Week 10: This is it, I guess.

One of these two men might not play Sunday. The other definitely will, but might not play any more games after that.

Well, if any Bears fans (or maybe some confused Lions fans who somehow don't despise the Bears) ever stumble across this thing, I just want to say that I hope you've enjoyed the last several weeks. It's been really cool watching this team steamroll the living piss out of hapless bums like the Cowboys, Titans, and Jaguars, and it sure is cool seeing TV types bringing up memories of the '85 team and even the Grossman-ruined '06 team. But the fun times are over; I hope you realize that. Because from this point out, there's only one true tomato can left on the schedule, and that's not until the Cardinals in week sixteen. Every other team left on the schedule can beat the Bears, a division title is going to be harder than anyone wants to admit, the playoffs aren't a certainty, and I'm guessing a 15-1 finish is about as likely as me jumping flat-footed across the goddamn Pacific. Because the second half of the schedule is going to suck ass, and they've saved the worst part for first.

Oh sweet Christ.

It's like all the worst possible nightmares all hitting at once. Jay Cutler seems to save his worst games for prime time, and Wade Phillips has already come right out and said that Brandon Marshall is getting double-teamed on every play. The second part is really bad, because Cutler has made no secret so far that he's pretty much ready to throw it to Marshall on every play, regardless of what the coverage situation is. Not to mention that even with new dudes in charge, the Bears just ignored the offensive line again this last off-season, and this leaves 2012's leading mega-destroyer J.J. Watt up up against Gabe Carimi and J'Marcus Webb all night, and hoooo-leeee shit, that is terrifying. Webb is only not the league's worst lineman because I'm pretty sure Frank Omiyale didn't die at any point this year, and the only reason Carimi isn't developing a similar reputation is because he gets a stupid holding penalty every time a defensive end blows past him for a would-be sack. So Watt comes into the game on pace to be over twenty sacks by the end of the year, and if Mike Tice doesn't figure out some creative ideas to keep him out of the backfield, he might hit that by the third quarter. And yeah, I do realize how ridiculous it sounds to mention Mike Tice and the concept of these things called "ideas" in the same sentence, because the dude's never had any. So you've got the NFL's most destructive force with only the NFL's worst five guys at preventing destruction between him and Cutler's cervical vertebrae, and OH GOD COBRAS.

You know, he's turning out to not be so good at the American football, but I will say that Gabe Carimi is one goddamn handsome man.

And yeah, all the analyst types I keep reading keep mentioning how important it'll be for the Bears to establish the run, so the Texans won't just be able to tee off on Cutler all night, but if they even think that's a remote possibility, they've clearly not been actually watching any football games this year. Because you know what, Matt Forte rules, and everyone knows it. Even in situations of complete shithouse blockingm, he's got the moves to escape, and I seriously think the Texans would have a harder time stopping him than the Bears will have stopping Arian Foster. But you see, it doesn't matter, because Chicago Bear logic defies regular football logic. In regular football logic, you get the running game going, this puts the defense on its heels, and all of a sudden you just throw it way the hell downfield, and they don't know what hit them, and it's great. In Chicago Bear logic, you start to get the running game going, then just abandon it altogether, even though someone just ran in another fumble and you're up by twenty. So the Texans have nothing to fear from Chicago's running game, because even if they start getting gashed by it early in the first quarter, by the middle of the second, the Bears will revert to "pass, pass, pass, punt" Martz-ball. So even if you've got your star running back who just made a Pro Bowl and signed a huge contract in a groove, he might as well not even be in the game, and it's time to just blitz Cutler's ligaments off. This instills him with The Fear and makes him just chuck it to Marshall on every play, because he's the only competent non-Forte out there most of the time, and Mark Schlereth cackles with glee as the sacks and interceptions mount.

This is his O-face.

Notice, I haven't mentioned the defense much, because there's not much need to. The Chicago Bears have been a blisteringly evil force of devastation on that side of the ball all year, and are pretty much more of a scoring threat than the offense at this point. And sure, the Texans are a real football team, so it won't be anything even resembling the Music City Massacre, but they'll do their job. If last week is any indicator, Urlacher is finally back from last year's knee injury, and man, I don't even know what to say about Charles Tillman. Dude has been completely goddamn nuts this year, to the point where you don't even notice that the guy opposite him already has six interceptions. So barring an early child birth that makes him skip the game, if Tillman plays, Andre Johnson basically doesn't. And the Bears are a team with enough power up front to get pressure without blitzing and stop the run without bringing linebackers to the line, so I think even a team as good as Houston is (and yeah, it seriously is still bizarre to think of them as any good) is going to have trouble getting anything done offensively tonight. Looking back, though, I seriously wish it had been the Bears instead of the Texans who had drafted Whitney Mercilus. I think one of the main reasons I haven't been as active here as recent years is because I burned myself out pre-draft thinking of all the shit that could be said about a dude with such a killer last name. But instead of Whitney the Merciless, a mysterious warrior from a far-away land whose eyes see only death and whose hands make it so, we ended up with Shea McClellin, good ol' Wee Baby Sheamus, biding his time being kind of okay, I guess,  but fourth on the depth chart until his rookie contract runs out and he can go be awesome for some 3-4 team, possibly even the Texans. Stupid football.

