Impressed yet, Bears' Fans?

Count me in the impressed column. I'm not sure I have words to describe how impressed I am by the bears play yesterday. Although the game ended with the bears only winning by 5, the game really wasnt close in the 2nd half. Here's some thoughts and ramblings on the game.

The Good

1. JAY CUTLER. Well, he threw 4 tds. No picks or turnovers. and only had 1 "what the shit are you doing" pass. Plus he continued to move well in and out of the pocket and avoid the rush when possible. And i will count his great little shovel pass to Matt Forte, but only because it worked. This is probably the best game Jay has played as a bear really. He was 8 of 10 against the Eagles blitz and was so effective that they just stopped blitzing. Also, he hit his WRs in stride and made throws that only he is capable of making. Basically, he was a Franchise QB.

2. Matt "Big Play" Forte. Doesn't it just look like every hand off to Forte that he might break it for 20+ yards? Or is it just me being a homer cause he is on my fantasy team? Either way, Forte had a great game. He broke big runs and had over 100 yds against an Eagle defense that had not allowed a 100 yd rusher. If the bears continue to be able to run the ball, we see how the passing game opens up and the points get on the board.

3. Defensive Line. Give these guys the game ball. Vick is one of the best athletes in the NFL and was contained and harassed by the DL all day. The best sacked him 4 times on the day and had numerous more hits on Vick. Peppers had a great game and did anyone really think Idonije could be this good? He was almost unblockable yesterday. These guys won the game for the bears and made the defensive game plan of dropping into coverage possible.

The Bad

1. Chester Taylor - Maybe i'm being nit picky here but Chester hasnt looked good the last 2 games. He has 7 yards on 17 carries in the last 2 games and had -3 yards yesterday. Chester is still reliable in the passing game and a good blocker but I was expecting more explosion from him. He is more of a cut back runner than Forte and behind this line it may be hard to find daylight anywhere else than the designed hole. I know he is just the backup but the bears billed him as helping to create a 2 headed monster in the backfield. That just isnt the case right now.

2. Kick coverage. I could have picked Brandon Manumaleuna trying to juke a defensive back instead of just running over him (you're 300 lbs for pete's sake) or the offensive line completely blowing blitzes on a couple of plays. But, I was very disappointed in the special teams coverage. I know that the eagles have a good return team but the bears still gave up too many large returns and it hurt field position. Plus there was a penalty on a kickoff return which negated a big Danieal Manning return.

The Stunning

8-3. Thats the bears record and represents a tie for the 2nd best record in the NFC with the saints. The bears have beaten the eagles and packers who are right behind them in the NFC with 7-4 records. The bears have to be in the conversation for who is the best team in the NFC and have a legit shot at not only winning the division but also getting home field advantage in the playoffs. No one would have predicted this and lets just hope it keeps getting better. Up next week - the Lions.

Review of the Circus trips

So the road trips for the blackhawks and the bulls have come to an end and finally a game will be played before 9 pm our time. I watched most of the games and and saw great things from these two teams.

The Bulls

Besides wondering why the hell John Lucus III would be in at the end of a game when he was on the street the day before , the bulls answered pretty much all the questions i have about this team. The bulls went 4-3 and it should have been 5-2 if they hadnt given away the nuggets. Derrick Rose legitimately is playing like the MVP of the league averaging over 30 pts and 7 assists for the trip. It is quite evident that no one can cover/stop Rose and if you need examples, you can ask Tyreke Evens. Ronnie Brewer after a slow start has really impressed me with his defense and explosiveness. I mean his shot is still uglier than mine but we knew that coming in. Korver isnt shooting as well as I expected and still plays white man defense. But he is still a threat from 3 and fills a role for the bulls. Noah also is better than I think even the bulls would have expected. You can mark him down for a double-double every night and him and rose are pretty awesome together. Plus, this was the first team that the bulls had a winning record on the Circus trips since #23 was playing for them. All in all, this was a better road trip than I could have hoped and the bulls have cemented themselves as one of the best teams in the East. Now that Boozer is expected to play this week for the first time, we can really see how good this team might be.

