cubs gave up 27 runs in two games my affinity for Ross is starting to wane because for a while were scoring like crazy and winning games to now giving up runs like crazy and not getting to see what the new players can do when you get down big early. One of the strengths the Cubs were touting this year was the pitching and up until the Twins series were doing just smashing. Now who do we blame? The pitching or the hitting? If your pitchers are giving up runs early the hitting never gets going. If the hitting is doing nothing something’s got to give. We love to say it is early and anything can happen in the early months of baseball. It is the only sport we say that about. You cannot win a world series in April/May but you can lose one. Right now we’re playing way below our talent in a bad division. Staying on this path we’ll be in last place soon and start to hear about players only meetings and then public fights in the dugout if we follow the NBA way of doing things. I say do something now if that means star the rumors that Ross is on the hot seat. If teams know that all they have to do is have one big inning and the Cubs won’t fight back that spells doom and the good feelings will be gone fast and the next time we see David Ross is years from now when they’re celebrating the 2016 team.  

The NBA has been terrible this year. The teams that have been the standard bearers in east or west were barely over .500. I think the Milwaukee Bucks will not only come out of the east but win it all. I'm a lover of the eastern conference being a Bulls fan but it's very likely one of the top teams in the west will get upset between the play in tournament and the finals. Denver sits at the top of the west but I'm not sure they'll be in the finals and the Grizzlies will most likely get knocked out early again with Ja Morant most likely in jail rather than injured this year. That's two of the top 5 teams in the west and with Golden State being so bad on the road I don't see them there either. That leaves Sacramento, Phoenix and the Clippers.. None of those names stand out besides Sacramento because they're one of three teams with double digits wins over losses. The western conference playoffs will turn into what the east used to be with one team dominating, The Bulls, Boston, the Knicks. Regardless of matchups there has been no end to controversy with players who want to be traded to get away from Ben Simmons.  The Bulls were frustrating more often than not but no controversies. Zach Levine came on strong as the season went along while Demar Derozan fell off and his daughter getting threats  before she even left the stadium in Toronto. I'll be following the playoffs because I'm a sports fan but at a distance or down wind because of the smell of probably one of the least favorite American league at the moment. G©

I'm not jumping up and down for the moves the Bears have made so far in preseason, but my affinity for Ryan Poles has moved a notch in the right direction for the way he's gone about Free Agency. With the many holes to fill he's signed impact players that not only can play right away but are in the prime of their careers and coming off of career years with their previous teams including teams that were playoff contenders right from the beginning. With Aaron Rodgers out of the division the Bears automatically move to the head of the pack and the draft hasn't taken place yet. With the haul of picks the Bears got from Carolina. What I liked about Ryan Pace is he was a lot more transparent with the media than Poles and I never trust a coach with some gimmick principle the players are supposed to buy into and then lose a bunch of games.   

Well the league now knows whoever is going to play with Justin Fields won’t be drafted until number 9 of the first round whatever that position might be. A number of players have come out and said they want to play with Justin including a wide receiver who played with him at Ohio State. I’ve not been a fan of Ryan Poles. He’s too secretive and let his star quarterback lobby for his job before the trade with the Carolina Panthers let him know his job is safe. Even if the Bears had drafted a quarterback at number one they still have to put weapons around him. Wide receivers and offensive line. And a defense with more holes than a “Holy Cow,” (Harry Caray). When you have a talent like Fields you don’t keep people guessing especially when you’re largely responsible for losing 14 out of 17 games which is how they got the number one pick in the first place.

 The Chase Claypool deal with the Steelers at this moment looks like a dud which means they’ll have to waste a pick on another receiver and no one knows what’s going to happen to David Montgomery at the running back spot a key player in the Bears stellar running game in the 2022 season.

 I get it that new regimes want their own players but Chicago has a penchant for letting good players walk. Or trading star players who go on to get even better with other clubs or better paydays that we’re too cheap to pay them what their worth. I know Justin Fields is no Tom Brady, yet but with no losing seasons the whole time ne New England they just retooled and dominated year after year. I have yet to see a new regime come in and make the current roster better so we’ve had to see some bad teams before someone gets it right. Which in the Bears case not since Lovie Smith.

 Sports are like a wave. For a period a team will do well knowing they will eventually crash and have to start all over again. Right now it has been a steady stream of ugh. I have to laugh when a new regime has been hired and always the talk about the change in culture and how they are going to get guys to buy into the philosophy the new coach brings. Which is a coy way to say we’re going to lose a lot of games before we get it right. I doubt the Bears turn in the Jacksonville Jaguars and make an impact in the playoffs anytime soon but you can tell when someone has gotten comfortable in their job and everyone in the locker room is dead man walking.

 The thing about sports is there is a lot of waiting and speculating in slow news cycles. It’ll be weeks before the draft months before they take the field for preseason games. And anything can happen but fans like to have certainty, or as we say show and prove that you’re going to upgrade the roster not just blow it up. However you go about building this team you want to reassure your number one star that he is hands off and they’ll build around you and not try to shoe horn you into a style of play that makes you want out of Chicago as soon as possible because you know when it comes to signing a new contract you might as well start looking towards Green Bay. The words are simple: “Justin Fields is our Quarterback.” The rest is gravy. G©

Why Is Devin Hester Not In The HOF?

