He’s it. The Bulls haven’t had an it since the big IT, Michael Jordan. Rose is the one we’ve been waiting for, and I guess that has been clear for a little while already, but this week he’s going to be featured in a spread in Sports Illustrated, the magazine whose cover Jordan owned for years. (Rose is not on the cover.) And ESPN.com quoted an NBA scout saying that Rose is unguardable. - Greg Couch / Sun Times

Trailblazers 116 / Bulls 74

Sorry for the reality slap, but it needed to be done. Don’t worry, the swelling will go down in a little bit.

Derrick Rose is an incredible talent. You only need to watch him for a few minutes at random to see what a special player he MAY become. But, before we break out the holy oils and begin the anointing, I think we all need to take a step back and look at the reality of the situation.

He is 18.

Does he have the tools to be an NBA legend? Yes. Does he have skills that most players only dream of? Yes. Does he have the work ethic and support that the greats before him had? Only time will tell. But make no mistake, without those last two, this all goes to hell in a handbasket faster than I care to think.

I don’t blame Couch for taking this leap now. He is far from alone. Either in print or on air or just in corner bars, people see Rose play and just gasp. I get it, really I do. The kid is that good.

However, we don’t know if he will become another Kobe Bryant and try to jam an “I” into “TEAM” every chance he gets, or if he really will be the next Jordan. To truly be a “win first” type player requires that you realize there are 4 other guys out there with you at all times and they wouldn’t be there if all they had was schoolyard skills.

Coach Del Negro, who I like more and more as time goes on, has been handed an unenviable task. He has been handed the next superstar on his first day of work and not enough parts to protect said superstar in game situations. That may be through injury or, in a couple of cases, ineptness, but this is what he has to deal with every day.

Yet, despite the bludgeoning the Bulls took last night, I see progress. Baby steps, I will grant, but progress nonetheless. They are slowly grasping that de-fense is not that thing in de-yard. They starting to jell as a unit (last night notwithstanding) and they are getting healthier as they go.

The average age of your 2008 Chicago Bulls is 24.3 (source, ESPN.com). They are a young team with a new coach. Bad nights will happen. They just did. But good ones will come too and as the season goes on I am of the opinion there will be more of the latter than the former. Again, however, only time will tell.

Our very own legend in the making, Tyrone Briggs, has already started a thread, so CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE DISCUSSION!

Rick Telander does yeoman’s work today trying to comprehend the megalith that ESPN has become. Up here we have bemoaned the fact that everything west of 80* West Longitude doesn’t really exist to them. Rick sidesteps that but still manages to take a long look at the ESPN philosophy that they want to cover every sport, every day, all the time and keep everything off of free TV. Well, at least they have a definable goal, unlike some of the teams they want to cover. He does a pretty good job of trying to look at this from the outside even though, technically, he is on the inside.  CLICK HERE if you want to read the whole article.

But any concerns I may have about the Deathstar that is ESPN pale in comparison to my worries about the teams at hand.

The Bears have become a team with an offense that clearly will not play for one quarterback even though the other is injured, has a defense that seems not to want to play at all and a special teams that seems more akin to the special kids that ride the short bus. Look up “disarray” in any current dictionary and you can see the 2008 team photo of the Bears.

And here’s a scary thought; their next opponent, the Rams, have nothing to lose and are a pass heavy offense. Not by choice, it is just that injuries have so dictated. The Bears, on the other hand, have not seen an opposing pass they couldn’t wave to as it glided by. I hate to be the one who says it, but the Rams can win this thing. And then what? If you lose to the worst team in the league with its major players on IR, who do you blame then? What excuse do you trot out for something like that?

I don’t know, but at least we now have the rest of the week to prepare.

On the Northside of town, where they still play baseball no matter what anyone wants them to do, the Cubs have signed Ryan Dempster to a huge contract. Overall, that is a good move. However, they kept Rich Harden. Which is kind of confusing. Since he can not be an every day pitcher, it means the Cubs will have to break camp with 6 starters. Add in the usual retinue of relief pitchers and a closer and they could realistically open the season with 14 pitchers and an 11 man bench. That is cutting things very thin. Scratch that, that is anorexic, not thin.

If they are forced to break camp that way, just mark your calendar “101 and Done” and move on. There will be nothing to see there.

Worse yet is the newly enriched Dempster’s comments that Cubs were not prepared for the playoffs this year. He claims that they assumed they would win the first two against LA and then go from there. I have no idea how a team that had been swept just one year prior could even begin to think it was invincible just because there were better bars near the park than there would be in LA.

What sucks in both cases is that both teams have talent. More than Chicago has seen in years. And, yet, they play down to the lowest level when things really count. That is the kind of stuff that just drives fans nuts. I can’t even imagine how the players, the ones who actually care that is, feel about this. They must be hitting the bottle before every game just to numb the pain.

And that is not a good thing for those of you playing along at home.

