The Game Poem

“I don’t know what to expect from the Bears on Sunday, but I wouldn’t be surprised if something crazy happened. Something ridiculous that you just can’t believe. And, if it does, I’ll know why.

Goodbye Dad. I love you. Go Bears.”

-From Andrew Dannehy’s farewell to his father. Better than anything I could invent.

Three Actual Quick Thoughts

• What the hell is Teddy Bridgewater? He doesn’t do anything particular well. He doesn’t do anything particularly poorly. He completes a high percentage of his passes but not for a particularly high amount of yards. Is he getting better? I have no idea. Because oddly enough, tape study doesn’t teach you much about Bridgewater. He’s just there.
• Stefon Diggs is emerging as a star in the Vikings offense and his speed should frighten the Bears. He’s averaging more than 18 yards per catch the last two weeks. I’d expect Norv Turner to dial up a lot of play action and take shots against this Bears secondary down the field. (If he does, it will work.)
• Adrian Peterson is averaging 4.4 yards per carry but he has a 75 yarder already. If you remove that run he’s averaging only 3.8 yards per carry on 119 carries. His return season is being exaggerated. Bears don’t need to shut him down. They need to limit the big runs.

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Three picks last week. Rams beat the Browns easily. Patriots barely scraped by the 28.5 number. Colts decided to spot the Saints about 70 points. Mediocre week but I knew it was coming. This week, I rebound.

GREEN BAY PACKERS UNDER 24 AT DENVER

Packers haven’t been convincing offensively in a month and the Broncos are one of the better defenses in the game. What scares me about this bet? I could very easily see Peyton Manning throwing points the other way. (I can’t believe that’s where we are with Manning.) I’m betting on Gary Kubiak committing to the run game, keeping Rodgers on the bench and still losing 20-17.

CHICAGO BEARS +1 OVER MINNESOTA

Hot hand.

The Bears have been a covering machine, even if I had an early line and pushed with them two weeks ago. Having seen enough of the Vikings I’m simply not that impressed. Love Cutler’s record against Minnesota, especially at home.

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS OVER 27 VS. NYG

Giants last three opponents were quarterbacked by Colin Kaepernick, Sam Bradford and Matt Cassel and they surrendered 27-27-20 points. Drew Brees is hot right now and I don’t think the Giants defense can withstand this onslaught.

Season Record: 11-8-2

SHEA AND ANTREL MISSED

Yes, Shea McClellin is still learning a new position in the middle of a complicated defense. And yes, Antrel Rolle is on the flipside of his football playing coin. But both are pivotal when it comes to essential elements of playing defense in the NFL. Per Friend of the Blog Adam Jahns:

“Shea McClellin, obviously, getting him back in there at some point, as well as Antrel, from a leadership standpoint, getting guys lined up and understanding how to execute our defense is key,” Fox said. “We’ve got some guys that we’re leaning on right now that will just get better with time until those guys can get back in the lineup.”

If McClellin returns and the defense improves, expect him in the lineup beyond January 3, 2015.

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The benefit of the Bears bye week? I get to see more football than any other Sunday of the season. Here are a bunch of thoughts from around the league.

(1) Text from my buddy, a Bills fan, during the Yahoo! streaming of Buffalo vs. Jacksonville: “If this is the future of the NFL, they need to rethink it.” Stream was choppy and inconsistent across the country. Football on television is the perfect sports commodity. If NFL wants to adapt to a world moving beyond the traditional cable packages they’ll need to partner with existing streaming systems.

(2) Don’t want to hear the Eagles complain about dropped passes. Crap players drop passes. Philadelphia HAD good players. They got rid of them all. Now they have crap ones.

(3) Watching the NFC East & AFC South makes one thing clear: we will be having the old “should we reseed the playoffs” debate again in a few months.

(4) Shocked to see a gentlemen like Greg Hardy behave poorly on the sideline. It’s almost like he’s the type of man to throw his girlfriend on a futon stacked with guns while she cried and begged for her life. Almost.

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We’ll take this opportunity to promote our sponsors in the space of an actual post.

• FrontRowTickets.com has been generous and they really are an excellent resource for ticket selling and buying. Click on the image above or visit their site HERE to get yourself into Soldier Field for what I believe is going to be a successful second half of the campaign.
• Art of Men is now more than 1,000 members strong and beginning to make major impact in communities across the country. In July the organization fed 3,500 New Yorkers  as part of their Everybody Eats campaign (read about the event HERE) and they’ll be rolling out the program nationally – including Chicago – this spring. Take a minute and go to ArtofMen.org on your cell phone and drop your email address in to find out what the organization will be doing near you.
• 26Shirts.com has an excellent Joe Maddon shirt available for the next week. Remember, half the purchase goes to charity and you can read which charity on their website.

On this podcast, Sun-Times beat writer Adam Jahns discussed:

• The early season excellence of Jay Cutler and Pernell McPhee.
• What the hell is going on with Kyle Fuller and why he’d move Fuller into the slot (not to safety).
• Whether he believes Matt Forte is in the Bears’ future plans and whether a trade is something they’d actually consider.
• Why he believes Shea McClellin will be part of this defense in 2016.
• The current mood inside the locker room & more!

2-0-1 this week because I was apparently the only person on earth who had the Bears +3 instead of the 4.5 they went off at by kickoff. 7-1-1 over my last nine picks.

No joke. I hate the games this week. Hate the games. Hate the lines. So it’s going to take some luck.

COLTS -4.5 OVER SAINTS

While the football world was declaring the Pats would beat the Colts Sunday night by 100 points as some kind of deflation retribution, Luck kept the Colts neck-and-neck until his moron head coach decided to run one of the stupidest plays every devised for the game of football. Even Chuck Pagano, a terrible head coach, won’t be able to prevent Luck from shredding the Saints defense at home. Indianapolis 34, New Orleans 20.

PATRIOTS UNDER 28.5 VS. NEW YORK JETS

The Jets are the best defense in football and if Ryan Fitzpatrick doesn’t go through a six-week run of interceptions – as is his history – they are going to be a beast to deal with in the postseason. (A Jets v. Broncos wild card game could go to penalty field goals.) New England is the better team here but I like needing them to score more than four touchdowns. New England 20, New York 17.

RAMS -5.5 OVER BROWNS

Rams are good. Browns are not good. Rams defense is terrific. The last time Josh McCown went into St. Louis as a starting quarterback he was thoroughly embarrassed. Rams have Todd Gurley. Browns have the league’s worst rush defense. I don’t see how this game is close. St. Louis 27, Cleveland 6.

Season Record: 10-6-2

THOUGHTS FROM AROUND THE LEAGUE

(1) Eli Manning was the best and worst player in the league on the FIRST TWO DRIVES of the Monday Night Football game. There’s never been a player like him in the league.

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(2) After the first week of the season it became in vogue to question whether Tampa Bay made a mistake selecting Jameis Winston over Marcus Mariota. In the four games since Winston has been undoubtedly the better player and Mariota has shown two features that worried many scouts: inability to absorb contact and lack of ball security. Interestingly enough, nobody has revisited this question in the national media. If Winston wants to know how he’ll be covered an an NFL quarterback, he should just call Cam Newton.

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(3) Is Cincinnati the best team in football right now? New England and Green Bay are not good defensively. Carolina and Denver are not good offensively. Cincy does everything well. They’ll still lose in the playoffs but they may be losing that game in the division round instead of wild card weekend.

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(4) You know what the worst development of the NFL season has been? The games stink.

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(5) I don’t care what the stats say. Brandon Marshall has been the best wide receiver in football this year. He’s transformed the New York Jets offense.

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