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Three Thoughts To Get the Ball Rolling

| August 8th, 2016

Today, unofficially, begins the 2016 season. There is a “game” this week. Big injuries have already altered the game plan. August feels like it just got started and will end any day now.

Three thoughts to start things…

SLAUSON SHOULD BE HERE

I tweeted about it this weekend while on mini-vacation and incessantly when the move initially happened. Matt Slauson being let out the door was one of the most foolish moves of the Ryan Pace/John Fox era. Why?

  • Slauson was cheap.
  • Slauson covered three positions.
  • Slauson was a leader and great locker room guy.
  • Injuries are too commonplace, especially along the offensive line. In a league of teams STARVING for quality depth, the Bears essentially passed on having a tremendous depth on one of their most problematic units.

Now that Grasu is done, the Bears have a question mark at center. And I keep arguing, for years at this point, center is the most underrated position on the entire roster.

I LIKE THE FIGHTING

If you think teams fighting in training camp is an issue, I get it. But since the Bears are only a season removed from the 2014’s heartless, soulless, gutless, passionless, lifeless performance…I’m willing to say punch away.

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The Case Against the Green Bay Packers: Volume II (Jeff)

| August 5th, 2016

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The following is the fourth in a four-part series breaking down why the other teams in the NFC North won’t be contenders this season. (The Packers get two parts.)


The case against Green Bay will be made simply and directly. It will be made with two words and two words only.

Fox.

Fangio.

The Bears don’t have run of the mill defensive coaches. They don’t have defensive coaches that cling to an ideology or scheme, despite the relative successes or failures of that ideology/scheme. The Bears have coaches who believe the way you win on the defensive side of the ball is with talented players and toughness.

And for the first time, the Bears sideline has the better weapons.

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The Case Against the Detroit Lions

| August 3rd, 2016

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The following is the second in a four-part series breaking down why the other teams in the NFC North won’t be contenders this season. (The Packers get two parts.)


You can argue Favre or Rodgers. You can say Moss in his prime or Adrian Peterson. Steve Smith for sure. There are plenty of players who’ve had success over the Bears in the modern era. But no player, not any of those previously mentioned, seemed as consistently unstoppable as Calvin Johnson. If the ball was in the air and Johnson was the target, it was just assumed to be a big play.

A quote from Matthew Stafford at ESPN:

“I think we’re going to do it a little bit differently than we have the in the past,” Stafford said during an interview Tuesday with SiriusXM Radio. “Obviously we used to feature Calvin, and everybody kind of got theirs after that. It’s going to be, I think, tougher for defenses in a certain way in that they don’t know who we’re going to. There’s no guy to key in on.”

Note to Mr. Stafford. In no way will the Lions be more difficult to defend without Johnson. That’s like saying it’ll be easier to make a dinner choice at the Billy Goat once they take burgers (or in this case, borgers) off the menu.

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The Case for 10-6

| July 29th, 2016

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It is understood that camp has yet to begin and injuries can always pile up and derail a season before Labor Day. But at this point in the calendar, the Bears look an awful lot like a 10-6 team. Why? Five reasons.

Reason #1: Run Defense

The old baseball maxim is you need to be strong defensively up the middle. I’ve always argued the same goes for football. If you can clog the middle of the field, stop the run, cover the tight end in the seam, prevent the home run, you can defend any offense in the sport.

The 2016 Bears have the potential to be great up the middle. Hicks and Goldman are immovable objects. Freeman and Trevathan are top tier middle linebackers. Amos, while still developing, is an already terrific closer. This crop of players has the ability to make opposing offenses one-dimensional. And that will free up a pretty solid collection of pass rushers to wreck the game.

Stat Prediction: Bears will jump from 22nd in yards rushing allowed per game to top 10.

Reason #2: Fast Start

Bears open at Houston, playing a Texans team that better hope Brock Osweiler is worth the ridiculous amount of money they gave him. They are then home to Philly, playing a team in transition. They then travel to Dallas to play a Cowboys team they’ve beaten handily over the last few years. Then home to Calvin Johnson-less Detroit.

Stat Prediction: Bears open 4-0.

