Are the Chicago Bears Just Cheap?

Josh Bullocks, Chicago Bears new signing.

I am a little bored and have some time on my hands, so here is my chat with I-truth reprinted from memory.

I-Truth: So did you hear the Bears signed some guy named Josh Bullocks? Who the hell is Josh Bullocks?

DaChiFAn: Some safety from the Saints. I have no idea if he’s good, but I read that he got benched at the beginning of the season for another player. And this is on a team that has the worst pass defense in the NFL. That can’t be good.

I-Truth: Well did they pay him a lot?

DaChiFan: Not really, it’s a one year deal for 1M, but only $500K is guaranteed.

DaChiFan: Yo, do you think that our criticism of Angelo and Lovie is unfair and that the real problem is the Bears and the McCaskey’s are a cheap organization? Or maybe they just don’t have enough money to pony up on a $15M signing bonus.

I-Truth: That’s crazy. It’s the Chicago Bears. They are like the Cubs, their tickets are sold out within 5 minutes. Every game is sold out and they have an amazingly large and loyal fanbase. No way they can’t afford to pay out a large signing bonus. Maybe they are cheap, but they have the money.

DaChiFan: How else do you explain their lack of signing players. They are $30M under the cap and haven’t signed anyone. I have no idea how wealthy the owners are, but what if their main source of income is the Bears. We already know that not all NFL franchises make money. I assume the Bears do, but that doesn’t mean they can afford to shell out $15M in signing bonus to a player in a lump sum payment, let alone the $100M they have to pay for all players during the year. $15M all at once is a lot of money, especially since a credit line is a lot harder to get a hold of these days.

I-Truth: No, I just think they don’t know what they are doing. They have the money. Again, they have the Cubs disease. Why shell out all that money? People are always going to pay to see the games, who cares if they are actually good. Cut down your costs on player salaries, make the same revenues, and put the profits in your pocket. It makes rational sense to me.

DaChiFan: It is kind of weird that they release Metcalf and sign someone else on the same day- sort of ironic.

I-Truth: Yeah, I saw that. They should have cut him 5 years ago. I have no idea how he got paid so much money and never once performed on the field.

DaChiFan: He must have had something on Angelo or Lovie. There is no reason he should’ve been paid that much and stayed that long.

I-Truth: No doubt.

Champions League: Arsenal Win by Penalty

There's really nothing to write about today. The Bulls got their behinds handed to them in Orlando. They are more 99-2000 Bulls than 90-93 Bulls. I think we all know the answer to their story. They will somehow manage to get the 7th or 8th seed, increase optimism in city, and then get swept in 1st round. As Bill Simmons would say.. Ladies and Gentlemen your Chicago Bulls.

So, I decided to fill you in on one of the greatest sporting competitions in the world, the Champions League. Basically they take the best futbol clubs from all the European leagues. For instance, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United (from England's Premier LEague) are selected to play, along the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, A.C. Milan and Juventus (the best clubs from Spain and Italy). The put all these great teams into a round robin tournament and then have a playoff. As an added twist for the playoffs, the teams play a home and away game. So Arsenal beat Roma (from Italy) at home 1-0. They then traveled yesterday to Rome to play the away game. Roma won 1-0. But, in aggregate the real score was 1-1. So they played overtime and then finally penalty kicks to break the tie breaker (the photo above shows Arsenal going crazy after scoring the game wining penalty).

Anyway, the Champions League is truly brilliant because you not only have team pride on the line, but also some country pride on the line. Commentators often argue which country has the best league. For example, this year England's Premier League has 4 teams advancing to the quarterfinals.

I'd love to give some of you non-futbol people an example of what this compares to, but there is no true analogy. The best parallel might be if the top 4 teams from the NBA played in a different league with the top teams from Europe or Asia. Except, unlike the basketball, the "other" teams are on the same playing field (i.e. the Italian teams are just as good as the spanish, english, german or french teams).

So if your interested, check out the champions league games. They are typically on ESPN's family of networks. The next games will occur during the first and second week of April. And of course, go Gunners.

Tuesday Morning Thoughts: Cubs, Sox and Blackhawks

Reed Johnson of the Cubs.