LEFT: Shea McClellin. RIGHT: Whitney Mercilus.

Anyway, I'm going to come right out and say a win tonight is highly unlikely, but not completely hopeless. More than anything, the Bears have to find a way to score first. Because the Bears always abandon the run for no reason, but they do it more slowly when they're in the lead. And the less often the Bears have to pass, the better, because I get the feeling that mostly bad things will happen that way. Get Forte going, and instead of saying, "welp, don't want him to get tired, better throw nine straight to Marshall," just use the other guy you gave a ton of money to, because he's not a complete asshole, you know. If the Bears are forced to pass all day (or choose to) they will lose. If they can run with any sort of regularly, they only might lose. This is hard-hitting analysis, people. On defense, just keep doing your thing, man. Just make absolutely sure that Mrs. Tillman manages to keep her water unbroken until Monday morning, or Kelvin Hayden gets the start, which is a diplomatic way of saying the phrase "all is lost." If the Bears can keep Houston under 20 points, there's a shot, because even if this is one of those "oh god, they can't find Cutler's lower half" games, they still usually manage to accidentally score a couple times. But even as a dude who pretty much has bad feelings about any game the Bears play, this one is giving me more of them than usual.

PREDICTION: Bears 13, Texans 27.

2011 Chicago Bears Internet Acess Delayed Postpreprepreseasonseasonpreview Defense /Special Teams Thing

Two weeks into fake practice games, and moving expenses, leftover bills, and car repairs still have me cut off from access to locally-wired internet. (Or internet stolen from the air around the house, not that I tried that. Stupid passwords.) And even with short bursts of an hour or two of being able to get on in other locations, it still feels like I'm cut off from the outside world. Like I'm holed up in a cave, scribbling down my final thoughts in the hope that Future Man won't make the same mistakes I'm making when he finds my cobweb-covered skeleton and pries the USB flash drive from my fingers. Drums, drums in the deep. They are coming. Anyway, the position-by-position breakdown is a boring and stupid thing to do, and reading over the offensive half of this thing yesterday, it was probably the worst thing ever, and all I kept thinking was "oh man, I think I already said that exact same sentence a few months ago." So with full apologies to anyone who actually read that thing, I'll try and attack from different angles this time, and hopefully, I won't sound like some waterhead trying to get a job with Pro Football Focus again.

DEFENSE: WHO'S GONE.

After years of getting paid a king's ransom to grow a gut and back up Matt Toeaina, Tommie Harris is finally out of there. So we finally get to stop hearing an annual reason for why THIS is going to be the year that he stops being so shitty and goes back to being the dominant player he was before Marc Colombo leg-whipped his hamstrings off, and the front office gave him like a zillion dollars after that anyway. Healing from injuries didn't make him good again, Rod Marinelli's magic coaching-dust didn't fix him, the inspiration of Julius Peppers being on the same line and getting paid more than him didn't inspire him to greatness, either. So now, he's some other coach's problem, (Who signed him? The Patriots? Has anyone yet?) and the local P.R. guys are probably telling whatever team's fans that he's going to be an all-star, because he's got something to prove, blah blah blah, revenge on the Bears, blah blah, whatever. Either way, retirement would be the smart move. Take the money and run. He sure had no problems with just taking the money, sitting on his ass, and pouting for three years, so at least he'll be getting some exercise.
Pisa Tinoisamoa didn't get resigned this year, which is a thing everyone on Earth saw coming. He stayed hurt for the better part of two years and just goes down as another cautionary tale against Bears coaches and front office guys going after players who used to be good for their old team. I always remembered how the Bears would never, ever have more than one Samoan dude on the team for years, like there was some crazy-ass clause against loading up on Islanders in George Halas's will, so even if a guy seemed like he might be okay and benefit the team, he'd always get cut before the year started if there was another dude of similar heritage around. And for years, I guess Olin Kreutz being an off-brown dude from Hawaii ate up that slot, but they relaxed the rules and like half the team is from the Pacific Ocean now. And even though he really needed to go, I am kinda bummed that Pisa Tinoisamoa is gone, because with that name, it was like he was the most Samoan guy, ever. Like I imagine the continental equivalent of that name would be something like Pete Fuckinamerica. And man, for the record, if I ever write a novel that's controversial enough to warrant an assumed name, or have to come with a new identity to hide from the government following some sort of international intrigue, my fake name is going to be Pete Fuckinamerica. Either that or something like Razor Sledge. Or Dirk Steel.
Speaking of names, Danieal Manning has a lady's name, and a misspelled one at that. But that guy will probably piss me off forever, because he was one of the prime examples of a Jerry Angelo pick, a second rounder spent on a guy that ESPN had no footage of, who took so long to finally pick up the NFL game, that by the time he did, his contract was up. So after years of him sucking ass and the Bears bringing in a river of slime in the form of dudes like Adam Archuleta and Craig Steltz to make up for his presence, he finally turns into a good football player, and shit, he's a Texan now. Well, he was already a Texan, but he's like a HOUSTON Texan now, as in the football team no one cares about. Like you can't just be turned into an honorary dude from Texas because you were bad at football for four years, or anything like that. At least I hope not. Like some magical Texas-Fairy just turned up at his door and gave him a big belt buckle, a penile deficit that requires a Ford F250 King Ranch Edition with a lift kit and dangly trailer hitch balls to overcome, an irrational fear of Mexicans, and the information that stop signs and pedestrian crossings are no longer his concern. I don't think it works that way. A Texan isn't a thing you become, it's a thing you're born into, like a harelip or fetal alcohol syndrome. What I'm saying is that it's not their fault. But when the Bears' offense takes huge steps backwards this year, it'll be because of the team mostly ignoring the offensive line and not knowing a capable wide receiver when they see one. If the defense ends up doing similar things, a big part of that will probably be not having Danieal Manning back there anymore.