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Adam Hoge’s Charles Tillman Story

| July 19th, 2016

From Adam’s Facebook page, located HERE:

I haven’t shared this story publicly, but with the news of Charles Tillman’s retirement, it seems like the right time:

My son, James, has a couple congenital heart defects that will eventually require surgery. We first learned about these defects in 2014 when James was born prematurely and spent two months in the hospital. The fall of 2014 was stressful not only because of what was going on at home, but also because the Bears were going through a drama-filled season and it seemed like something crazy was happening every day at work. As if that wasn’t enough, 87.7 The Game suddenly folded in November, creating a tumultous (and awkward) final month and a half of the season.

Meanwhile, Charles Tillman was going through his own personal hardship after suffering a season-ending triceps injury for the second year in a row. But in the middle all the chaos, Tillman got word of what was going on with James from former PR guru Mike Corbo and pulled me aside at Halas Hall to talk to me about what was going on. As you may know, one of Tillman’s daughters needed a heart transplant when she was just three-months-old, so he could relate to the fear we were experiencing after hearing doctors put the words “heart” and “surgery” in the same sentence.

It was a small gesture, but one that meant a lot to both my wife and me. The fact that Corbo took the time to set that up and Tillman took the time to talk to me about everything won’t be forgotten.

I tend to be very skeptical when I hear people say that a particular athlete is “a good guy” or even “a bad guy” because the truth is that (for the most part) we don’t really know them that well. In Tillman’s case, I think the work he does with The Cornerstone Foundation speaks for itself, but there are also many other stories like this one that show the type of character he displayed on and off the field during his career.

The 2014 season seemingly got uglier and uglier every day, but Tillman didn’t go anywhere. He was hurt and likely knew it was his last season as a Bear, but he was right there on the field every day trying to coach up his teammates, when many players would have collected their money and watched from home. From time-to-time when I saw him, Tillman checked in with me on James and that continued even after the season when he was no longer with the organization.

I’ve said this before, but watching Tillman go one-on-one with Calvin Johnson twice a year was a highlight of my time covering football. And the “Peanut Punch” was an important contribution to the game. Congrats to Charles Tillman on retirement. A great player, a great Bear and a great person.

Special thanks to Hoge for allowing me to share this.

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159 Comments

One Day in Nashville

| July 19th, 2016

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I sat with Noah in Nashville and watched as a man who changed the game was delivering his signature performance. Charles “Peanut” Tillman – having taken the act of dislodging the football from opponents to near artistic levels – forced four fumbles with his patented Peanut Punch.

Postgame on Da Site:

“I don’t think it’s difficult,” Tillman said after the Bears extended their winning streak to six. “It’s always on my mind. I’m very conscious of it. I speak it, I believe it, I practice it, and it happens.”

Charles Tillman never received the credit he deserved. Never. Swept up in the misnomers of “system guy” and “cover-2 corner”, Peanut found himself struggling for accolades even while dominating the league’s best receivers. They said Lovie Smith “preached turnovers”, a not-so-subtle insinuation that Tillman was more the finest pupil of a distinguished instructor than master of a skill nobody else in the league seemed to possess at even 1/100 of his level.

But it was Tillman who made Lovie. And in doing so made a mark on the cornerback position that will be remembered in Bears history with the likes of George, Butkus, the 46, Buddy Ryan and Urlacher.

Tillman wasn’t just one of the best Bears ever. He was my favorite. And I got into this gig because I love the Bears not because I’m interested in them. I still care about this team. Perhaps too much at times. For that, I can place a lot of the blame at Peanut’s feet.

There will be time to further extol the virtues of Peanut on and off the field. There will be months and months spent arguing his place in Canton. There will even be moments in late October / early November when sentimental bloggin types (cough) will call for the Bears to fill a hole at corner by reaching out to the old codger wearing #33.

But those times aren’t now.

Now I simply say thank you. Thank you, Peanut. Because on one beautiful Sunday afternoon in Nashville I got to see the best at his best. What wasnt difficult to Tillman is the lithograph I hang on the wall of my memory.

And I’ve got that forever.


To see Tillman’s retirement video, CLICK HERE.