The Hawks

The Hawks finished the trip 4-2 and got 8 pts out of the trip which makes for a great trip. This team really starts to be coming together and figuring out how to play in the system. Their defense has really improved and they are controlling the puck. The shots against most games has been down in the twenties and the shot differential has been at +10 in the hawks favor at times. When you outshoot your opponent by that much, you are gonna win most games. Patrick Sharp is hot again scoring goals in 5 out of 6 games on the trip and Seabrook/Keith are shutting down opponents top lines. But maybe the most encouraging sign was the fact that the Hawks seem to really have come together as a team. The last 2 games opponents took runs/shots at blackhawks players and teammates stood up. That edge/camaraderie was present last year and until this trip was lacking this year. Bottom line is the hawks are starting to accept their roles and play like the team of last year. Oh and watch John Scott just destroy a man, maybe the best part of the trip.

All this trip previews what should be a great winter of chicago sports.

Shoutout to the Garbage Men

Yo-Yo what it do, the Bulls may have lost last night's game against the defending champeen Lakers, but they hung tough throughout most of it, even leading the game at one point in the 4th quarter. Unfortunately, they had no answer for a late-game barrage of threes from the likes of Steve Blake, Shannon Brown, and Matt Barnes (wha ha happened?). Luckily, the Bullies have a chance to right things tonight against the Phoenix Steve Nashes Suns. One of the bright spots from last night's loss was the play of Joakim Noah, especially his defense against Pau Gasol, who was held to 12 points on 3-10 shooting. This leads me (closer) to the topic of today's post.....

If you haven't been following the goings on down in South Beach, the Pat Riley Chemical Feast are off to a blistering(ly pedestrian) 8-6 start, and one of their most glaring holes is their utter lack of a dirty work player, i.e. one whose scoring is generally inessential to their actual impact on the court.

Let's recap a brief and very incomplete list of some of the NBAs great (recent) past and present garbage men, describing the strengths they harnessed to offset their lack of traditional basketball skills, and rating them on the standard 5-point junkyard dog (JYD) scale. In no particular order:


Dennis Rodman:

This pic pretty much says it all. There wasn't a single loose ball that the Worm saw and didn't yearn for with the burning passion of a thousand dying suns. He led the league in RPG seven times, averaging 15+ a game in six separate seasons (twice over 18). Perhaps no other stat confirms his otherworldly rebounding prowess than his all-time leading career mark for rebound rate. At 23.4%, this means he grabbed nearly a fourth of all the caroms available throughout the course of his career. He couldn't shoot or post-up worth a damn, but Guy. Got. Ball. Oh, and he spent the great majority of his career playing against guys at least twice this size.

4.5 out of 5 JYD:









Bruce Bowen:

Not your prototypical JYD, but a JYD nonetheless. While he always had a very limited offensive repertoire, he never really hit true JYD status until his long and fruitful tenure with the Spurs. Through eight seasons, three of which resulted in a championship, he averaged just a shade over 30 minutes a game, with a paltry 6.5 PPG over that span. He also established himself as one of the premier defenders in the NBA, generally focusing in on defending the opposition's top offensive wing player. While he also got criticized (justifiably) for his at-times dirty defensive tactics, you can't argue with the results or his indelible contributions to those perennially championship contending Spurs teams.

4 out of 5 JYD for BB:









Ben Wallace:

The original Big Ben (excluding this one, of course), who is known primarily for his boss-as-hell afro, all-time poor FT shooting, and prodigous defensive and rebounding skillz. Undrafted out of college, he's been in the league going on a decade and a half now. He's won defensive player of the year four times in his career, and made four all-star teams in that span as well. All this despite the fact that he'd still likely miss the first bucket given this opportunity: It's a fucking gimme, mang!

Also, he was featured in one of the all-time great NBA video game commercials:


For all of the above and not much else, Benny the (one-time) Bull gets a 4.5 JYD:









Joakim Noah:

A JYD for the twitter-age, if there ever was one. Since being drafted out Florida with the 9th pick in 2007, Joakim has gone from a being a poor-man's Andy Varaejo into an elite-level beast on the glass and defensive end in general. Joakim has improved so much in this time, that he's actually starting to play himself out of JYD status. He's currently averaging a cool 15 pts and 13 rebs, which means he's actually got more offensive game than a JYD has any right to have. But to be fair, he's certainly ugly as hell, which any true JYD should be.

