Chicago Sports Management Should Be Called Before Congress

Written by Godfrey, Friday December 11 2009 Playerpress.com

First of all let me say I love the Notre Dame hire of Brian Kelly. The man has a great offensive mind. The Fighting Irish will back on top again very soon. But unfortunately that's about the only positive I have to discuss right now. Neither of the biggest sports teams in the city of Chicago Bulls Bears Cubs or Whitesox will make the post season this season which ends in 2010 for the Bulls. The same Bulls who took Boston to seven games last season in the first round of the NBA playoffs considered the most exciting playoff series in sports I think besides the 2004 Red Sox Yankees series where the Red Sox came back from a three games to none deficit to win that series. The only time in sports that has ever happened.
Not only have our major sports teams under achieved but they have down right stunk. I believe that when a team makes changes to its roster believed to make the team better they should have something to show for it. Yet the Cubs are trying to get rid of the biggest pain in the ass baseball may have ever seen after being dumb enough to sign Milton Bradley to a contract of more than one year when teams that he's played for in the past were smart enough not to do that. For some reason the Cubs felt that it was alright to trade away one of their more popular players in Mark Derosa to make this happen. While Derosa didn'thave as good a year as he had the year before the Cubs sure could have used him when Aramis went down with a shoulder injury when they were leading the division. With Derosa filling the Cubs would have kept their lead in the division all the way to the end and would have had another chance to choke away another post season series. At least they would have been there. I'm not a White Sox fan so I cannot really comment on them but it was obvious that team was obviously too old to be playing baseball anyways.

While it was obvious in the final months of the season that the Cubs or Sox were not going to make the post season I started to focus on the Bears. After all we had a franchise Quarterback for the first time in decades according to the media who heralded the arrival of Jay Cutler. I though it was a good move and still do as we gave away the house to get him here. If you know Jerry Angelo's inability to get his first round picks to make an impact much less get on the field and the fact he does better in the later rounds finding gems like Jonny Knox, it set up well for the bears to go maybe 10-6 and lose in the second round. At least they would have made it and no one would be screaming for Lovie Smith to be fired.

Continuing on to the Bulls who as I said were involved in one of the most exciting and frustrating playoff series in sports history. I though with the changes they made in getting John Salmon and Brad Miller though it was years after letting the man go to another team becoming a star and trading to get him back when he is slower than an old woman using a walker. But he is nonetheless productive. Joakim Noah showed in the playoffs that he is better than the dud he'd looked like he would become when we drafted him out of Florida where he won consecutive national titles. Management still hadn't dealt with the lack of having a big man that could compete with the likes of Dwight Howard and Greg Oden. Yet they still looked like they could be a competitive team. Wrong!

Now I come to my point. The reason for all of the lack of success for these teams: Management. The General Managers who seem to ignore what really ails their teams and doing something to fix it. Every General Manager in charge of the teams I mentioned should be fired right now! None of the players they have put on the field or harwood has any heart. How many times can a team get their asses kicked year after before someone figures out what is wrong? How many times do we have to listen to the same responses during post game interviews with players haveing that ever present hang dog look on their faces? When do we stop blaming the players before we blame the numbsculls who keep putting them on the field year after year? Sure we all realize that Lovie Smith's defensive scheme does not work but maybe it isn't just that. Maybe it is the personnel he has on the field who don't know what the hell they're doing or where they should be. Or maybe it is Jerry Angelo's fault for not getting rid of Ron Turner who doesn't know how to run an NFL offense and put in someone who can score some points to keep up with the other team who moves the ball up and down the field as if they're out there by themselves. How about drafting a running back that can actually shake some defenders instead of running into the pile and falling down?

I watched the Cubs get beat around by the Colorado Rockies like how the Minnesota Vikings spanked the Bears. The looks on their faces said it all for me. This was just another game for them. If I have to listen to them say, "you have to give credit to the other team" again I will puke. Show some heart for crying out loud! Even if you're getting beat at least act like you're trying. Many of these athletes were kids who came from winning programs all through their youth wining mutiple state championships in their sports. What they should do is take it back to the days when if you lost your position your career was basically over. I'm not advocating for players to play with unimaginable injuries but the circumstance would make sure that you get the very best of your players every time they set foot on the field or the court. Heartless players and brain dead management is no way to run a franchise and all you're doing is playing the fans for fools when you raise ticket prices after every losing season and then have the nerve to say it is easy to sit there and think we know better than those who are actually out there playing the games. I say there is space on my couch where we can watch a ball game together because it's pretty obvious that you need to be where we are to see the crap that is going on and who is just out there to get a paycheck. Enough is enough. Let's not turn Chicago into Kansas City but even the Royals have seen a World Series more recently than the Cubs!