Why Do We Put Up With This?

Welcome to December. I'll start with THANK GOODNESS for the Blackhawks! Isn't that about it though in Chicago professional sports though these days?

Man, with the destruction of the Bears this season, what else do we have? There's no question the town's ONLY "universal" sports team is the Bears. Sure when Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were winning all those championships (how long ago does that seem?), the town was very much into the Bulls. Other than that though, there are a lot of people in this town that simply don't follow the Bulls primarily because they just aren't that good, but also because NBA basketball just isn't THE sport any more. Then of course you have the dissection of the town's allegiance to the local baseball teams. I'm not sure dissection is the right word as that implies equal separation, but you know what I mean. The Blackhawks are doing great right now and are really the only local franchise even remotely on the right track and I'm not saying that to take away anything from the Hawks...it's just that ALL the other teams are VERY FAR from being in the same vicinity of on the right track. Even so, after the "Dollar Bill" Wirtz spent the last 20 years alienating most of the hockey fans in this town, I still don't think the popularity is back where it was quite yet although it is well on the way back.

Regardless, besides the Hawks, what else do we have in this town from a professional sports perspective? Let's keep in mind that Chicago is the third largest market in the US. It's football season (or so I have been told) so let's start with the "beloved". What the heck is going on here? Wasn't this team just in the Super Bowl a few years ago? Yes Bears' fans...it was less than 3 years ago when the Bears played the Colts in Super Bowl XLI. Well look at them now. What the heck happened? Well, glad you asked - 5 words...Jerry Angelo and Lovie Smith...they are what happened to the Bears. For that 2006 season, the Bears had a dominant defense and an up-and-coming defensive coordinator in former Bear Chico Rivera. Lovie felt threatened so they fired him to bring in Lovie's friend Bob Babich to decimate the defense first. After two very declining production years, Lovie decided to step in and call the defenses himself and he even brought in D-Line guru and former 0-16 Lions head coach Rod Marinelli. What a freakin' mess they are now! Lovie - news flash...the NFL has figured out the Cover 2. Additionally, you do NOT have the personnel to run the Cover 2. How many more 30+ points allowed games do you need to see to figure that out?

The defensive line is a joke after a pretty quick start. Tommie Harris was benched one game by Lovie and then took himself out of another with a ridiculous cheap shot punch on the 4th play of another game. Where's the discipline? The tackling is a total joke. If the safeties aren't trying to tackle guys around the shoulders, our line backers are simply trying to knock guys over instead of wrapping up. Maybe it's time to allow the guys to actually work on their tackling in practice Lovie instead of relying on some sort of divine intervention on Sundays. And the D-Line...apparently Rod lost his touch while coaching the first and only 0-16 team in NFL history.

Personally, I think the offense is a total joke. How many more times are they going to try that stupid "bubble screen" while the defense is in tight press coverage? It CAN'T work Ron! Go back and destroy another college program buddy because you are NOT a real NFL O-coordinator. Now that Charlie Weiss is free to pursue other work, maybe he can come here to help install a real offense for Cutler and Forte.

Jerry Angelo has destroyed this team from the inside out on top of everything else. His drafts have been horrible to say the least which is why most of us were such big fans of the Jay Cutler trade - he can't draft anyone decent in the first two rounds anyway so we weren't really losing much. Is he any better at signing free agents? Nope! They signed two big offensive line guys - Orlando Pace and Frank Omiyale. One word...DISASTER! These guys have been HORRIBLE! And he also signed a new LB in Pisa Tinoisamoa. Well, he has 3 more tackles than you do sitting on the couch.

For the most part, I have heard very little criticism of Jerry Angelo and the common retort about the Bears potentially firing Lovie with 2 years and $10 million left on that extension he signed after losing the Super Bowl. Really? The Bears are going to cry poor? Seriously? The franchise is worth over $1 billion! Cough up the cash and bring in a REAL name. I find it hard to believe the Bears wouldn't make that $10 million right back with a decent team on the field. Is anyone even still following these guys with the way they are playing? How many of you watched the game on Sunday? The big problem is the Bears can't even rebuild through the draft as they just don't have enough quality picks to bring in skill position players that will make an impact. So now you have a $20 million franchise QB with no line to protect him or to help the running game and not a single real WR for him to throw the ball to. You don't have an offensive coordinator that can get creative enough to get Greg Olsen open more consistently so your best offensive weapon is only about 50% effective.

I know this is far from a universal concept, but the ruining of Devin Hester was the beginning of the end of this team as far as I'm concerned. Again, the Bears in the #2 market in the NFL (remember, LA doesn't have an NFL team!) cried poor and didn't sign the only real receiver they had in Bernard Berrian and instead took their #1 offensive weapon and shoe-horned him into being a receiver. Not only that, but they filled his contact extension with receiver incentives without anything in there about return TDs. He scored 11 return TDs in his first two years in the league (I beleive the all-time record is 13) and ZERO since his new contract. And he has hardly made up for his lack or return production with receiving TDs with only 3 TDs in each of these last 2 years. In the meantime, Bernard Berrian scored 7 receiving TDs last year (that was before Brett Favre!). STUPID AND CHEAP!

The team is a mess and looks to be stuck there for the foreseeable future. So the question is...WHY do we put up with this year after year of mediocrity?

I'll follow up on the Cubs, White Sox, and Bulls in future posts.