DEFENSE: WHO'S NEW

The Bears signed Vernon Gholston, and no one knows why. He'll probably go down as one of the bigger all-time busts, primed and ready for when ESPN does their yearly "ha ha ha look who the Jets drafted over the years, oh man" video package at the NFL Draft, (Although really, Freeman McNeal was better than anyone gave him credit for and gets a raw deal being lumped in with Johnny Mitchell and Blair Thomas) and if he doesn't go down as the chief example of why you don't draft a guy based on how dreamy he looks shirtless, it'll be Mark Sanchez instead. I mean, the Jets have been winning with that dude around, but you'd think that after a couple years of Grossman-like stats, the effort to make him Football's Next Great Superstar would slow down just a little bit. Not to mention the whole "busted for having naked-time with high school chicks when she blabbed about it on Facebook" thing. Like you'd think that with the endless stream of pop stars and low-level "big enough to be on the cover of magazines at the grocery checkout, but not big enough for me to know what they're famous for" types that NFL quarterbacks usually get fixed up with, (Who the hell was that person that Jay Cutler almost married, anyway?) Roger Gooddell could have lined up someone from American Idol or Glee or something for that guy, who would have at least been legal. I mean, even a scumbag like Brett Favre was never a danger of showing up somewhere like the ESPY awards with his arm around someone with braces and little to no memory of the Clinton Administration. But, um, oh yeah, Vernon Gholston. He sucks real, real bad, and the worst part is that since Corey Wootton is hurt and Henry Melton bulked up for a full-time job at defensive tackle, this guy will probably make the team and even get playing time. Also, I think you're required to use this phrase any time you mention Gholston, so blah blah blah, looks like Tarzan, plays like Jane.
Amobi Okoye, on the other hand, could be a thing. He's also got something of a top-ten bust label around his neck, but really, he was always at least a decent player, and people who know more about things like that than I do always say he fits better into the Bears' system than the one the Texans use. And thinking back to when he was drafted, he was that guy who was all mega-genius, to the point where even the college athelete's schedule of maybe attending one class a week didn't keep him from graduating with some actual degree that wasn't criminal justice or physical education, like three years early. So on a regular schedule of human-type development, this dude is physically where he would be if he had just been drafted last year, if my calculations are correct. Of course, if that's all as meaningless as the two sacks he had in the preseason game against the Bills, the Bears at least have a dude around now who can fix all their computers when they get all bogged down from Mike Tice's porno viruses.
Speaking of defensive tackles, the Bears also drafted Stephen Paea. And oh man, holy shit. This dude is like the greatest concept for a football player ever, like if I made a football movie about an aging quarterback who has to pilot the team to victory despite the efforts of the owner who wants to move the team to L.A., one of the supporting cast types would be based on this guy. He's a Tongan rugby player who's still learning how to play football, I'm pretty sure only recently got the English language nailed down, and can bench press more than any other dude the NFL has ever drafted. Of course, the movie version would have be more of a racist caricature for comedy purposes, like all he would do would be stare intensely, grunt, and crush coconuts with his bare hands. But you'd have to have some scene where he'll get all pissed off when a player from the opposing team spat on a kid or abused a fuzzy little animal or maybe he'll get got all blushing "aww shucks" whenever the 20-something female team doctor who was there to serve as the love interest for the 40-something quarterback would attend to his broken foot or whatever. Of course, if Hollywood rejected my script, I'd just travel back in time, pair him with Matt Toeaina, and have Jim Cornette manage the duo on a rampage of terror throughout the Mid-South wrestling territory. Anyway, this dude is raw as hell, but if he ever meets his physical potential, he could be an absolute world-breaker.
The Bears came into the offseason with nobody but Lance Briggs and Brian Urlacher under contract, so there's a whole mess of new guys at that position, with none of them being much to mention. But while I know nothing of their ability as football players, I really hope undrafted dudes Tressor Baptiste and Dom DeCicco end up making the final roster, because if nothing else, they can further the team's seeming agenda of making a team with the most interesting names possible. Like whenever Pete Fuckinamerica finally writes that spy novel that knocks Tom Clancy off his high horse, I'm going to use the name Tressor Baptiste for my main villain, who will be a total "sits at a big desk with back to the door, then slowly turns around, stroking a big, fluffy cat" type. Also, I'm pretty sure that Dom DeCicco was Frank Pentangele's right-hand man who testified against Michael Corleone in the second Godfather movie.

