By Jim Coffman

Let’s hear it for the optimists!
There must be a few of you out there, feeling vindicated. Actually it turns out I do know one legitimate fan who genuinely believed the Bears would be good this year. My friend Jon Davis refused to allow the local squad’s record of failure the previous three years and all sorts of mysterious personnel moves in the off- and preseason diminish the optimism that had set in primarily when the Bears announced the hiring of Mike Martz.
So Jon and his fellow positive thinkers (at least the ones who honestly held out hope all the way until the very start of the season – and even after last week’s game – as evidence this team would be terrible seemed to pile up sky-high) should take a big ol’ bow. A few weeks ago, I wrote I was sure the Bears wouldn’t post more than six victories this season, let alone the wins necessary to make the playoffs.

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Posted on September 20, 2010

By Andrew Reilly

So.
They lost in spectacular fashion to a superior team, which we all kind of knew would happen so, you know, no big deal.
They then lost in equally spectacular fashion to a supposedly inferior team – one now closing in on second place, mind you – but no one cared so, again, no big deal.
But heading into the last road trip of the wretched season we all knew it would be (and don’t let an inflated win total fool you, this will go down as one of the greats, at least where lost seasons go) we should probably look for what rays of sunshine we can.

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Posted on September 20, 2010

By Mike Luce

When teams from the Big Ten and SEC need to pad their win total, someone has to take the fall. Not surprisingly, given the predilection for starting the season against Directional Creampuffs, many schools outside the Big Six conferences have had a tough start to the season. But even among some of the traditional powers, some surprising names enter Week Three still seeking a win.
Looking at the little guys, we feel some sympathy for the likes of Arkansas State (0-2), Western Kentucky (0-2) and North Texas (0-2) in the Sun Belt. Many in the MAC have not fared much better – the conference has only one team (Temple) at 2-0 – while Akron (0-2), Bowling Green (0-2) and Eastern Michigan (0-2) have suffered at the hands of bigger programs with at least one more week to go before the end of Creampuff season.
The first two weeks have not been kind to teams along the fringes of the major conferences either. Conference USA standings show three teams at 0-2 (Marshall, Memphis and UAB) and another three (Colorado State, New Mexico and UNLV) have stumbled out of the gate for the Mountain West. In the WAC, only San Jose State (0-2) sits at the bottom of the standings awaiting the first W of the young season.

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Posted on September 17, 2010

Blue Report:
Regardless of the Monday morning quarterbacking from everyone starting with the experts and ending with my grandfather, a win is a win is a win is a win, naysayers be damned. Being that the NFL season is only 16 games long, I’ll take every win our Bears can get, even if that means we’re going to need at least one play of especially stupid proportions to maintain a lead in the final moments. Don’t fault the Bears for Calvin “Megatron” Johnson not knowing the rules as well as this writer, just accept the gift and say, “Thank you.”
But, if one were to look past the last couple minutes of the game and closer to the numbers, you might see some interesting stats:

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Posted on September 15, 2010

By Andrew Reilly

So it’s come to this. Sweep a superior team or all is lost. Or is it?
No, it is.
Now, there are a lot of ways to look at this week.

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Posted on September 14, 2010

By The Beachwood Ad Hoc Committee On Cubs Affairs

An e-mail exchange.
From: Steve Rhodes
Sent: Monday, September 13, 2010 1:38 PM
To: Don Jacobson; Marty Gangler
Subject: Sandberg
On management style, he said: “The Minnesota Twins have a way they want to play that is taught to every player in their system and that is what I want for the Cubs if I am the manager. Players have to know what is expected of them and what will not be accepted before they get to Wrigley Field.”

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Posted on September 14, 2010

By Jim Coffman

How many people viewing the first replay of the Lion offense’s third-to-last play Sunday knew quickly that it was an incompletion?
One in a thousand? One in ten-thousand?
But a majority of the officials knew Calvin Johnson hadn’t lived up to the letter of the law and so did analyst Brian Billick. Amazing. Of course the rule requiring a receiver to complete “the process of the catch” and therefore control the ball even beyond having both feet – and his butt and his hand for goodness sakes – down in the end zone is screwed up and should be changed. But it won’t happen during the season. And while you would think there might be a quiet meeting of the NFL Rules Committee in the spring or summer of 2011 in which the language defining a catch receives a needed tweaking, don’t bet on it. Other obviously ill-conceived bits of NFL regulation remain on the books. Speaking of which . . .

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Posted on September 13, 2010

By Marty Gangler

The big news this week was the Billy Williams statue being unveiled in front of Wrigley Field. Although that isn’t really that big of news to anyone under, like, 60. The more interesting news is that there are going to be more statues coming. And, well, it makes one wonder, who is actually going to be next? The Cubs really haven’t won very often so I mean, what statues are they going to make? With this in mind we here at The Cub Factor would like to speculate on what statues might be coming.

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Posted on September 13, 2010

By Mike Luce

Last week, the buzz surrounded the Top 10 matchup between Boise State and Virginia State. The game lived up to the hype but the larger implications were almost more interesting than the game itself: the loser was certain to be eliminated from the BCS title, while the winner would springboard into the national championship picture. Week Two features three games between Top 25 teams with national title consequences and a fourth that may determine the SEC East.
We aren’t often treated to this many high-stakes games in the second week of the season. Further, the Football Gods saw fit to spread the kickoff times from 11AM to 6PM Central. Let’s pray for miserable weather on Saturday to help us feel better for spending the day in front of the television.

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Posted on September 10, 2010

By Mike Luce

A Note To The CFR Faithful
Some of our farthest-flung readers (hello, Anchorage!) may suffer from bouts of seasonal depression each winter. We can sympathize. The College Football Report has a patent pending on a set of 3-D goggles permanently tuned to ESPN Classic for those long summer months.
Thus, please understand if we need to check the schedule before making any commitments each autumn. This is college football season.

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Posted on September 9, 2010