About last night

So last night was the annual Fantasy Football Draft at my brother's house. If you've never done that before, it basically centers around spending thirty bucks to regret the decisions you made on that night for about five months or so. It was a strange and savage affair, defined by gluttony and unnecessary shouting and made all the more brutal when my brother decided that this was Serious Business and straight booted one team out of the league for not being able to attend, reminiscent of all those times where a new head coach cuts or suspends some established star, because goddammit I AM THE SHERIFF. Anyway, by merit of being the one sitting closest to it, I was the guy who had to man the big board that listed everyone's picks, and this pretty much derailed any hopes of a decent draft for me, as all the time normal people spent agonizing over their next pick was spent by me searching through sheets of laser-printed labels for the one with Chaz Schillens's name on it. So if anyone asks why I drafted Devin Hester while Felix Jones was still on the board, (or at all, for that matter...) there you go. To add insult to the injury of having Justin Fargas as my only insurance again inevitable Week Three injuries to Ronnie Brown and Brian Westbrook, I've had Butt Trouble ever since, possibly as a result of eating about seventeen pounds of meat-based food that had been held at room temperature for longer than the recommended time.

But oh yeah, there was a preseason game happening, too.

THIS COULD BE DANGEROUS!

I can't really comment on what happened when the real players were in the game, because I wasn't there yet, but watching the backups in action was borderline horrifying. Watching Brett Basanez play quarterback in an NFL game was the closest I've ever come to watching a man drown right before my eyes. Things could not have ended well when the guy came out on the field with his googly eyes and seemingly lipless mouth all looking like an unburned and somehow more bizarre-looking Fire Marshall Bill. In the end, he completed as many passes to the Bills as he did to the Bears, and if I was a betting man, I'd say that Brian Griese was receiving frantic phone calls and information on an impending flight to Chicago as I type this.

You rang?

Nobody else was quite so nightmarish, but for the most part, it wasn't any good at all. Johnny Knox dropped the living shit out of a pass that fluttered into the loving arms of Ellis Lankster, Devin Aromashodu made me seriously wonder that Darryl Drake only talks up bad wide receivers, and my only memory of Marcus Freeman is him getting absolutely worked by some ninth-string Bill. To add insult to injury, there was the first revelation that umpteenth-string wide receiver Eric Peterman is a Caucasian man, which means that Chicago Bears fans are going to spend the next month or so screaming for him to take Devin Hester's starting job.
On the other hand, rookie fullback Will Ta'ufo'ou looked pretty good from what I saw, but I'm not optimistic for his chances. If Jason McKie was ever going to be replaced, it would have happened years ago, and he;s kind of become one of those weird Rashied Davis types that will have a job with this team until Lovie Smith dies of old age. And as previously mentioned, ever since Van Tuinei was let go years ago, there's been a mysterious hard limit of one Pacific Islander on the roster, and Pisa Tinoisamoa has that spot locked down. Linebacker Kevin Malast also looked good, and got pretty much every tackle the Bears bothered to make, but he's in one of those positions where the Bears roll about thirteen deep, and he has about as much of a future on this team as I have in the goddamn space program. Also, safety Al Afalava has come out of goddamn nowhere to be the favorite to start at strong safety, which shoots my Samoan theory out of the water, so maybe Ta'ufo'ou has a shot after all. We'll see, I suppose.

Make us proud.

Cuts will probably start soon, and that's when I'll start eulogizing these poor bastards for real. I've been thinking of doing the usual position-by-position breakdown-style season preview, but that takes a long time, and I am lazy. So lazy.