Our favorite admin, Hino, has already started a thread on the thought processes of losers, so CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE .... FUN?

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I shall fear no evil: For Lovie art with me;

His scheme and, hand picked, staff, they comfort me.

He preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;

He annointest my head with football acumen; My cup runneth over.
- posted at Halas Hall

Well, if they’re going to be this delusional about it, we may as well go all the way.

The clarion call for the head, or at least the career, of Bob Babich is being heard loud and clear throughout the land. Others, who have come to the realization that Babich is actually only a sock puppet for Love Smith are calling for Smith’s head first and all others immediately thereafter.

There are even those who think that Lovie is not high enough up the fetid food chain and demand that the mass expulsions begin with the McCaskey family or, at the very least, Jerry Angelo.

Simply put, there are some very angry villagers around here.

Greg Couch, of the Chicago Sun Times, is one;

It can’t be easy to fire your friend. You promoted him way over his head in the first place, dumping someone far more qualified to make room for him.

But Lovie Smith needs to fire Bob Babich.

- AND -

Every day Babich stays on as the Bears’ defensive coordinator is a day Smith puts himself above the team. Smith let Ron Rivera leave after the Super Bowl. And Smith put his woefully unprepared friend in the job.

David Haugh, of the Chicago tribune, is another;

Three words would deliver the appropriate message to the Bears this week if Lovie Smith chose to write them on a grease board inside a meeting room at Halas Hall.

Welcome to Bourbonnais.

If it weren’t the middle of the fall semester, the Bears could move into the dorms for a few days on the campus of Olivet Nazarene University to drive the point home. When they resume practice Wednesday, it will take a training camp mentality to address the problems exploited in Sunday’s 37-3 blowout by the Packers.

If Smith really meant that the Bears needed to start over before a six-game season that will determine their playoff chances, then symbolically start over. Make November feel like July. Tape the players’ names on their helmets if it helps remind them of the desired tone. Increase the tempo of practices and, if necessary, the contact too.

Fire someone or just blow the whole thing up and start over; those are the predominant choices you will find as you wander through your various forms of print media today. Granted, there are a couple of writers who look at the rest of the Bears’ schedule and think they might be okay. I don’t believe them and it seems I am in a, rare, majority.

Besides, what is “okay” at this point? Make the playoffs and get blown out in the first round? Play respectably against the Rams, currently the worst team in the NFL? Show up with clean uniforms?

A quick aside concerning that last note. My wife and I met with some friends to watch the Dallas game. One young lady is not a football fan, but she comes just to hang out and comment on the various players’ posteriors. Anyway, as we were sitting there she said, “What I like about the Bears is that they don’t get their uniforms all gross with mud and stuff. They always look clean.”

I guess that might be a bonus when you are ogling booties, but it is not the kind of testament you would want associated with a storied NFL franchise.

Our very own, TomD, has started a thread, so grab your torches, rally your friends and CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE FUN!

First, I owe an apology to the estate of Ginger Rogers. I called the Bears defense “The Ginger Rogers’ Defense” since it appeared that they did everything backwards and in heels. However, Mrs. Rogers did so with grace, elegance and confidence. Considering none of those adjectives can be positively applied to the Bears, I hereby renounce my use of the phrase and wish to let the family know that I certainly meant no offense to her or her grand legacy.

Also, it appears that the entire community of Jay the Joke owes an apology to shrubbery. By comparing the IQ of Devin Hester to shrubbery it seems that we forgot to note that shrubbery knows when to stay in one place. Certainly, in your own end zone with 9 of 11 possible opponents less than 5 yards away would be such a time. But, such has never been the case this year. And it shows no sign of happening any time soon. So, I hope the many angry shrubs that picketed the JTJ complex will accept our sincere apology and leaf us alone.

Today, unlike the Bears, Greg Couch seems to have gotten his groove back and takes a look at yesterday’s debacle. Like all good reporters, he tries to find the bright side before he lays waste to the fallacies.

The only beauty in this is that the Bears can stop pretending now. The disarray started in full last week, when the Bears were blaming each other, pointing fingers.

Lovie Smith did nothing to stop it, said nothing. He loves his defensive scheme, loves his defensive coordinator, and was in first place, actually in position to start taking control of the division.

You could see the collapse coming if you were looking, but Smith was playing pretend that everything would be OK.

The Bears cannot survive a pretend coach anymore, not after Sunday’s 37-3 loss at Green Bay.

You have to think that when lowly bloggers, such as myself, have noted the rampant finger pointing and lackluster play, a professional reporter with access to the players and coaches wouldn’t have missed it. And you would be right. Due to the fact that Tommie Harris refused to meet with the press after the game, ostensibly to pray for a better game next week (which may be the only real hope left), Mike Brown sucked it up and met with Couch.

“All I can tell you is obviously, our defense isn’t what it used to be,” safety Mike Brown said.

Once everyone accepts that, and understands it, he said, everyone will be better off.

But what should the Bears do to fix this defense?