DEFENSE: WHAT TO EXPECT

For the most part, the same as last year. At defensive end, Uberklaw Peppers will dominate, Unterklaw Idonije will do alright. The secret key to everything will be Corey Wootton, because if either starter goes down, someone has to keep Vernon Gholston off the field. Inside, the only certainty is that Anthony Adams will be providing bulk at nose tackle, and Matt Toeaina will be rotating in and out with him and whoever the under tackle (What they used to call the three technique, when Tommie Harris was doing it) ends up being. The new and improved Henry Melton has it for the moment, but another good preseason game from Amobi Okoye will put him in that spot. Stephen Paea basically just lurks in the shadows, waiting for a fuckup or an injury, and then starts wrecking things.
At linebacker, the same two Briggs and Urlacher guys that are always there will still be there, and Nick Roach takes over full time on the strong side. He was the last man standing in the Roach/Tinoisamoa/Hillenmeyer Race to Be the Other Guy, and mostly just absorbs blocks for Brian Urlacher. If anyone gets hurt, the team flies off the rails, bursts into flames, and crashes into an orphanage, because there's no depth to speak of here. Brian Iwuh had a good game or two last year, but that can be said of a lot of guys who shouldn't be starting, and J.T. Thomas sure is a nice guy, but probably isn't good enough to play yet, if ever. Meanwhile, Tressor Baptiste threatens to fire his rockets into the moon, and Dom DeCicco turns rat and exposes the network of buffers that keep Lovie Smith's hands clean when running his extensive criminal empire.
At the cornerback position, Charles Tillman is there, just like always, and he'll be really good, aside from the one game where a star receiver blows him up for 9,000 yards, just like always. Tim Jennings's tiny brand of surprisingly effective munchkin football returns opposite him, but the Bears' staff reeeally wants human loser Zack Bowman to be the starter again, for reasons that escape me. D.J. Moore is another tiny dude, and he'll be the nickel back, but I figure by week five or so, they'll figure out that he's probably better than Jennings or Bowman and give him a bigger job. And there was some undrafted guy that the coaches are really excited about, but I can't remember his name. I'm sure he's a pleasant fellow.
Chris Harris is back at free safety, where he was the secret key to the defense last year. Anti-terrorism task force leader Major Wright takes over where Danieal Manning used to play, and it's a trade of a guy who could cover really well and tackle alright for a guy who tackles like a master, but can't cover. This might be a problem. Craig Steltz continues to be the guy who they won't shut up about in practice, but is too terrible in real life to play in games, and Chris Conte gets a job working underneath his dad at Price Mart and finally proposes to Donna, while his friends deal with the whacky aftermath of Kelso falling off the water tower... again.

SPECIAL TEAMS: WHAT WASN'T LONG ENOUGH TO WARRANT ITS OWN BLOG POST

It's a year of changes back here, and the punter dude they had for years, Brad Maynard, is outta here. He was (and still is) one of the best in the universe at getting the ball to land exactly where he wants it, but sometimes you had to think that commentators always mentioning that was a nice way to not mention that he really couldn't kick the ball very far in his declining years. So he's out, and the guy who used to punt for the Jacksonville Jaguars is in. You'll have to bear with me here, because I don't have readily available internets or a printed-out roster or anything here, and hell, they don't even make rookie cards of punters anymore, so I have no idea what the guy's name is. So until I can hopefully remember to edit all of this out, we'll call him Chuck Balls. Anyway, Chuck Balls is a really good punter, almost made the Pro Bowl last year from what I remember, and was the main target for the Bears in free agency, which really lets you know how much importance they put on the offensive line and Cutler's physical well-being. But Mr. Balls has a huge leg, so he'll probably be a pretty big improvement, which is good, considering how much damn punting the Bears are likely to do in 2011.
At kicker, Robbie Gould returns, and he's really, really good, but I honestly don't know what else to say about a kicker, so I'll just move on. Hey, I may not be insightful, but at least I'm not foisting that insanely original "Robbie is as good as Gould! Haw haw haw!" bullshit on you. And none of that "running the ball is Matt's Forte! Heyyyoooooooooo! (bowtie spins)" crap either. This is serious business right here.
As far as the nameless, faceless dudes who make tackles, keep punters from being crushed, and are forgotten about a week after their spine is cloven in two by an errant block, the Bears did the right thing and brought back Corey Graham. Dude was a menace to society last year, and tackled anything that lived. But speaking of menaces to society, old favorite Garrett Wolfe is gone, deemed too useless on offense to warrant the cost of keeping him around, and sadly, too arrested in the offseason to garner much outside interest. So this is probably the end for him, left to go back to his old hometown, where his Papa always bosses him around, and the threat of being eaten by Gargamel casts a shadow over each passing day. Outside of those guys, the Bears should have a pretty decent crop of scrappy, underutilized, and/or crazy players to make things work. The Bears grow special teamers the way Pittsburgh grows linebackers. Which is why they've won five more Super Bowls, probably.
Returning kicks is going to be a depressing thing this year. On kickoffs, one third of the Hester/Knox/Manning monster trio is gone, and with the NFL passing new rules to hopefully achieve their goal of making Canadian Football the number one sport in America, there probably won't be many actual returns this year. On punts, Devin Hester is being made into a starting wide receiver again, so after setting more records in a resurgent 2010, he'll probably spend 2011 calling for fair catches, fumbling, and being stopped for no gain. I wish they would finally understand that it's okay for him to mainly just be a returner, and stop trying to destroy something beuatiful. It's like the Bears somehow got their hands on the best Lamborghini ever, but then decided that what that car really needed was some fake stick-on Chrysler side-vents, bubbled-up do-it-yourself window tinting, some of those wheel covers from Walmart that stick a couple inches out over the tire to make it look like you've got giant rims when you've just got the factory ones, and a giant ICP Juggalo hatchetman decal covering the back windshield.