A little sprinkle of Cubs, Sox and Hawk.s

1. There is no better sport’s quote than T.O.’s “I love me some me”. It just doesn’t get any better than that.

2. I like the Kevin Jones signing. Hopefully, the Bears will actually play him this year. Forte is still the man of course, but Jones can alleviate Forte’s carry burden. Then, (and I realize this is completely crazy and so out of the box), we can use Garret Wolfe sometimes as a 3^rd down running back. If Darren Sproles can do it, so can Wolfe. Unfortunately, I hear talks of them getting rid of Wolfe for the Fake Russell Athletic Adrian Peterson. If true, the Bears must still want to give more time for Fake AP to develop. As if his ceiling didn’t occur 5 years ago. Seriously, drop Fake AP like it’s hot and utilize the strengths of your RBs.

3. It is impossible to say anything about the Bulls. They’re like that blue girl in the X-Men movies, constantly changing. Sometimes they are good, sometimes bad, and a whole lot of average. I want to say that Salmons and Brad Miller are a great addition, but I can’t several games left in the season. I want to praise Tyrus and Noah, but that’s just bound to come back to haunt me. This I do know, Deng’s soft and Hinrich’s best position is bench player. To think that we may let Ben Gordon go, (a guy that I’m not even a big fan of) because of the bloated salaries of Deng and Hinrich is ridiculous.

4. The World Baseball Classic is occurring at this moment. Baseball must be the only sport where the most insignificant countries can reach the big stage: Cuba, Dominic Republic, and Puerto Rico. How are countries with populations of 4 to 11 million people able to compete at this level? Pretty simple, people in Europe, Africa, and South American just don’t give a f$%^ about baseball (Venezuela and Holland don't count). But, it’s still impressive as they are going up against the U.S.A. with population of 300 million and competing. Does everyone just take “Boli” in these countries?

5. At the risk of saying anything about the unsteady Bulls, I would be comfortable seeing the Bulls in the playoffs with a lineup of Noah, Tyrus, Deng, Salmons and Rose with BG scoring points off the bench and Miller coming in for Noah and Tyrus. Kirk can give Rose some minutes as well. That’s already a much better defensive unit than the current roster. However, we can’t rely on Deng evidently because his pinky may get hurt. So it’s probably Salmons at SF with Gordon playing SG, which is fine.

6. I like this Reed Johnson guy of the Cubs. I kind of like Gordon Beckham of the Sox. I’m excited to see what this Samuel Pahlsson guy can do for the Hawks. Check, check and check.

7. I recently watched Step Brothers and I actually loved it. It made me laugh a lot. I think the key to liking these movies is attitude and circumstance. Watching this kind of movie with a couple of friends, late at night, on DVD, in a good mood, with no expectations drastically increases the odds of liking this kind of movie. If you watch Step Brothers with high expectations, in a movie theater, when you are in the mood for a drama, it’s just not going to happen.

8. While writing this, I think Luol Deng broke his left anterior eyelash. He’s out 2 weeks.

9. March Madness is around the corner. I’ve got to win one of these office/friends’ pools once in my lifetime. Any thoughts? I don’t watch enough college basketball to have any informed thought, so I usually just copy Seth Davis’ predictions. But here’s the thing, Seth Davis (or any of these TV personalities) have no clue what’s going to happen. I then go to my second order rankings. I dismiss all the pseudo large conferences like the Big 12 and anyone other than Memphis in whatever conference they play in. Pitts out because it f’n Pittsburgh. They shouldn’t win anything not related to NFL football. Louisville? No, too dainty for me. Duke? No, not dark enough (j/K). No, seriously they won’t win it. Oklahoma? How on god’s green earth do I pick and root for a team from Oklahoma? Pac-10? Over-rated, Da Da DADA-DA, OVER-RATED, Da DA DADA-DA. Big Ten? They’ll have one team go far simply because no other conference is prepared for the 35 to 28 score-line. But you can’t pick one of the Big Ten teams to go all the way- either they go to the final four or lose in the 1^st round. Big Ten teams are too big of a risk. I really like the U-Conns of the world, but I don’t think they have enough. . Alright, North Carolina. (See how my logic doesn’t get me anywhere).

