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?