WHY IS DEVIN HESTER NOT IN THE HOF?! 

2007 he became the first NFL player to return the opening kickoff for a touchdown. He holds the NFL record for most all-time return touchdowns (punt and kickoff combined) and most all-time punt return touchdowns. In his first 13 weeks as a professional football player, Hester recorded six return touchdowns, including a punt return in his NFL debut, and a then-record tying 108-yard touchdown from a missed field goal against the New York Giants.^[20] He also returned a punt for a clutch 83-yard game-winning touchdown against the Arizona Cardinals to give the Bears the lead in a comeback win, and two kickoff returns in one game against the St. Louis Rams. It was when the league out of over caution of collisions (With the number of concussions going up in 2023-'23) during kick offs moved the kick off line back to the 35 yard line. Had that move not been made who knows how many touchdowns he would've finished his career and preferably with the Chicago Bears who drafted him. Here is what Hester had to say in 2011 about the rule change: 

"Bears return man Devin Hester thinks it was stupid of the NFL to move kickoffs up five yards, and he’s not afraid to say so.

After a Week One that saw more touchbacks than usual but also more touchdown returns than usual, Hester said nothing really changed, and that the NFL passed a rule that was ostensibly about player safety but didn’t really have an impact."

“It’s just showing the NFL that moving the line up five yards didn’t budge things a bit,” Hester told the Chicago Tribune. “They got a couple touchbacks but you’ve still got guys bringing it out and at the end of the day that rule is pointless. It’s not going to prevent concussions because guys are bringing it out five to eight yards deep in the end zone. We’re still coming out with it. And that’s taking away from some of the fun in the NFL because guys are going to bring it out regardless.”

Hester is far from alone. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell thinks more touchbacks will mean fewer injuries, but most of the players who are putting their bodies on the line seem to want to keep the game the way it is. While Hester was used sparingly on both sides of the ball, I compare it to a DH in baseball getting into the HOF and never touching the field. The NFL is more liberal in the amount of players it lets in.  Roger Goodell is as useless as Bud Selig as a sports commissioner.  

G©

Some of this piece was from other sources. 

I’m for the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl and seeing a limping and hustling Pat Mahomes made me want to come up with crazy nicknames for what he does. I know Tom Brady is the G.O.A.T. and not many quarterbacks will play long enough to touch Brady’s accomplishments. With football being a team sport Brady didn’t do it all himself. But really who were the Patriots during Brady’s years there? Most would say Belicheck was the genius first by drafting Brady and the subsequent success but seeing what’s going on in New England now I have an even greater respect for Brady. Every game I watched with him the team looked well prepared for every game. I admit I slept through a couple of Super Bowls with Brady because I love variety in my sports while I am a hypocrite because I would love to see the Bears in that many Super Bowls.

Speaking of the Bears and the subject of Quarterbacks: Trading Justin Fields would be asinine when there are so many needs they have than Quarterback, like how to keep one on his feet with a good offensive line. With the holes we have on the defense trading Fields and having to the process of having to build around him trading Fields even for more picks would turn Chicago fans off quickly. Kansas City loves Mahomes as much as he loves playing for them and they have shown they are willing to put weapons around him to help him succeed. The Bears had a chance to pick Mahomes in 2017 but moved up to number 3 to take a dud in Mitch Trubisky. We could have had Deshaun Watson but the God’s vetoed that choice thankfully. But we could have had Patrick Mahomes and his stupid State Farm commercials. 

Someone once told me that if we had drafted Mahomes Chicago would have done what most Chicago teams seem to do and that’s go on the cheap and not put him in a position to win. Let’s not do the same with Justin Fields. Let’s do what we have to do to put him in Super bowls leaving it all on the field because we’ve done our duty to protect him and bargain with him in good faith. I’m nowhere near ready to trust Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus considering the number of slick talkers who have come through Halas Hall since we let Lovie Smith go. We’ve only beaten Green Bay twice since Lovie Smith the last coach to get the Bears to a Super Bowl. Looking at Aaron Rodgers and Pat Mahomes. Tom Brady or Kirk cousins, it proves so goes your quarterback so goes your club. G©  

Coach Prime may have ended up in a place, while a beautiful place, it has been a wasteland since long before there was ever a thought of a college playoff to decide the National Champion. The last time they were relevant was the early 90's which included a National Title in 1990. These days it is easier to go from 1-11 to bowl eligible. Particularly in a Big 5 conference like the Pac. 12 soon to be the Pac 10 in 2024 with USC and UCLA moving to the big ten. It used to be whom and when you beat in the 90’s when deciding on bowl participation but still having to win a number of games. Coach Prime’s Buffaloes need only to win six games regardless in or out of conference. I’m not sure he knew what he was taking on with teams like Stanford, Oregon, Washington and Utah. With a favorable non-conference schedule and a few upsets in conference I can almost guarantee there will be some calls from The NFL that he cannot ignore because he’ll keep losing assistants to other schools or the NFL. All of this for a man who coached 32 college football games. G©