3.5 out of 5 JYD (if only because he can actually put the ball in the basket on a semi-regular basis)









Honorable Mention, Jerome Williams:

After all, he's the namesake for this post's terribly dumb scoring system, so I'd be remiss to exclude him from the definitive (ask anyone) list of JYDs. With career averages of 6.6 pts and 6.4 rebs/game, he clearly was never a focal point on the teams he played for. But through sheer hustle and determination, the true JYD was able to hang in the league for nearly a full decade. Praise be to Jerome for maximizing his uber-limited skillset.

5 out of a possible 5 JYDs:









Finally, here's a timeless and G-funked-the-hell-out cut from the Above the Rim soundtrack, starring TuPac, one of the dudes from Cool Runnings, some other guy, and Marlon Wayans:




HAPPY THANKGIVING EVERYONE!!!!!

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The Bulls are better than what we thought they were

The Bulls beat the Mavs with some Taj-tastic heroics on Friday (17 pts, 18 rebs and his first career 3-pointer) The Bulls face the Lakers Tuesday night in what should be a game of basketball.


The difference between this year and last year, summed up neatly (and pictorially).

2010-2011 Bulls:
















2009-2010 Bulls:

























But don't feel too bad for VDN. He found another head coaching gig with those lovable Clippers.....(okay, actually feel free to feel very bad for Mr. The Black). On the bright side, at least this allows him front row seats to the Blake Griffin yearlong dunk-a-thon in addition to potentially the most losingest lose-diculous loss-filled season in the history of the NBA. If my math is correct (it ain't), the Clip-show are on pace for negative 3 wins this year, which would put them about 45-50 games out of the Western conference playoff picture.

Bears-Dolphins mini recap:

The Chicago football Bears beat up on the Miami also football Dolphins 16-0 in a somewhat ugly game devoid of any truly awesome highlights. This is more or less how it all went down. Recap ovah.

This puts the Bears at 7-3 going into their matchup against the potentially Super Bowl bound Eagles. A huge game with devastatingly sexy playoff implications.


Random thoughts:
Shoutout to my boy Jules P. on that tip that led to the Tillman interception. Wyld Stallyns!

As my fellow blogger in crime said in his pre-game post on Wednesday -- Go Bear!

Bulls Scribbles

Los Bulls (shouldn't it say 'Los Toros', I mean hola?) are 6-4, coming off a tough road loss against the Spurs in which their 3rd quarter issues resurfaced yet again. Tonight, they face the Mavs who are coming off a tough road loss against the surprising Nawlins Hornets. Tonight's game caps their Texas Triangle stretch of the circus trip, and winning 2 of these 3 games is about as good as you can hope for from the still-Boozerless squad (Put down those babies and pick up a fucking basketball, mang).


Now I'm going to write about a kid who doesn't get much pub, and offer some analysis that isn't redundant at all, not in the slightest, nary a bit.......

Derrick Rose - Superstar......?

Yes, he is 100% awesomeness, but there are still a few things keeping him from truly standing side to side with the elite PGs in the association. (For the record, I consider the PG elite to consist of these men, who seem to share an affinity for matching dress pants with untucked t-shirt/sweater hybrid tops)

Anyways, here's me critiquing Rose in basically the same manner as every other sports scribe

Getting to the foul line
- Rose is taking 5.2 freebies a game this season, currently third on his own team behind Noah (6.1) and Deng (6.3). For an elite scorer that drives to the basket as much as Rose does, I would expect something more along the lines of 8+ attempts a game.

Rose's problem seems to be that he is too quick and too good at controlling his body in the air. If he hasn't already left his defender(s) completely in the dust, he is able to avoid contact against teams' frontline players (mid-air, mind you) due to his impeccable body control - See Exhibit A and see xzibit w/ a hat. Plays like these are crazy fucking sick, but I'd like to see him seek out the contact when appropriate to create more and-one opportunities. Also, his jumper is consistent enough at this point that I think he could draw a few more fouls a game with the ol' pump fake trick, which Paul Pierce will gladly demonstrate for us here.

