There will be a lot of discussion today about the #Bears‘ use of Cordarrelle Patterson at running back. Got a lot of reps there today.

— Adam Jahns (@adamjahns) August 17, 2020

The 2018 Chicago Bears were fun. They were so much fun that Noah Brier (dot com), the technology-minded former DJ responsible for this little website’s existence, reemerged in the underground dwelling known as Josie Woods, now with a young daughter reciting those famous words, “Bear down, Chicago Bears”. They were so much fun that I sat awake in a tiny Parisian hotel room, in the middle of the night, putting back 1664 tall boys and enthusiastically (but silently) cheering a primetime victory over the Vikings. (The experience all-but ruined the next day’s travel.) They were so much fun that Noah and I never even considered not going to Chicago for their home playoff game against the Eagles, cost be damned.

The 2018 Bears had defensive linemen in the backfield. A kid quarterback showing promise. Tarik Cohen looking borderline uncoverable by linebackers, safeties, anyone. Fake photoshoots in the end zone. Dance parties in the locker room. The team that had just suffered through the Greek tragedy of Marc Trestman and monotonously slow blood draining of John Fox’s tenure were giving joy to a fan base that had begun to view watching Bears games as a predictably joyless experience.

Then 2019 came. And the joylessness returned.

That’s why as the news began to surface the Bears planned to use Cordarrelle Pattersson in the back field, it was a breath of fresh air. Matt Nagy: “We want to be able to get the most of out of him…when you have weapons like that, you want to find ways to get them the ball.” This is a strikingly 2018 mentality. In 2018, Nagy knew what he didn’t have (yet, he thought) at the quarterback position and compensated with creativity. Folks considered these gimmicks but they clever devices designed to ask less of Mitch Trubisky. In 2019, he thought he had more at the position, thought Trubisky could effectively run his offense, and was caught flat-footed as a play caller because of that season-defining error.

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I was texting recently with a popular Bears beat writer recently. I won’t mention his name but it rhymes with the name of my favorite burlesque dancer, Madame Bombs. (The lyricist in me must stress that “Adam Jahns” does not technically rhyme with “Madame Bombs” but once I found that joke I was running with it.) This beat writer and I were both sharing a similar experience. Interest in the Chicago Bears, as we made our way through the early days of August, was almost non-existent. The sites aren’t getting the clicks. The tweets are getting the traction. The podcasts – and his is the best in the business – aren’t getting the ears.

Was it the absence of preseason football? Perhaps. For as silly as those games are, they serve as a sort of lighthouse for a desperate fan base out to sea. We’re not on land yet but we know land approaches. Was it the lack of a fan-attended training camp? Perhaps. Normally, by now, we’ve seen a hundred fan videos of players in shorts and I’d have received a dozen emails with subject lines like “Watch out for Ryan Nall”. In the absence of the season’s build-up, we’re left with two of the world’s great bores: mindless social media debate and baseball.

100%. Surreal. https://t.co/uzxqjrEMlP

— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) August 14, 2020

Today could change that, as the beat writer pointed out to me. Today is the first day the media will attend Chicago Bears practice, the first time Madame Bombs and his cohorts will get to weigh-in on the quarterback “competition”. Today they might be able to tell us if Jaylon Johnson is running with the ones, or who has the leg up at right guard. Today and tomorrow there will be a flurry of Bears coverage with actual observations, information and insight, as opposed to blind predictions, what ifs and rankings of inactive game day quarterbacks from across the league. (As entertaining as that piece was from Fishbain, it left me with a “why did I just read that” feeling afterwards.)

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Today at noon CT, I’ll be appearing on the daily Tea Time at the Apothecary with the folks from Merz Apothecary, as we’ll be discussing our developing partnership and evaluating the finalist beards for our first giveaway. (There were many terrific submissions.)

Here’s how to watch:

Twitter: @MerzApothecary

Facebook: LIVE

And if you can’t watch either of these live, I’ll have the video of the conversation up on this site this afternoon.

The quotes came from new Bears quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo.

“At the end of the day, which guy’s raising the other ten guys’ level.”

“At the end of the day, it’s who moves our football team and converts on third down.”

Question. One word. When?

When is this raising of the other ten guys’ level happening?

When is the football team being moved?

When are these third downs being converted?

I might be having an Allen Iverson moment but…practice? We talking about…practice?

