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!
14 years later, Kerry Wood is no longer a member of the Chicago Cubs. From Kid K to Special K and back again, his star crossed career has caused Cubs’ fans transcendental happiness and extreme agita. Many of us had never heard the phrases “simulated game” or “throwing towel” until he came to town.
Of course, not many of us had ever seen a 20 strikeout game before either.
Rick Morrisey, of the Chicago Tribune, does a nice job of summing everything up.
Here are two perfect bookends for Wood’s career as a Cub. He arrived on the scene in a huge way in 1998, striking out 20 Astros in a game at Wrigley Field during his rookie season. Remember it? The nasty fastball? The slider that made professional hitters look like bent-over old men? The way Cubs first baseman Mark Grace kept the Astros’ bullpen apprised of Wood’s strikeout total? It was the fifth start of Wood’s major-league career.
And this last season, defying conventional wisdom and perhaps some medical wisdom, too, he charged back from a lifetime’s worth of injuries and was named an All-Star. It was fairy-tale stuff. This was a guy who had struggled the previous four years with shoulder and triceps injuries.
It’s hard not to think of him in terms of his past physical problems. But you either can waste a lot of time thinking about what might have been or you can think about what was and what might be. What stands out about Wood is crazy perseverance. Oh, and talent too.
I remember asking Grace about him during the pitcher’s rookie season, specifically about what made him so good. This was your dogged columnist trying to get at the essence of what separated Wood from so many other pitchers.
“Well,” Grace said, “he throws the ball 100 [bleeping] miles an hour.”
I suppose I deserved that.
The Nick Swisher era, on the South Side, has ended before it began. While acknowledged as a genuinely nice guy who even once took time out of his busy day to send me an email (in response to my welcoming him to the Sox), he was hitting under .200 by the end of the season. Ozzie might have forgiven that, but word is he stopped listening to, hitting coach, Greg Walker and Ozzie and that, well that gets you a ticket out of town.
Even so, the highly touted (**cough cough**) Yankees organization wanted him and, according to Associated Press, put a lot of thought into the trade.
“He had his worst major-league season,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said. “We did our due diligence and engaged our scouts and do believe and certainly are hoping that ‘07 and ‘06 are more representative of Nick Swisher than ‘08.”
More changes will come. Some we will cheer, others will baffle us and, at the end of the day, we will all have something to talk about, and cheer or jeer, in 2009.
In closing, I want to congratulate the Chicago Fire for their tremendous season. Even though they were eliminated from the playoffs last night, they have put together a stellar team, a great coach and will be a force in the MLS for years to come.
The man, the myth, the legend, Tyrone Briggs, is already looking at some other changes coming to Chicago baseball, so CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE FUN!
Well, no, we aren’t actually going to do that. But Jam Jam wanted to do a front page post today, got sidetracked by Toko and, for all we know, is currently watching a TiVO of the last Bears’ game with the sound off and synched up to DARK SIDE OF THE MOON.
Nevertheless, we will trudge merrily forward.
It has become a lot of fun to log in here and wander through the threads lately. Taking a nonscientific sampling, I would say that there may be one or two Cubs’ fans who are just a wee bit disquieted by the team’s most recent events. By “disquieted” I mean: “If you know such a fan, put your guns away securely locked, keep your liquor cabinet fully stocked and prepare for your common sense to be rocked.”
Everyone else is fine.
Well, except Bears’ fans. They seem to have taken a very long walk off of sanity’s short pier and are rapidly becoming a danger to themselves and others. A succinct example would be this; I was sitting in a bar last night (yes, I can see the shock in you eyes) and someone, might have been me, mentioned the Bears in passing. A gentleman, who had been quietly sipping his drink while watching Wheel of Fortune (TM), slung it across the bar, into the wall and laughed rather bitterly as it smashed. Then he left.
Without saying a word.
Bulls’ fans are much calmer. They know they have a young team, presently rife with injuries but loaded with superstar talent for the future. Their disabled list would be the starting 5 on many teams and fans are aware of that. As players come back look for the Bulls to make a run at the playoffs. And, you heard it here first, do well.