The good thing is that his FT attempts have increased every season he's been in the league, so at least he's on the right track. I just think he's got all the tools to be going to the line 10+ times a game on at least a semi-regular basis. He's still a beast and improving more rapidly than I would have imagined just a few months ago, so maybe it's time I lay off the cat and let him handle his business, skinny tie/biker jacket style.


Fun thing you absolutely have to do before you die:

Play this song in conjunction with this video and try not to cry tears of joy.


- Thom

Hello, My Name is Scrambled Eggs.....is the title of a book you've most likely never read, or consumed as a second grader and completely forgotten about (cop it for the holidays). The book has nothing to do with sports, Chicago, this post, or this picture -- but it will have to do in serving as my overly long and obtuse introduction to the ranks of the blogeratti. I hope to one day amass a readership in the low-to-mid single digits, and with a little bit of luck (and a lot of links like dis one), I don't see why that can't happen.


To give you a better idea of the literary style I'm striving for, I would describe it as one part THIS (how the hell did Todd McCullouch and his royally fucked up feetsies stumble their way into that photoshoot?) and two parts THAT.

Long story long, be prepared for much more of the following:

-- Obscure references about obscure athletes
-- Obsolete vernacular
-- Cock Shots
-- Hyperlinks (<---not a hyperlink)
-- Pussy jokes (<------very much a hyperlink)


Quote of the day: "Pussy ain't got no face."
Who I would like to randomly (and falsely) attribute the aforementioned quote to: This guy.


More posts, links, lulz, and needlessly articulate culminations to sentences to come.

- Tom

Bears v. Fins - Can Urlacher finally win in Miami?

Well a short week for the bears and it couldnt come as a worse time for the dolphins. They lost 2 starting QBs to injury last week and it appears they will be playing with Tyler Thigpen, their #3 QB this week. It goes without saying the that Bears need to keep winning games but especially this game as it is shaping up as the most winnable game on the bears 2nd half schedule.

Key Matchups:

1. Bears LBs v. Wildcat - Like I said above the dolphins have some problems at QB, although Thigpen has proven to be a decent QB, so the bears will be seeing a lot of the wildcat. The key will be for the bears LBs to make the correct reads. The LBs have to try and delay their breaks on the ball for as long as possible to confuse whoever is running the wildcat option. If the LBs are too apparent with their breaks, the person running the wildcat has an easy read on the defense and choose the best run from the wildcat. The dolphins' game plan is pound the ball anyway and they will only do it more this week.

2. Omiyale v. Cameron Wake. Omiyale has actually played pretty well as a LT but has had some problems with speed rushers. Wake has been one of the surprises of the NFL season. He is a 2nd year undrafted free agent and has 8.5 sacks. He is thriving in Miami's system as playing the rush LB position. If Frank can control him somewhat Culter should have time to thow because the dolphins dont have a pass rushing threat besides Wake.

Keys for the Bears:

1. Pound the ball. Yes the bears werent that effective with the run against the vikings but their commitment to the run had a huge impact on the game. They had over 35 mins in time of possession and Cutler was 7 for 7 on play action throws. The dolphins try to make it a grinding game so the bears are gonna have to control the clock and keep running the ball.

2. Defensive Penetration. The one thing that can kill the wildcat is penetration by the defensive line. It can disrupt the play before it even starts and can frustrate the motion and confusion the wildcat is trying to create. Pressure this week is probably more important in the run game than it is on passing downs.

3. Field position. The dolphins play tight games and try to grind it out. They are a field position team just like the bears. This game will be about defense and special teams both phases where both teams excel. The bears need to win the field position battle in order to score some points and win this game.

Hero of the Day:

Matt Forte. I think the bears are gonna run the ball a good amount and i really look for screens and flat passes to Forte to try and control the clock. Also, look for Martz to call the wheel route for him a couple times out of the backfield because against the dolphins 3-4, it will probably get him matched up against a LB which should be a recipe for a big play. I'm looking for some big plays out of him and think he will get them in the pass or run game.

Prediction:

I've said above this game is not gonna be pretty. In fact, I think the # of punts could be greater than the teams final scores. With that said, the bears strength on defense and special teams and the dolphins injuries at QB should add up to a win for DA BEAR. This is probably the easiest game the bears have left and 7-3 would look pretty awesome. Go Bear!

Bears 17-Dolphins 13