By Carl Mohrbacher

Call Hawkeye and Trapper, we’ve officially reached the point where laughing is the only way to cope.
Incidentally, the Bears could use a couple of warm bodies out there on defense.
Let’s call Alan Alda and Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould and Wayne Rogers, Jamie Farr and his cross dressing alter ego. I’m sure some of them are either still alive or at minimum, dead sexy.
With so few professional-caliber football players left on the Chicago squad to, um, play football, the Bears brass is going to have to show some real creativity to win games until reinforcements can arrive. The BAOKAR (pronounced “BAHW-KAAAAAARRR!”) has volunteered several viable options throughout the season to as to how Chicago should compensate for its lack of healthy bodies.

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Posted on October 31, 2013

By Dan O’Shea

Nine weeks into the season, the list of top 10 overall fantasy players looks quite a bit different than the top 10 that I – and almost everyone else – predicted at the beginning of the season. If you were drafting a fantasy team today in a 10-team league, this is probably what your first round would look like:

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Posted on October 30, 2013

By Jim Coffman

Here we go, Bulls fans. The season that starts Tuesday night feels like the culmination of one era and if not the start of a new one then the opening of a big new chapter.
It is a culmination because it is almost certainly the end of the current core group of players playing together in Chicago.

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Posted on October 28, 2013

By Mike Luce

The NCAA released its graduation success rates rates this week, and the Top 10 schools in the FBS included #8 Stanford (#5 in graduation rate) and two programs previously ranked in the Top 25 this season, Northwestern (#1) and Notre Dame (#3). We don’t know what to do with #7 Miami (#10 in graduation at 86%); should a team with a 10-year history of rules violations be included? Let’s give “The U” an asterisk.

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Posted on October 25, 2013

Signing Up For Obamacare; Watching Laguna Beach

According to sources.
* Marc Trestman using back channels to see if Minnesota job will be open soon.
* Phil Emery using back channels to see if Minnesota job will be open soon.
* Jay Cutler taking over Kristin Cavallari’s Twitter feed.
* Kristin Cavallari using back channels to see if Josh McCown is single.
* Brandon Marshall painting target on his uniform.
* Julius Peppers beginning B-12 regimen.

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Posted on October 24, 2013

By Dan O’Shea

I had planned to discuss my “true” top 10 fantasy players this week, after critiquing my own pre-season top 10 rankings last week, but something more pressing has come up: Numerous players were injured last week, several of them with season-ending afflictions.
The lead-up to Week 8 is looking like it will be one of these busiest in fantasy sports waiver wire history (though I’m hoping no one actually keeps track of this and can prove me wrong).
With fantasy team owners ready to dig deep, here are my ideas for replacing the wounded:

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Posted on October 23, 2013

Another Beachwood Special Report

“After 20 months of trying to sell his 7.39-acre, 56,000-square-foot home [Michael] Jordan is trying a different tactic,” Forbes reports.
“On Nov. 22, Jordan’s ‘Legend Point’ property in Highland Park will be open for bids. The sale is being handled by Concierge Auctions, with a $250,000 deposit is required for any interested party to enter the fray.”
Here’s what comes with the house:
* One room filled with boxes of “slightly imperfect” Hanes underwear.
* Three rooms full of spite.
* Dennis Rodman’s wedding dress.
* Jerry Krause punching bag.

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Posted on October 22, 2013

By Jim Coffman

Let’s just set aside for now Jay Cutler’s groin and Josh McCown’s remarkable performance and the signing of Jordan Palmer and the 41 points the team scored in Washington on Sunday while still managing to lose as Lance Briggs and Charles Tillman watched from the sidelines helpless and hobbled as RG3 led his team on its last-minute winning drive.
We’ll get to all that soon enough.
For now, let’s step back to consider what happened with 6:15 left in the first half and Washington punting from their own 28. Australian-born Sav Rocca actually got off a boomer, a 53-yard kick that pinned Devin Hester to the left sideline at the Bears’ 19. That’s when The Ridiculous One made history.

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Posted on October 21, 2013

By Mike Luce

This week we search for opportunity and entertainment amidst the dregs of the college football world: The winless, the hapless, and the generally dispirited teams languishing in the basements of their respective conferences, hanging out with lowlifes like our perennial least favorites, the Kentucky Wildcats, who hurt us as children and continue to hurt us as adults. (Where have you gone, Joker Phillips? A lonely College Football Report turns its eyes to you.)
It turns out some bottom-dwellers have also posted remarkably poor records “against the spread” (ATS). This, to us, is interesting.

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Posted on October 18, 2013

By Carl Mohrbacher

Nice to see Brandon Jacobs rack up a heady stat line for my 2008 fantasy football starting lineup.
So it was a bit of a ho-hum victory, but in some parts of town a Ho Hum can go for as much $300. Thank your lucky stars that you got to watch one for the price of local programming.
Even without the ability to wrestle middle-aged running backs to the turf, the Bears managed to tack on a win against a team whose quarterback is on pace to throw approximately 40 interceptions. Yet you have national sports outlets talking about how this team is only three games out of first.
This is what a ring buys you.

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Posted on October 17, 2013