[NOTE: I’m not writing about Mitch Trubisky in this preview because what is left to say? He needs to play well. That’s all.]
I always like the Chicago Bears.
And I believe in this coach. I believe he’s a very good coach. And a very good coach understands what needs fixing, fixes it and beats Teddy Bridgewater in his own building.
These are the transcribed Tweets of the legendary Jackson D, of the Q Brothers Collective. Check out his Twitter feed. It’s good.
Spent 6 years of my life there from 2004-2010 but also lost about 10 years off my life raging with my coworkers after every shift. Hear they’re trying to find a new spot but my worry is with all the service pros that will be out of a job that make that place special. RIP
Also out of all the restaurants I’ve worked at, it’s the only place is still regularly text and talk to my former coworkers 10 years later. We had a whole “Ditka’s” reunion picture at my wedding.
“Coach” as we all called him was there almost every night in those days. Had a massive wad of hundreds wrapped in rubber bands in his pockets and would always hook you up if you waited on him. I waited on some awesome sports greats. He called me Eric which is not my name.
Dear Mr. Head Coach,
Your offense sucks.
I know that’s an abrupt way to start a letter, and may discourage you from reading any further, but I’ve never been known for my subtlety. Your offense isn’t struggling. It isn’t sub-average. It just flat out sucks. It sucks in America. It sucks in England. It sucks. And being an offensive-minded head coach, that’s on you.
Your left tackle, a damn good player, looks like he belongs in the XFL.
Your most dynamic weapon, Tarik Cohen, has been useless for five weeks.
Your quarterbacks, both of them, look like they left their playbooks in the men’s toilet at Rossi’s.
But more than anything else, this entire offense
lacks coherence. If someone were to ask me right now, “What is the Bears offense” I would have no earthly idea how to answer. And I have the strange suspicion you’d stammer a bit as well.
You were brought to this organization to modernize the operation, specifically when it comes to moving the football. (Hell, we even co-authored a tee shirt proclaiming you’d do just that.) Pace and Fox built the all-world defense. You were the finishing touch on one of the most dramatic rebuilds in organization history. Year One was a massive success. You won 12 games. You won the NFC North. But the offense had very little to do with that.
Year Two was supposed to be the year the complete picture emerged. But through five games, the offense not only doesn’t look better than 2018…it looks significantly worse.
So, you know, fix it. Just fix the fucking thing. Get creative. Coach the players up. Make this unit better. You had the bye week to diagnose the ailments and this thing is quite diseased. Now load up the syringe with penicillin and jam it into your offense’s ass. No more excuses.
There are about 15 teams that can win the Super Bowl and you coach one of them. But that status currently exists despite the script you author each week. Fix it. Because while you’ve tried to absorb the blame for the struggles, you’ve yet to receive much criticism.
That won’t last much longer.
Sincerely,
Some Guy in Queens
The Vaudeville posters of Red Grange.
Chris Willis is the head of the Research Library at NFL Films. He is the author of multiple books on early pro football, including The Man Who Built the National Football League: Joe F. Carr (2010), Dutch Clark: The Life of an NFL Legend and the Birth of the Detroit Lions (2012), A Nearly Perfect Season: The Inside Story of the 1984 San Francisco 49ers (2014), and Walter Lingo, Jim Thorpe, and the Oorang Indians: How a Dog Kennel Owner Created the NFL’s Most Famous Traveling Team, all published by Rowman & Littlefield. Willis was nominated for an Emmy in 2002 for his work on the HBO documentary The Game of Their Lives and won an Emmy in 2016 for his work on HBO’s Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Houston Texans. He was awarded the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Ralph Hay award for Lifetime achievement in pro football research and historiography in 2012.
Folks, I rarely recommend books to you. So you know when I do it’s a damn good. This is a damn good book. You can order it HERE. And I recommend you do.
DBB: I don’t like to give too much of the book away in these interviews because we want people to go out and buy the damn thing. So first, a process question. This book is huge. It’s dense. So where do you start with a subject like Red Grange? And feel free to get super literal. Like, what did you actually do first, second…etc.?