The Hawks, although they lost in a shootout last night, continue to impress hockey fans across the country and, judging by posts up here, the world as well. Their marketing is the marketing of winners and the team is buying into it. They are going to be exciting for decades to come and that is a very novel thought for that organization and its fans.
Let’s face it, when hockey fans are the sanest people you meet, then things really have changed.
But, in case you’re not depressed enough, click here FOR OUR MAYOR’S TAKE ON THE IMPENDING, MASSIVE, LAYOFFS.
Or, maybe you just want to go to the general forum and browse. That’s okay too.
Keith Magnuson, a beloved member of the Chicago Blackhawk family, will be honored tonight by the retirement of his #3 sweater (in hockey, it is a sweater rather than a jersey). Magnuson was as tough a customer as they come in the NHL, however he is best known for his charitable work off the ice. Hockey fans in this town spin yarns about this classy gentleman who always seemed to make himself available for every worthy cause that crossed his path. Carter Beauford, a regular contributor here at Jay the Joke, recalls watching Magnuson at the legendary Chicago Stadium:
I can still remember my first Blackhawk game. My dad got us to the old barn about 90 minutes early so that we could watch warm-ups. Maggy was always the first non-goalie on the ice and he would hit it like a madman, flying around as fast as he could. The Hawks were playing Boston on this night as well and it took all of 30 seconds for Magnuson and Stan Jonathon to drop the gloves. I was hooked. I got to meet him a couple of times and he was the nicest guy. Always had time for the fans. It’s tragic that he died so young.
Our Jay the Joke hockey guru, KillerCarlson, recalls meeting Keith during a family health crisis:
My brother had a bit of an accident one time as a kid. He was about 9 years old and playing on the grounds of the local chemical plant, which at the time was Diamond Shamrock. (which we later found out was one of the companies that helped create Agent Orange used in the Viet Nam war)
Well it had been an extremely cold winter, the temperature had been around or below 0* F for quite some time. He and another friend were walking across what appeared to be a small pond that was frozen over. Well to make a long story short, he fell in up to his waste and proceeded to pull himself out. With the extreme cold and all he was trying to get home and his pants were freezing and his legs began to burn.
When he got home my mother proceeded to try and warm him up and discovered strange burns on his legs and immediately took him to the hospital. They later found out that the company was dumping chemical on their own grounds.
SO anyway the little brother ends up in the hospital for about three weeks. I was 11 years old and the hospital had rules about visitors having to be 16 or something at the time, so I really didn’t get a chance to go up and see him, except for one time.
My father was a Chicago Policeman for 32 years, so he had the idea that he would just “flash his badge” and try and sneak me up to see my brother. After being stopped a few times we finally made it into my brothers room to see him sitting up watching television with someone who looked really familiar.
My parents both came from your traditional Irish Catholic families. My mothers side of the family had eight kids and my father’s side had nine kids, so basically when I had WAY too many people to try and know growing up when you consider aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins and such.
So back to my brothers room. We were watching television and this guy who could have passed for a brother of my fathers cousin (and who I really believed was one of them) was chatting away to him and getting a good laugh. He said he had been there for about an hour and decided to stick around because my brother was all alone and that he couldn’t see letting a fellow redhead sit alone in hospital bed and decided to spend some extra time with him.
Once we all got situated he decided to go, he obviously would have had better things to do with his free time. One of the nurses walked into the room and asked if we got his autograph and my brother and I just looked kinda puzzled. I asked my father if that was one of his cousins and he just laughed at both of us.
It was Keith Magnuson.
Keith was in his final year playing in the NHL and I guess would spend some of his free time in the children wards of hospitals.
I will never forget him for sitting with that nine year old boy who was in a hospital bed all alone.
God Bless you Keith.
Couldn’t have said this any better. So I won’t.
Undoubtedly, the United Center’s crowd roar will be heard from the heavens tonight as #3 is rightfully hoisted to the ceiling.
Please join our forum discussion. We would love to hear your personal stories about Maggy as well.
It was brought to my attention that legendary Hall of Fame defenseman Pierre Pilote is also being honored in tonight’s ceremony. Kudos to the Blackhawk organization for recognizing the on and off the ice contributions of these two extraordinary men who shared the #3 sweater.