PROGNOSIS:

The defense stays roughly on the same high level, but the offense takes giant steps backwards from already being shitty. Last year was the year of dumb luck, with basically no one getting injured in enough to miss many games and the team even being handed one game, because of a dumb rule. Physics and laws of averages being as they are, and because God now knows that Smith and Angelo are firmly in place and loves to see me suffer, that won't happen this year. The NFC North is a division where the Lions suddenly get more out of each passing draft than the Bears get out of a decade of drafts, the Vikings still have most of the pieces in place of what was supposed to be a Super Bowl favorite last year, now with a less washed-up quarterback, and the Packers are an unstoppable force of a defending champ that embarassed the Bears twice in one month, and that gets back everyone who got hurt in 2010. It's hard times, and the hurting never stops.

6-10, fourth place in the division, and the Bears probably end up trading what would have been a decent 2012 first-round pick for something stupid.

Redskins 1-2 Positives/Negatives Metasciences Week Three Recap

The first two weeks, you could kind of tell this team wasn’t really showing what it might or might not be. That seems to be normal for the NFL of the year 2010. They are angling to add two more regular season games, supposedly to make them count and not just more meaningless exhibition games, but it seems to me the first couple weeks of the year are throwaways nowadays with the NFL.
Anyways, going into this game, I did not feel very good, to be honest. It seemed like the exact type of game the Redskins of the Dan Snyder era would lose. I mean, if the Redskins were a legitimate bad ass football team, this is the type of game you roll in, knock a motherfucker out, lay your dick across his forehead, take a picture of it, and have it on the world wide webkins by midnight. Of course, the Redskins are not a bad ass team. If they were gonna win it, they were gonna bumble and stumble their way into a second W in September.
They came out and did not look good at all. At all. It was a painful game to watch, first off because they played so terribly, but secondly because you knew how it was gonna end from the very beginning when they spotted the Rams a 14-point lead. And then they fulfilled that fear that had been holding my positive/negative feelings stable after they sort of backed their way into beating Dallas, and then showed some firepower on offense but also lack of will power on defense against Houston last weekend. The defense got punked at home last week, and were again punked this week. It was an ugly and bestial punking, where basically the Rams decided that even a third string halfback was gonna plow his way through the Redskins defensive front.
And when you have shown to be a pliant defense, plus after the brief flurry of offensive decentness, you got exposed at the end of the Rams game as susceptible to pressure through a hodgepodge offensive line, which in turns causes Donovan McNabb to be Donovan McNabb, well, with the next three weeks involving a trip to Philly then back to Jack Kent Cooke Stadium to host the Packers and the Colts, October is not looking too promising a time to be a Redskins fan.
Nonetheless, here are the positives/negatives metasciences scale for this game. I dropped it from 5-up/2-down two notches to 3-up/4-down, and honestly, it was kinda hard to really enthusiastically write positive things about three separate people from tonight’s game. But I did it…
THIRD DEGREE POSITIVE: LB Lorenzo Alexander. Caused the fumble on the kickoff return that helped the Skins think they were back in this in the first half, and just generally is a special teams monster plus can actually cover on defense at the outside LB positions. He does everything that is asked of him, and frankly, with some of the defensive primadonnas on this team, it’s something they could use a whole lot fucking more of.
SECOND DEGREE POSITIVE: DE Phillip Daniels. Homie had kinda been buried amidst all the Haynesworth drama, but he had a couple of monster plays in the Rams game. Honestly, I don’t even know some of these defensive dudes, like the Carriker guy and Phillip Buchanon. Not that I don’t know them as NFL players, but they are new to this team and do not have a Redskins identity. You cannot be distrustful of this enough as a Redskins fan during the Dan Snyder era. It’s good to see Daniels, a dude who’s been here for a long ass minute and actually almost gave up the game but came back for one more year, getting some shine. And those arms! Good lord, he looks like a prison nightmare.
FIRST DEGREE POSITIVE: RB Ryan Torain. Nice to see somebody who wasn’t prominent five years ago in the backfield. I do not look down upon Clinton Portis at all, and he actually looked good today. But Torain looked good too, and he’s got far less tread on his tires, and that’s the fucking point of having more than one RB in the modern NFL year of 2010. I’m not exactly sure why the Redskins have not noticed that trend.
STAY MEDIUM DEGREE: LB Brian Orakpo. Dude is a monster, and gets held galore during your average game. But he’s got to take the jump to that otha level of the game, as Bushwick Bill would say, and be able to bust through a hold and paralyze a skill position player in a different colored jersey. He’ll get there, but damn, it can’t happen fast enough, as 8-year-old Sam Bradford was left to just stand around sometimes until he could make himself look like a ten-year pro. I want somebody to start fucking sacking somebody.
FIRST DEGREE NEGATIVE: CB Carlos Rogers. You know what? I am sick of some fucking Carlos Rogers. The butterfingers, the always tending to be around the play when someone just made a 15-yard gain on 3rd and 13, and just generally not being anything near the top 10 draft pick he was. He could probably be a competent nickelback or maybe still a second corner on a team, but when he was brought in to D.C., he was supposed to be more than just a role player. (Side note: the on-field return and common sensibility of S Kareem Moore definitely helped his secondary brethren look stupider. I guess if I'm lucky, before I die, the Redskins will actually, you know, draft a whole secondary's worth of guys like Moore.)
SECOND DEGREE NEGATIVE: DT Albert Haynesworth. For a guy who is supposedly dominant, and doesn’t even play the entire game, he sure gets blown off the line a lot of times. He is constantly pushed out of position, and the refs just straight up let him go offsides a couple times against the Rams, almost like, “Hey, go do something, make a highlight for this game!” And he still didn’t do shit.
THIRD DEGREE NEGATIVE: CB DeAngelo Hall. If you talk mad shit after last week’s game about how you are a shutdown corner and want to be covering the best receiver any other team has to offer, you should probably not fall onto your ass during a must-need 3rd down shutdown play in the 4th quarter on a simple quick WR screen and watch the dude run past you for a 30 yard gain. Fuck you DeAngelo Hall.
FOURTH DEGREE NEGATIVE: T Stephon Heyer. When this dude came into the league as an undrafted free agent out of Maryland back whenever he did that, and filled a reserve role on the standard piecemeal Redskins offensive line, that was cool. It made you feel good. Guys like that fight for a spot on the team and get a shot to live the NFL dream. But usually, after four years, you have a good idea of where they stand. They either claw their way into a solid spot on the O-line, or they move on. Heyer, for as good a dude as he seems to be, should move on. He’s not gonna be a quality starter, much less a dominant player, and we should probably be spending time developing young dudes with more upside. I mean, we’re already into this season, so it’s a mute point now, because we are what we are. But still, you don’t not roll out a guy like Stephon Heyer as your left tackle when the wonderkid Trent Williams is too gimpy after two games to go in this one. Also, I reserve the right to rescind all this ranting on Heyer is somehow Dexter Manley, who Heyer looks like a little bit now that he shaved off his dreads, took the kid under his wing and used cocaine and white whores to turn him into a super-tackle, full of wacky quotes and puppet sidekicks.
In closing, we are fucked. If we are 3-5 at midseason, we should be happy because that means something or someone has shown signs of improvement. I do not know how you can patch together a better psychological outlook for this team before next week’s game at Philly. They’ll probably have McNabb’s head on a stake by the end of the game in the 700 level, and be raping Redskins cheerleaders before sunset.