To see Tillman shut down Randy Moss, CLICK HERE.

To see Tillman receive his Man of the Year award with a lovely speech, CLICK HERE.

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Four Thoughts on Alshon Jeffery Not Signing an Extension

| July 18th, 2016

The deadline has come and gone. Alshon Jeffery will play 2016 on the franchise tag. What does it mean?

#1. An argument simply cannot be made the Bears front office values AJ as a top tier wide receiver. If they did this contract gets done in fifteen minutes. They’d pick a player with similar numbers and mimic that deal. Bears are willing to risk playing with AJ on the tag because they aren’t overly concerned about losing him.

#2. Jeffery has displayed the right attitude. And if he can’t find the motivation to deliver a career year with big money on the line he’ll never find it. Motivation, passion, the desire to give 100% on every down is something the Bears hierarchy (and quarterback) want to see from AJ on a consistent basis. They are far more worried about this element of his game than his health.

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Data: Numbers Prove Pairing Cutler with Top Defense Will Yield Winning Team

| July 11th, 2016

Another guest column from the artist known as Data.

Every offseason (and throughout most seasons) there’s a lot of talk amongst Bears fans about whether or not the Bears can win with Jay Cutler as their quarterback. Today I’m going to attempt to answer that question by looking at Cutler’s peers around the league.

I identified five players who are, statistically speaking, Cutler’s peers: Carson Palmer, Matthew Stafford, Eli Manning, Joe Flacco, and Alex Smith. Including Cutler, these six quarterbacks all have started at least 90 games, thrown at least 3500 passes, and posted passer ratings between 83.5 and 88.1.

Basically, they’ve all been around for a while performing, as a whole, at an average to above average level.

Cutler is smack dab in the middle of the group with 134 starts (3rd), 4354 passes (3rd), and an 86.0 passer rating (2nd).

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Buddy Ryan, I Owe Ya

| June 29th, 2016

When Buddy Ryan told his players he was leaving Chicago for Philadelphia, they didn’t take it so well. Years earlier these men had written a desperate letter to George Halas begging for their leader to remain their leader. This was more than a football coach for the likes of Dan Hampton and Steve McMichael. This was a man. This was a father.

Buddy didn’t have steakhouses in town or high profile guest spots on local radio shows. He wasn’t on the cover of cigar magazines or idol worshipped on Saturday Night Live. His life – seemingly all 82 years of it – was about the game he loved. His legacy is left on a Soldier Field whiteboard featuring the numbers “4” and “6” and in the work of two sons genetically enhanced with his voluptuous personality and hunger for hitting quarterbacks.

Pete Prisco Tweeted yesterday, “Ryan’s defenses in Chicago were as nasty as any we’ve seen. They never played scared. Attacked.” And that demeanor, the anger, the ferocity, made Ryan’s defenses the rightful heir to the thrones of Bill George and Dick Butkus. Can anybody really list something Mike Ditka left behind from a strategic perspective? With Buddy, that list requires a second page of the notebook.

Lovie Smith had successful defenses in Chicago too but they never found their way into the city’s blood stream. They had a soft side, bending but not breaking, in the shell of the Tampa 2 (which was affectionately referred to here as the Lovie Deuce). They were successful without ever being intimidating. Individuals emerged as stars (Urlacher, Peanut) but the collective never did.

With Buddy it was all about the defensive machine and the machine had one goal: make the other team scared to play their game. Buddy’s defenses, specifically in 1985, played offense.

And his coaching job that season is the finest performance by any assistant coach in the history of any sport ever played in this country. Your initial reaction to that comment may be that’s it’s hyperbolic. But it’s not. What grants Ryan this status is the autonomy with which he acted. Every other assistant’s performance one could name falls under the umbrella of the head coach. Not Ryan. Ditka rarely addressed the defensive locker room, let alone tell them what to do. The ’85 Bears defense were authored by a single, steady hand: Ryan.

I owe Buddy Ryan. My love of the Chicago Bears is based on his creation. My success with this dopey site and my yearly trips to Chicago with all the fucking joy they entail are direct results of his work. I can never pay that back. Never.

So rest in peace, Buddy. And thank you.

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