Quarterbacks are always the story in the NFL and a quarterback competition over the summer is the juiciest story there is for hungry football writers. But there are three things fans must consider before investing too much into this battle.

(1) Without preseason games, there won’t be anything resembling an obvious winner. Preseason games would have allowed the whole of the football world to evaluate the play of these two men and accurately assess which gave the Bears the best chance to win. Preseason games would have made fans active participants in the competition, enabling them to generate their own thoughts and opinions based on the palpable data of performance.

(2) The media will have their say on the competition but most of the important moments in camp practices, the parts where the actual game plan is installed and executed, happen after the media is sent away. You’ll learn far more from Adam Jahns’ insider reporting on Nagy’s thoughts than Brad Biggs’ impressions from a few passing drills.

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Years ago, I got an email.

It was from JQ of the Q Brothers Collective, a troupe of hip hop theatre artists I had admired since my years at New York University, when I discovered their hit, The Bomb-itty of Errors. These guys were doing hip hop musicals more than a decade before some other folks who’ve gotten rich off of it. It turns out JQ was a fan of DaBearsBlog and just wanted to share that with me. I was fucking jazzed.

Years later, his friendship is one of my favorite things to have come from this site. He and his brother have been to Josie Woods for a Bears game. I’ve had beers with him all over Chicago. I’ve spent Christmas at his family’s house. The whole crew are some of my favorite people on the earth.

So who cares, Jeff?

When I decided to start building partnerships with DBB, I thought about Chicago institutions I love. Malnati’s (check). Billy Goat Tavern, and Old Style Beer (pending). Then I thought of the Q Brothers and their family’s legendary pharmacy, Merz Apothecary. (You can read the remarkable history of this institution by CLICKING HERE.) I am by no means expert when it comes to any of the products they sell. However, the woman I live with is. When Sarah and I travel anywhere – East Hampton, Paris, Trenton – I know she’s not going to be able to walk by the local pharmacy without at least a 20-minute venture inside. If she swears by Merz, Merz is the real fucking deal.

Recently I bought these things they sell called Shambars. They look like bars of soap but they replace shampoo and conditioner. I was dubious. This made no sense to me. Then I tried them. And they’re pretty fucking incredible.

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• Who provided the most in-depth look at Mitch Trubisky’s competition preparation? Unsurprisingly, it’s a guy I used to drink with in bars when that kind of thing was allowed: Adam Jahns. And in his piece for The Athletic he gives plenty of reason for Mitch loyalists to believe the young signal caller is capable of finally turning a corner. My two cents? I just don’t understand what he’s done to earn another shot. If I’m the Bears, I tell Mitch that Nick Foles is starting the opener but to keep his arm warm in the bullpen.
• This spring I got into a somewhat public Twitter spat with Stacey Dales for having the gumption to challenge an opinion of hers. Now full reporting shows that Aaron Rodgers (a) was pissed at the selection of a first-round QB and (b) is openly discussing the end of his tenure with the organization. I get that some in the sports media get overly protective of those they cover to protect access. But this was dumb argument by a smart reporter. You’d have to know absolutely nothing about Rodgers to think he wouldn’t be offended by the pick.
• Kelly Stafford went a bit ballistic when it turned out Matt Stafford’s Covid-19 test was a false positive. “I have been losing my mind because of how my Family has been treated since my husband was put on the Covid-IR list,” Kelly, who has four children with Matt, said. “Even after we knew it was a false positive, I was approached in a grocery store told I was ‘endangering others,’ my kids were harassed and kicked off a playground, I was told I needed to wait in my car when trying to pick up food, and people closest to us had to get tested just so they could go back to work… and that’s just to name a few things.” Kelly has battled significant health issues and I understand her frustration. But all the things she suggests here are the PROPER PRECAUTIONS TO TAKE with a positive test. If it’s false positive, great. But before that is known, you can’t just pretend it’s life as usual.
• IN ACTUAL BEAR NEWS: Here are some bears “pole dancing” in West Hartford.

Bubbles work. (Basketball)

Non-bubbles don’t. (Baseball)

The NFL should scrap the 2020 schedule, and move it to 2021.

Create a bubble for each division – 8 in total. For instance the NFC North bubble could be in Chicago. Then have the teams play each other four times each, 12 games total, starting in early October.

The 8 division winners enter a new playoff bubble come January. (Since there’s a likelihood of a tie or two, let point differential break the tie. Or…just play another game.)

This would give the season legitimacy and could actually be fun.