Season-to-date totals: LB London Fletcher (+9), LB Brian Orakpo (+8), S Laron Landry (+5), TE Chris Cooley (+5), WR Anthony Armstrong (+4), RB Clinton Portis (+4), LB Lorenzo Alexander (+3), K Graham Gano (+3), GM Bruce Allen (+3), DE Phillip Daniels (+2), WR Santana Moss (+2), head coach Mike Shanahan (+1), QB Donovan McNabb (+1), RB Ryan Torain (+1), T Trent Williams (even), fan Raven Mack (-1), WR Malcolm Kelly (-1), P Josh Bidwell (-2), owner Dan Snyder (-2), CB DeAngelo Hall (-3), DT Albert Haynesworth (-3), CB Carlos Rogers (-3), T Stephon Heyer (-4).

2010 WEEK MINUS THREE: Discouragement.

IT BEGINS.

(Also, why is Josh Beekman headed the other way? Did he leave the oven on or something?)

So. A week or so ago, it was time to just cancel the season because of the Bears' terrible offensive line. They paved the way for absolutely no running game and the crucifixion of Caleb Hanie, and shit was awful. But you know, that first game wasn't a normal situation. Ron Rivera is the defensive coordinator there, and if you've forgotten, he had the same job with the Bears before Lovie Smith went all retardo on us and fired him and any other worthwhile coach we had at the time, so he could hire random dudes he used to hang out with instead. Well, I guess this stuck in Rivera's craw pretty bad, because instead of the normal "just keep it simple and don't show anything that can be used against us in game films during the real season" defense that the preseason normally has, that fucker cried havoc and blitzed the shit out of a team that was determined to stay vanilla regardless. So I'm willing now to allow for the possibility that the Chargers game was a fluke. And in Saturday's imaginary home opener against the Raiders, I got a burst of hope and a ray of sunshine into my world when Matt Forte busted out with an 89-yard touchdown run.

And then, Chris Williams gave up four sacks.

He gave up four sacks. In two quarters. To Kamerion Wimbley, of all people, a man whose main claim to fame right now is that he somehow managed to be disappointing for three years in Cleveland, a football town so downtrodden that a player simply making it to the huddle without tripping over his own feet fills the crowd with hope for their new future All-Pro. And you know, if it was anyone other than Williams, it would be almost okay. I mean, Olin Kreutz is a hundred years old, Roberto Garza and Lance Louis probably wouldn't end up on most other teams' final rosters, and Frank Omiyale is just lucky to not have died last season in a bizarre incident where he missed his block so hard that it broke his own neck and killed him on the field. But Williams was supposed to be the dude, probably the only lineman I had any hope for this year. The first round pick, the Chosen One, the dude who wiped out Jared Allen in that second Vikings game last year. And now, he's giving up four sacks in one half of one game to a dude who only had six and a half in sixteen full games last year. And I know, preseason is meaningless, but Jesus, it's not like the coaches go, "hey Chris, just let 'em go by a few times, so they'll think you're soft when the real games start." This is a severe problem, and dark times are ahead if Holmes can't get it together. For the love of God, don't make me have to watch Todd Collins start a game this year.