“You’re asking the wrong cat, my man,” he said.

Why?

“Why? Because I just play.”

He’s right. He’s not supposed to be the guy with the answers.

We all saw it yesterday, the players stayed in scheme even though doing so left Packers free and unmolested all over the field. That is what people who are beaten into submission do; they stop any form of initiative and just do what they are told. And if what they are told flies in the face of reason or logic, well then, let reason and logic be damned.

I will note here that when Joe Buck makes fun of your play calling, as he did yesterday of the Bears’ unusual efforts near the end of the first half, you are in deep doo doo. This guy could miss a 747 parked in his living room. When he notices something, it is beyond obvious.

Couch politely lists the main questions for those who missed the game.

Why was quarterback Kyle Orton, still limping on his sprained right ankle, still in the game in the fourth quarter when hope was gone? He could have been hurt worse.

And why were the Bears throwing passes at the end of the half? They started a drive on their 7-yard line with 1:06 left. They needed to run out the clock so Green Bay couldn’t get the ball back and score again. Instead, they threw incomplete passes, stopping the clock.

“We were trying to score some points,” Smith said. “That’s normally what you do when you’re trying to move the ball.”

The Bears would have needed 60 yards of offense in one minute just to try a long field goal. Instead, reality happened. The Bears had to punt and the Packers had time to get another three points.

You can blame just about everyone for this game, other than Brown. Last year, we wondered if Devin Hester might be the best return man in history. Now, he catches a punt, runs two steps and falls down. Did you see the time he tried to stop, spin around in a circle and go another direction, where he was absolutely clobbered?

And those are just the ones he can share in polite company, such as ours. Our very own 34Payton has already started a thread, so CLICK HERE TO VENT!

“Offense wins games but defense wins championships.” - King Pelops circa 776 BC

Yeah, that cliche has been around a while. But, every now and then it is good to pull it out, dust it off and remember why it still has meaning.

The Bulls recently signed Lindsey Hunter. They did not sign him to shoot the ball or run up and down the court or any of the cool video game stuff. They signed him to keep the other team from scoring. It is called defense. In the first quarter against the Mavericks, the Bulls watched helplessly as the Mavs shot 55% and seemed to control everything on the floor. Then the aging Mr. Hunter came out, started barking at the kids and, WAH LAH, suddenly the Mavs were down to 28% shooting and they never recovered.

While it was a pale shadow of days gone by, it did remind me a bit of when, and why, the Bulls had Dennis Rodman. Forget the hair and the wedding dress, when it was game time it was GAME ON for Rodman. Or have you forgotten Shaquille O’Neill in his prime almost crying in the third quarter of their first meeting and losing his mind every other time, Mourning looking like a clueless infant the entire game and all the others that had great careers but came to Chicago only to be humiliated?

Solid defense allows the offense to relax and play. They know there will be no shootout, so they can take their time, set up their shots, pick their positions and win consistently.

One other thing about the Bulls that others might use as a learning tool. After Joakim Noah got lit up like a Christmas tree by Atlanta and the same was starting to happen against the Mavs, Coach Del Negro benched him. Did he say the kid wasn’t playing up to his potential or something like that? Nope, he said this:

‘’I didn’t do a good job with him on Dirk last night. I told him that after the game.’’

That’s right, the coach took the blame for the kid not knowing how to play NBA defense. Noah will learn, but he will also never forget that his coach had his back in a time of trouble. That will last a heck of a lot longer than anything else that happens in this kid’s career.

These same precepts apply to all sports.

As the NFC North Division keeps playing as though they want to be first round cannon-fodder in the playoffs, and coaches keep calling out players for not playing up to their scheme, the Bears keep talking about how great their run defense is. I suppose it is. It is hard to tell since teams have almost completely abandoned the run because they can get almost 7 yards a catch by passing against them. Matt Towbridge, of the Gatehouse News Service, did a great job of looking at the big picture, so I will share that with you.

The Bears have become the Vikings on defense.

Just as no one runs on the Williams “brothers” in Minnesota, no one runs against the Bears with Lance Briggs, Brian Urlacher and Mike Brown crowding the line of scrimmage. And, just as everyone has made fun of the Vikings’ pass defense for years, the same is now true in Chicago.

By the way, this stop-the-run-first mentality never worked in Minnesota, which hasn’t won 10 games in eight years. In the 2000 NFC title game, with the Vikings vowing to stop the run, Kerry Collins passed for 338 yards and four touchdowns — in the first half! — in a 41-0 rout by the underdog Giants.

So why would the Bears try the same scheme against Collins and the Titans eight years later?

Hey, look! A good question!

CLICK HERE to read his whole article. He is a good writer and deserves to be in a bigger market, so watch for his stuff when you can.

In the meantime, since we are ending with the Bears, our very own cuddly bear, Tyrone Briggs (he’s going to kill me for that) has started a thread about tomorrow’s game so CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE FUN!