10. I tried watching that Comcast show, Monsters in the Morning with Jiggets and Mike North. Unwatchable. I couldn’t go longer than 5 minutes. I love Jiggets, but Mike North makes my ears want to vomit. It’s like they obtained food poisoning, except its audible, and my body needs to regurgitate what it heard. Mike North is terrible. I listen to him and always think “What? Do they speak English in What? “ I just can’t understand what he’s saying. For those of you who love Mike North, well let’s just say we have different tastes.

More Random Thoughts….

11. Quick what’s the college that Bill Cosby wanted Denise to attend? It’s the same one that created the spin off- A Different World? Hillman!! Part of me always wanted to attend the fictional Hillman.

12. A friend of mine made me watch a full episode of King of Queens with Kevin James. I like Kevin James, but let’s just say I won’t be seeking said friend’s advice on the merits of a TV show.

13. I went to Indiana for college, which was fine. But, if I had to it all over again, I would have tried to attend North Carolina, even Duke, and maybe some west coast school like USC. Maybe even a Penn State or Michigan.

14. On the other hand, these schools would be off my list: Purdue, Iowa, Iowa State, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, or even a Pittsburgh (I could go on, but you get the point). No sound basis for this, just my thoughts.

Oh No! A T.O. Column

After criticizing people for going TO crazy this past week, it looks like I'm about to fall in the same trap. I don't know maybe it's a disease. I got a major case of TO and feel the need to talk about it. Well that and what else can I write about? Kevin Jones?

So T.O. signed with the Buffalo Bills for one year at about 6 million. While all the TO speculation was going on last week, I wondered when the TO phenomenon would come to an end. Namely, when will TO stop being TO. At some point his production will go down and all we will be left with are his crazy antics. At some point, TO will just fade away and retire. (Of course he'll always be there. Probably on ESPN replacing Michael Irvin. Or acting in some Tyler Perry sitcom. Or on the NFL Network as he trains NFL prospects for the combine under his training company "Love Me Some ME".)

Anyway, once I heard the Buffalo rumors I saw the writing on the wall. T.O. is finished. Not because his talents are diminishing, but because it's highly, highly unlikely he will continue to perform at the same level in Buffalo. Just like Muhsin Muhammed said about the Bears, (that's were receivers go to die), Buffalo is where T.O. goes to die (not literally of course).

He will be coached by perhaps one of the worst (although he is really, realy nice) coaches in the NFL in Dick Jauron. Can you see Jauron gaining the respect of TO? From what I can tell, Dick Jauron hasn't spoken a word in 10 years. What will he be able to say to TO to calm him down? Worse, he'll be catching passes from Trend Edwards. Wtih the legal troubles of Lynch and the poor offensive line play in Buffalo, T.O. will be the only playmaker on that team. No more Romo, Whitten, Marion Barber, Roy Williams, McNabb, or Brian Westbrook to alleviate the game pressure. No, it's just you now TO. As teams double team you and Trent Edwards throws poor balls because of constant pressure, TO will either explode like mentos in Diet Coke or fade away into mediocrity. Either way, it's the end of the TO saga.

Well, at least until the "Love Me Some Me" company goes online.

Dallas Cuts TO and I Don't Care

I should make this an annual column, but until then I'll just write the following. They represent items that almost always grab the media's attention, require unnecessary amount of analysis, for an enormous amount of time, for an issue I just don't care about.

1. TO does anything and I don't care. Can we just be done with the TO thing? Sure he's talented, but he really hasn't done anything the past two seasons. He is the new Mike Tyson where any public stunt attracts attention and elevates his persona despite his diminishing skills. TO epitomizes the any news is good news world.

2. Dallas Cowboys do anything and I don't care. Honestly, stop it with the Cowboys hysteria. I get it, Jerry Jones is a crazy guy who spends money. Can we just move on.

3. Famous baseball player X, took steroids and I don't care. This shouldn't surprise anyone anymore. Selig, the owners and the union allowed the steroid era to save baseball (yes, I said it). When you have no system to test Steroids up until 2004, don't be surprised if your athletes take steroids to get better.