OTHER CRAP:

Matt Forte - That dude had an 89-yard run, and according to the Bears radio dude, that would have been the longest regular-season run in Bears history. So even with the non-help he's been getting up front, I'm actually hopeful that he's returned to '08 form, or maybe even better, and things might not be so awful as the were last year. But shit, if I'm gonna be optimistic, I'm gonna go all the way with it. Check it - Right now, Forte is averaging 12.9 yards per carry. What's that you say? Most of his yards came on one run? Well, SHUT UP. Shut your dirty mouth, little man. I'm not going to dress you down anymore, out of respect for your father. We're done. But yeah, 12.9 yards per carry. Seriously. So think about this: He ran the ball 258 times last year, and that means that at his current pace, he's set to rush for over three-thousand yards this season alone. I have seen the future, and his name is Matt Forte.

And he's come back to our time to kill John Connor.

Dan LeFevour - Jesus Flipping Shit, this dude is like my ultimate terror of the 2010 season. Because there is an ever-so-slight chance that this dude will make the team, and with a five-man version of the Three Stooges up front blocking, (maybe a bad example, as the traditional Stooge lineup with Shemp and both Joes added would probably kind of own) there's a pretty good chance that he'd actually get on the field at some point, once Jay Cutler, Caleb Hanie, and scrap-heap pickup Todd Collins all had too many bones sticking through their skin to keep playing. But this guy LeFevour, man, this guy right here is terrible, and if he keeps getting any worse, he'll be the first NFL player to ever have more incomplete passes than total pass attempts. Terrible. But I guess it is somehow encouraging that Jerry Angelo's small-school total reach draft picks are happening in later rounds now. But even after only wasting a sixth-round pick on this dude, it is pretty disappointing, after months of hearing how this dude was just like Tim Tebow, but without the hype since he didn't go to Florida or whatever.
And man, on the subject of that guy, I'm still not completely sold on the idea of him as this complete golden boy, doe-eyed Christ-child-in-cleats that they picture him as. Because what with every other sports blog besides this one being staffed by thirty-six year-old virgins, the entire internet filled up with pictures of that dude's girlfriend when her existence became known, and for real, nobody as pure of heart and clean of mind as that dude supposedly is would have a ladyfriend who had been that heavily implanted. There ain't nobody who ever had a plastic surgeon on speed dial that ever waited until marriage, so that means one of two things: Either Tim Tebow isn't the Christian Soldier he's supposed to be, and we're just counting down the days until his underground baby-prostitute ring gets exposed, or he really is that saintly, and one of these days, that harlot is going to break his heart. His pure, innocent, big, meaty, delicious heart.
But yeah, anyway, Dan LeFevour sucks bad enough that it made me feel good about the team picking up Todd Collins. Roll that around in your head for a while.

Julius Peppers - Ohhhhhh shiiiiiitttt, son. All offseason, we've been hearing coaches, teammates and team insiders (whatever that means) going on and on about this dude being pretty much unstoppable, and you had to take that with a grain of salt, since he was usually going up against dudes who back up dudes who make up what might be the league's worst offensive line. But Saturday, against actual starters for an actual NFL team that might be seriously contending for second or third place in their division, he looked like this might be the an extremly rare case of a Bears' offseason power move not ending in bitter disappointment. I know, getting my hopes up will jinx the shit out everything, but god dammit, I am pretty much dying to be positive about this potential disaster of a year, at this point. So I am fully throwing my support behind Julius Peppers and his ongoing war against quarterbacks, running backs, the weak, and all else who oppose him. For although His wrath is terrible, it is all we can do to stand behind our cruel master, lest it be directed at us. Because the path of the nonbeliever is the path of pain, and indeed pain shall be the purification of all who oppose His might. For He is the Überklaw, and this world and all its spoils shall soon belong to Him. ALL HAIL ÜBERKLAW! ALL HAIL ÜBERKLAW! ALL HAIL ÜBERKLAW!

2010 WEEK MINUS FOUR: The Sky is Falling!

O NOES

After the first game of the exhibition season, it's important to keep things in perspective. Offenses and defenses aren't going to be showing all their best material, the players that really matter are barely going to see the field, and in the end, the outcome of a preseason game is absolutely meaningless. Remember, the 1985 Bears team that won the Super Bowl, had a defense that was almost as good at the 1986 Bears, and came within one Mercury Morris voodoo curse of going undefeated only won one preseason game that year. (I totally looked that up, because one thing we believe in here is quality.) But since this is the internet, I'm legally required to overreact to things, so: oh holy shit, the sky is falling, the future is in ruins, and nothing surrounds us but endless fire. But for reals, here were some observations I got from watching parts of the game through shady illegal internet means, listening to other parts through perfectly legal (but still free~$) internet means, and just sort of gleaning the rest from shit people who know more than I do have written about the parts that I missed:

