By Erik Swartz/The Conversation

With football season well underway, there already have been instances of helmet-to-helmet hits, concussions and yet another round of conversations about strategies to reduce head impact exposure in players.
This is an urgent matter for all football players, but particularly for the 1.1 million high schoolers who play, as well as for thousands more youngsters who play at even younger ages, hoping to one day find gridiron glory. Football is the most widely played high school sport – and the most popular spectator sport in the country.
Because of the growing concern about concussions, many people argue that tackle football should be banned. Opponents to this argue that tackle football is safer now, that coaches teach tackling differently. They argue that safer methods are reducing head impacts and the concussions that come with them. Yet, what are “safe” tackling techniques, and what does the data tell us about their impact on preventing concussions?

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Posted on October 15, 2019

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

The Cubs hire (another) manager. Plus: The Non-Mystery Of Why Virtually No One Is Calling Ozzie Guillen; The Bears Have Become The Cubs; I Figured Out How To Fix The Cubs, AMA; The Self-Impeaching Steve Stone Has Lost His Mind; There Is A Chance The Blackhawks Aren’t As Bad As They Were In Their Home Opener; The NBA, China, The Score & You; The Lovie Smith Experiment Isn’t Working; Thank You, Basti; It’s A Red Stars Semi; and Congrats To An Old Favorite.

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Posted on October 11, 2019

“NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the league wasn’t apologizing for Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey’s since-deleted tweet showing support for anti-government protesters in Hong Kong,” AP reports.

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Posted on October 11, 2019

By Julia Conley/Common Dreams

Rihanna confirmed Wednesday that she turned down an invitation to perform at the 2019 Super Bowl halftime show to express solidarity with Colin Kaepernick.
“I couldn’t dare do that,” Rihanna told Vogue in an interview. “For what? Who gains from that? Not my people. I just couldn’t be a sellout. I couldn’t be an enabler.”
Rihanna’s refusal to perform for the NFL this past February came 2 1/2 years after Kaepernick first kneeled during the national anthem to protest racial injustice, particularly police killings of unarmed black Americans.

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Posted on October 10, 2019

By Jim Coffman

Wait, does this mean we can’t make fun of Jon Gruden anymore?
I thought it was a done deal, that the Khalil Mack trade was the greatest transaction in the history of the Bears (and the worst for Gruden’s Raiders), that two first-rounders and another pick or two were a small price to pay for a superstar pass rusher, that . . .
Okay, let’s stop right there and say that of course one game doesn’t make or break a trade. In general, an accurate evaluation of the tenure of a general manager can’t happen until multiple years down the line. Only then can you see the full effects of the strategies and tactics that were deployed in a variety of specific ways.
And that is the case no matter how irritating it was to watch Gruden make fun of Club Dub after his team’s 24-21 victory over the Bears on Sunday. Oh by the way don’t get too excited, Oakland Raiders fans. Your team has still abandoned you. They will still be moving away next year.

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Posted on October 7, 2019

By Roger Wallenstein

Autumn has arrived with its spectacle of reds, yellows and new TV programming.
In Chicago, that includes a shift in the sports broadcast landscape. The Rickettses and their Cubs have ditched WGN-TV to start their own Marquee Sports Network, leaving the lesser spoils of the White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks to Comcast’s NBC Sports Chicago.
Kicking off the new Comcast arrangement last week was a half-hour segment called Crossover hosted by David Kaplan. And, lo and behold, the first guests were Jerry Reinsdorf and Rocky Wirtz, whose teams own three-quarters of the station. The Sox and Bulls own half, the Hawks 25 percent, and Comcast the remaining quarter.
Kaplan lobbed grapefruits at the two gentlemen who responded with predictable, typical answers, such as Reinsdorf’s, “The teams are really owned by the fans.”

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Posted on October 7, 2019

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

Joe Girardi unchecks all the boxes. Plus: Bears Over London, Bears Over Chicago; Blackhawks Lift Lid On Sloppy Stew; Boylen’s Blah Bulls; The Playoff-Bound Red Stars; the Fire, the Sky and more!

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Posted on October 5, 2019

By David Esptein/Special to ProPublica

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s investigation of Alberto Salazar, the most prominent track coach in the world, backed by Nike, the most powerful company in track, took so long that many wondered publicly if it had died out with a closed-door whimper.
But Monday night, more than four years after the agency launched its investigation of medical misconduct and rules violations within Salazar’s prestigious Nike Oregon Project, an arbitration panel delivered perhaps the most resounding blow in track: It ruled that the renowned coach had violated anti-doping rules and will be banned from the sport for four years.

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Posted on October 2, 2019

By Roger Wallenstein

Year Three of The Rebuild
Has now come and gone.
Wouldn’t it have been nice
If the Sox had finished strong?
At the All-Star Game,
The boys were two games under.
But during the second half,
Things sure went asunder.

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Posted on October 1, 2019

By Jim Coffman

David Ross would be a terrible hire.
The Cubs have a managerial vacancy and Ross, the beloved former Cub backup catcher, is the clear favorite to land the job. This state of affairs doesn’t make even the slightest bit of sense.

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Posted on October 1, 2019