4. Anything to do with NASCAR- I just don't care. It's not a sport, it's not even racing. I guess you can call it "drifting". If you only drive in a circle with an incline that prevents you from driving off the track, you are not racing. Racing requires you to enter and exit tight corners. Only in America can we make something that is actually interesting into a stupid event.

5. Tiger Woods. It's Tiger, Tiger Woods yall and I don't care. I respect Golf because it's an impossible game to play. But, I just don't care. One guy with some athleticism has managed to beat a bunch of old white guys in a game that up until a few decades ago was only played by old white men. (The Golf course across the street from where I grew up, wouldn't let any non-white people play there. And this was in the 90s. And I say this as a Caucasian).

6. The Bears sign Frank Omiyale, Israel Idonije and the Fake Adrien Peterson and I don't care.

7. Bob Knight (insert other A-hole coaches) are really, deep down great guys and I don't care. They are assholes. Can we get Knight off of my TV screen so I don't have to listen to his garbage.

8. Lebron James is awesome and I don't care. Wake me up when he wins something.

9. Peter King says X player should be in the Hall of Fame and I don't care. Why am I listening to you? (Well I must admit I do read your MMQB every week).

10. Spring Training and I don't care.

Tuesday Morning Thoughts

Recognize this man? Me neither, he's Frank Omiyale the Bears' big free agent acquisition.

A hint of Luol (I broke my wrist) Deng, a touch of Frank Omiyale, a thought on Kerr and Norm and a tidbit on Buicks.

1. Luol Deng is made of plastic. For a soft player, he sure gets injured a lot. First it was the wrist (honestly, why does he have so many wrist injuries?) and now the pretend tibia stress fracture. Deng needs to grow some muscles. It’s been about five or six years since your days at Duke. How about getting stronger?

2. Speaking of Deng, Notqualified to Comment wrote an interesting article comparing Salmons with Luol Deng. I am not sold on Salmons as he appears to just be a poor man’s Luol Deng. But at least he is cheaper then Deng.

3. Bears big free agent acquisition? Frank Omiyale. Never heard of him and will be surprised if I ever hear his name in any Bears’ telecast.

4. Interestingly, his name is Frank Omiyale, two names that don’t seem to mesh together. Sort of like hi may name is Chris Abdulrahim. Or hi, my name is Tom Wang. Or hello, I’m Su’Chin Goldstein.

5. When does March Madness start? Oh yeah, sometime in March. Funny, it still feels like December outside.

6. Is it me, or does college basketball kind of suck. Don’t get me wrong, I still love March Madness. And I will occasionally watch a Duke/NC game. When IU was good, (a rarity), I watched almost every one of their games. But, other than that, it’s a stagnant game; a lot of defense, poor offense and a mountain of three point shots. It’s also more like rugby than basketball. Although, the Bulls could probably take some notes.

7. In all of these Norm Van Lier and Red Kerr articles I have been reading, they all try to subtly mention Norm and Kerr’s unfavorable characteristics (Evidently Kerr liked to drink and Norm struggled with pain killers). I never quite understood writers needing to broadcast the negatives of a person when they died. Why can’t you just write the story about all their positives? Is this really a time when you need to be fair and biased with your reporting? Funny, you never mentioned Kerr’s drinking habits while he was alive. What? Now that they have passed away, it’s a great time to dish out the truth?

When someone close to you dies, it seems kind of odd to discuss their bad characteristics. You also see a lot of this in Hollywood. Hollywood is obsessed with showing the bad side of famous people in their movies. Have you ever seen the Ali movie with Will Smith? They make Ali to be a morally corrupt person. Same with that Ray Charles movie. I always wondered what Ali thought about his movie after watching it. I assumed it was something like… “Thanks assholes for dragging my name in the mud. Brilliant. Did you notice that I was the best boxer ever? Ever thought about showing that in your stupid f’n movie? No… I’m just Muhammad Ali, the womanizer.”