OFFENSIVE LINE: Oh man, not good. The running game went absolutely nowhere but occasionally backward, and Bear quarterbacks were running for their lives all night. This team is hurting pretty bad from their policy of waiting until the later rounds of the draft to look at offensive linemen and their free-agency policy of just signing other teams' shitty castoffs who were cast off after their old team had signed another team's shitty castoffs to replace them. (Whew.) In the end, you've got an o-line mostly made up of would-be disposable "camp body" type players - throwaway draft picks and barely-on-the-practice-squad rejects. And behind the starters, there's no depth at all, made all the more scary by the fact that at least three of the current starters shouldn't be counted on for much more than backup depth in the first place. (And of those, Frank Omiyale is mostly just useful for making sure the bench doesn't seesaw and tip over when another 300-pounder sits on the opposite end)
So unless magical fairy line coach Mike Tice can revert Olin Kreutz and Roberto Garza to the year 2006 and polish turds like Omiyale and Lance Louis into viable NFL players by early September, this year is going to be ugly. We could be seeing some awful Passion of the Cutler shit this year, with poor Jay just flogged and beaten for about six weeks, until he's finally nailed to a piece of wood and jabbed in the side with Jared Allen's frog-giggin' stick, dying a bloody, horrible, mopey, surly death.

QUARTERBACK: You know, I'm honestly not too worried about Jay Cutler, aside from the "being physically murdered by opposing, unblocked players" thing. A lot of people already declared the sky to be in mid-fall around interception #20 last year, but for some reason, I have more of a peaceful easy feeling about the starting quarterback position than at any time in the past, really. Because some weird misfire in my brain truly believes that he'll thrive in the new Ron Turner-free offense, and shit, even with all those picks last year, he still probably had one of the top five all-time seasons by a Bear quarterback. Which is sad, but hey, it's better than normal.
But if the line can't get their shit together, and Cutler is to be made a human sacrifice, we are fuuuuuuuuuucked. The Bears have already paid for the San Diego game with the most precious blood of backup Caleb Hanie, and if he's not ready to go for the season opener, it's gonna be a really tense-ass time watching Cutler absorb all those hits with nothing behind him.
We've already released Fire Marshall Brett Basanez and cut/waived/injury-settled/whatever camp arm Mike Teel, so all that leaves is rookie Dan LeFevour, and god damn, that is a dude who does not presently belong in the NFL. And without much left to choose from in free agency, by Week Six, I could seriously be watching some bullshit like Josh McCown hitting opposing safeties right between the numbers or JaMarcus Russell having to be hoisted into his Rascal Scooter with a crane to get his fat ass off the field in time for the punting unit to come out, all wheezing into the oxygen mask in between sips of his "special grape Gatorade" or whatever. God, Allah, Vishnu, Xenu, Zeus, Odin, or whoever else is out there, please watch over and protect Jay, so I don't have to suffer through that shit all year. Jesus.

WIDE RECEIVER: Hey, you know, it's gonna be alright this year, man. It's gonna be allllriiiiiight. Johnny Knox looked like the real thing, like in those movies where there's a scene where a bunch of horses are running, and the one good-guy horse the movie is based on is all running faster than the others, to the point where it almost looks like everyone else isn't moving at all, but it's clear that they really are running, and that the good guy horse is just making it look like they're standing still, because the good-guy horse is AMAZING. What I'm trying to say is that Johnny Knox is like a good-guy movie horse, because he was born free, free as the wind. Meanwhile, Devin Aromashodu continued last year's practice of making everyone on Earth wonder why Devin Hester has been anointed the Chosen Devin. The news wasn't all good, though; Juaquin Iglesias is seemingly ahead of schedule on his two-year plan to not play pro football anymore, and none of the other WR6 hopefuls did anything special. But between Knox, the two Devins, and Earl Bennett, you've got four dudes I could live with as starters, and Rashied Davis doesn't seem as bad lately as he's been since I stupidly started talking him up as a "dude to watch" two years ago.
I just hope the Bear fan base at large never finds out about the existence of no-hope practice squad dude Zeke Markshausen, though, because in a town diabolically obsessed with slow, bad, white wide receivers, I'm sure they'd go abso-fucking-lutely nuts over one who has such an unstoppably white name as "Zeke Markshausen." Like the only whiter name that I could think of would be some absolute nonsense, like "Whitey Hitler" or something.

SAFETY: Oh man, Major Wright is awesome, and he actually knows how to tackle dudes, which is something that's been missing here since Mike Brown's body turned against him, and he's... hurt. And so is Craig Steltz. And Josh Bullocks... Aaaaand Danieal Manning, too. I guess I shouldn't panic too hard here, since Wright and Steltz should be back in time for the regular season, Manning is as bad at playing safety as he is good at returning kickoffs, and Bullocks was pretty much a dead man walking as soon as Wright got drafted. But man, this is the Chicago Bears. Minor injuries are never minor on this team. Tommie Harris has only had "minor" injuries for the past few awful seasons, Matt Forte's terrible 2009 season was caused by injuries too minor to appear on the injury report, and Neal Anderson's career fell apart after a pulled hamstring. For all I know, by Week Ten, one of these dudes could be stone-ass dead from complications following an ankle-taping. Man, what I typed that now, and it ends up really happening? I should just stop, so no one else gets doomed.

NEXT TIME: More gnashing of teeth after something bad probably happens against the Raiders.