Chicago -
By Thomas Chambers
The 2011 Chicago Football Bears?
To me this season, they’ve been reliable, fun to watch, compelling and, importantly, consistent. It’s been a great season for this “fan.”
Facetious? Not really, not in the game I play. Which is taking sides based on points given or taken, for entertainment purposes only, of course. And how entertaining it is.
Posted on December 30, 2011
By Carl Mohrbacher
The Story So Far
If one is to measure pearls of wisdom in ounces of pain, Bears fans learned a lot this season. Here are some of my favorite takeaways:
* If ESPN has anything to say about it, Brett Favre will never really retire.
* Thumb injuries can hurt more than a hit from Mike Tyson. Not a punch, but rather this little diddy which was a number one hit in Guam.
* Horrible fumbles aside, Marion Barber and Kahlil Bell inadvertently played well enough to remove a Scarface-esque duffel bag full of money from Matt Forte’s possession.
Posted on December 29, 2011
By Dan O’Shea
The NBA season is still in its infancy (as I write this Tuesday afternoon, at least four teams have yet to even start their season), but Christmas Day featured an exciting array of performances and two extremely close games. There’s already a feeling of teams trying to fight for a full 48 minutes every night, and that should produce some great fantasy efforts.
Here are a few observations from the opening tip:
* Chicago’s very own Luol Deng, SF, is the highest-ranked player in Yahoo! fantasy basketball leagues after two games with 43 points and 17 rebounds overall and a .500 field goal shooting mark. Could this possibly continue?
Posted on December 28, 2011
By Jim Coffman
By the time a fan draws a broad conclusion about his team this NBA season (which will feature 66 games in about 120 days, meaning more game days than off days for the next four months), the squad will have played two more games.
But there is no denying one central fact about this year’s Bulls, who dropped a turnover-marred (20 in all) 99-91 decision to Golden State late last night to even their record at 1-1: This will probably be this group’s one and only shot.
Posted on December 27, 2011
His World, Lets Chuck Norris Live In It
Our favorite #SmellTheRoses tweets – first from @LupeFiasco, who started it, and then some others.
From Lupe:
* Jordan waits in line at FootLocker for a pair of Derrick Rose’s.
* derrick rose went to mcdonalds and ordered a whopper. And he got it.
* Derrick Rose once had a fake ID made…it still said Derrick Rose.
* When Derrick Rose looks into a mirror his reflection asks for an autograph.
* Twitter follows Derrick Rose.
* Derrick Rose doesn’t celebrate Christmas…Christmas celebrates Derrick Rose.
Posted on December 26, 2011
By Carl Mohrbacher
The good news is, if the rash of injuries to starting offensive players continues at this pace, it’s only a matter of time before Mike Martz has his tibia fractured in a freak catering accident.
Caleb’s Quest
Horrific leg bone accidents aside, let’s all bow our heads in a moment of silence for the death of Caleb Hanie’s stillborn fortune. The recent four-game losing streak has cost no one more dearly and unfortunately, Hanie made some unwise investments with the money he thought he was sure to earn as a free agent this offseason.
Posted on December 22, 2011
By Dan O’Shea
Oklahoma City PF/C Serge Ibaka went largely undrafted in fantasy basketball leagues around the nation last season, and with good reason: He was an extremely raw 21-year-old with no college experience and the ugliest looking shot this side of Joakim Noah who often looked a little lost on the floor. But Ibaka gradually proved throughout the season that he could contribute (albeit one-dimensional) fantasy value. He led the NBA last year with 198 blocks; 2.4 per game.
It’s hard to pass up a number like that, though even at the end of last season, many fantasy team owners did because they needed players with better across-the-board averages. This year, Ibaka’s average draft position in Yahoo! leagues is 33.2. Are owners willing to take him that high based on a single stat? Not exactly. You see, the word is out that Ibaka is slowly developing a better offensive game and more poise on defense, which could mean more points, rebounds and steals (His 7.7 rebounds per game average last year was pretty poor for a center).
Ibaka isn’t the only big man developing new skills. There are a number of young centers and power forwards worth watching this year for breakthrough seasons:
Posted on December 21, 2011
From The Chicago Bulls Family To Yours, Happy Holidays!
You better be good, for goodness sake.
Posted on December 20, 2011
By Jim Coffman
And so a season goes.
Fortunately we can immediately begin to focus on the next seasons (see Hawks note below and probable Bulls column next week). Heck, maybe the Bears could go ahead and lose the last couple games to move even further down in the standings and set themselves up even better for the NFL draft season coming up in early spring.
Before we go, a few final thoughts on the Bears’ disastrous last month. Let’s start with the fact that observers who think signing quarterback Donovan McNabb would have ensured the Bears avoided their current four-game losing streak need to get a grip. First, McNabb failed with the Eagles, who were so desperate to get rid of him they traded him within their own division for second and fourth-round draft picks before the 2010 season. Then McNabb failed with the Redskins, who were overjoyed to get a sixth-round pick for him before this season.
It didn’t take the Vikings long to realize they wouldn’t even be able to get a seventh-rounder for the veteran quarterback at this late date. He was benched in October, demoted to third-string in November, released in December and is still waiting for his phone to ring. No NFL team has picked him up.
In other words, it’s one, two, three strikes a quarterback is out.
Posted on December 19, 2011
By Mike Luce
The Beachwood College Football Report Postseason Recap and Bowl Season Predictions, lovingly known as the BCFRPRBSP around the office, is back. We will ease into Part One below, with a brief roundup of some notable (and not-so-notable) recent news. But the real action is in our analysis of Bowl Season, beginning Saturday with the New Mexico Bowl.
eDiatribes
In October, the Atlantic published Taylor Branch’s scathing indictment (“The Shame of College Sports“) of big-time college athletics. Now all 25,000 words of his polemic are available as an expanded e-book, The Cartel. The College Football Report recommends Branch to anyone looking to understand the deep-seated issues in college sports, and the ripple effect of superconferences.
Posted on December 16, 2011