8. Anyway, it was nice to see the Bulls tribute to Kerr and Norm during Friday night’s Houston game. They were icons in Chicago and symbolized Bulls basketball. It was also great to see the Bulls come from behind and win that game. We should applaud Del Negro for allowing Rose to play in the 4th quarter.

9. For no rational reason, I really want the Olympics to come to Chicago. I’d love to see the 100 yard dash in person. Wouldn’t it be great to see handball or water polo? I’d love watching all those crazy sports live. Table Tennis anyone?

10. So when will this recession that looks more and more of a depression end? When prominent economists don’t have an answer to this question, I get really, really afraid. On the other hand, maybe this isn’t such a big deal. Maybe we are all being a little too dramatic. Maybe we should just accept the facts instead of going into a Kate Winslet acceptance speech. Sure in the short-term it looks terrible, with everyone knowing at least one person who has lost a job. But, maybe the U.S. needed this? Of course need is a strong word, especially when many hard working people’s jobs are being affected. But, maybe we should suffer for all those high interest loans to unqualified people? Maybe the financial industry should be hurting for all those years of profits grown on the backs of hard working Americans. Maybe we should be punished for our gluttony of everything big- from large houses, value meals, to Hummer vehicles. Maybe we need to bring our troops back home. Maybe we don’t need Buicks anymore, or for that matter Chryslers. Maybe we need to invest in technology and ideas that can spur real growth in green sectors like wind and solar energy or the Chevy Volt. Maybe, just maybe it’s a good thing for us to reinvent ourselves a little bit. Maybe… I hope.

Even more random.

11. Peter King used approximately 3 of his 4 pages in his MMQB on the Patriots deal of Matt Cassel and Baltimore deal of Bart Scott. Somehow I doubt he would ever dedicate this much time to a Bears free agent acquisition. I did appreciate the Bart Scott story though.

12. Kirk Hinrich is terrible. He is the Keanu Reaves of basketball; shows flashes of brilliance (Matrix anyone?) but in the end is a range-less actor. Kirk makes you want to believe that his presence on the court translates to wins, despite his mediocre statistics. An impoverished Scottie Pippen if you will. But as much as I try to fit him in this underrated category, he is not. All he does is dribble. He doesn’t create any offense and can’t hit an open shot to save his life. Sure every 6th game he’ll score points, but it’s the 5 games in between that leave you scratching your head. Worse any above average guard in the league can beat him on the offensive end (or at least get him to make all those ticky-tack fouls). I am officially over Kirk Hinrich. It’s too bad the twins; Paxson and Del Negro see so much of themselves in him.

13. So when does baseball get back on the A-Rod train. If he starts hitting home runs, most people will probably forget.

14. It’s got to be nice being a baseball player sometimes. Your training camp takes you to a warm place for a month or two. It’s like you’re on vacation, but also working at the same time.

Chicago Bears: Sitting Out Free Agency and the NFL

I can understand a team's philosophy of wanting to build their franchise through the draft. It's worked for championship teams like the Steelers. Plus, it makes perfect sense to build your team through the relatively cheap salaries of 2nd to 4th round draft picks. If you get it right, your mid round selections offer the greatest value per dollar than any free agent acquisition could net you.

But.... What if you can't build through the draft? What if you are the Chicago Bears whose draft failures read like a J.R. Token Novel: Grossman, Haynes, Benson, Okwo, Bradley, and Bazuin just to name a few. In fact, on the offensive side besides Matt Forte, the only player we have been able to cultivate via the draft during the past decade was Bernard Berrian. He now plays for the Vikings.

If you can't build through the draft, then maybe you should consider adding a free agent or two. But, not the Bears. They're as stubborn as a two year old child. Angelo has written off the prospects of signing a marque free agent. Instead of logical acquisitions like a Julies Peppers or TJ Housh, we sign some offensive tackle who shall remain nameless (I don't have the energy to look it up. And odds are his name won't appear during any broadcasts anyway).

Worse, rumors suggest that the Vikings, the same team that gobbled up Berrian and signed big free agents like Steve Hutchinson are in line to sign TJ Housh. The Vikings have decided to bolster their drafted player with free agents. What a novel idea. The Bears have decided to sit out... well.. everything.