CW: When writing a biography I usually start from the beginning with the individual. With Red Grange I started with his family tree and worked my way to him. The process usually starts with interviews, and since Red passed away in Jan. 1991 there were some individuals around who could talk about knowing Red and giving me their experiences with Red. Those interviews are sprinkled throughout the book. Second, it was off to visit the places where Red lived. So I visited his birthplace, Forksville, PA; his hometown where he grew up and went to high school, Wheaton, IL; then University of Illinois for college; and then the city of Chicago where he played the majority of his NFL and pro football career.
Retraces these stops were vital to telling the story of Red and getting to know him in a deeper form. Third, it was going through research material that included books, magazines, photos, game footage, old interviews with Red and the most important element, newspapers.
I spent hours and hours going through microfilm and on-line, trying to find any articles on Red and going through every game he played in high school, college and the pros. I know there have been a few previous volumes on Red but I wanted this To be the definitive bio on him so I covered his entire career and life, some parts (like his mother, post-NFL career in radio & TV, acting) had never been covered before. So that’s why it’s a very detailed biography.
It’s very hard to analyze a game from inside the building. You really have no idea what’s going on. But here are a few points:
3-2. One game back of Green Bay. In position to have a season but with A LOT of improvement needed. The bye week comes at a perfect time.
The George Inn. My favorite pub in London.
I always like the Chicago Bears.
And they are not losing in London, with Reverend Dave and I in the building, all hopped up on bitter ale.
Data had a stream of Tweets early in the week but I fear they were lost in the Monday excitement. He is one of the best follows on Bears Twitter and I recommend you give him a follow. Here are his thoughts:
I found this story incredibly moving.
Thirteen children of firefighters who died at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and six whose fathers died of 9/11-related illnesses, graduated from the city’s fire department during an emotional ceremony. https://t.co/cG5uJtbt4d
— CNN (@CNN) September 25, 2019
“London Snow”
She broke my heart,
in London,
in the lobby of the Bridewell Theatre.
It was snowing outside and
Brits do silly things in the snow.
Grown men in Savile Row slacks become
children on a Swindon schoolyard,
tossing snow balls and giggling,
and saying things like “jolly”.
She regretted that decision,
she would tell me later.
Maybe she was afraid.
Or maybe
it was just the snow.
Four games are now in the books. Here are four questions for the Chicago Bears.
(1) Can the defense make quarterback “just another position”?
When Mitch Trubisky went off the field Sunday, for what looked like a significant period of time, there was a feeling of “uh oh, season over”. Then Chase Daniel stepped in and it just…wasn’t. Nobody would argue the Bears are better long-term with Daniel behind center. But there have been plenty of Super Bowl champion defenses – Dilfer’s Ravens, Big Ben’s first Steelers, Peyton’s Broncos – who have carried mediocrity at QB to a title. Normally backup quarterback = losing. But could the Bears defense be good enough to change that equation?
(2) Can they keep their starters on the field?
The Bears have suffered more injuries and weirdness in a month than they suffered all of 2018. Bobbie Massie vertigo? Roquan Smith personal reasons? Hicks, Trubisky, Nichols and Long hurt. Gabriel concussed. Eddy Pineiro hurt his knee doing what exactly in the weight room? It’s beyond cliched to write an NFL season is a war of attrition but there’s truly no better to state that obvious fact. Look at how narrow the gaps are at the top of the NFC. It’s very likely the team making it to Miami in February will be the team that stays healthiest.
(3) Where is the run game?
The Bears are bottom ten in both yards per carry and rushing yards per game. Not sustainable. Not when the roster is constructed the way it is in Chicago. The Bears have not been as good as expected in the middle of their offensive line but one can only expect a more comfortable Daniels and hopefully-healthy Long will improve as the season moves along. That coupled with a commitment to David Montgomery should get things going, right?
