By Jim Coffman

When Detroit defensive back Kenoy Kennedy embarked on an ill-advised interception return (instead of just taking a touchback, he left the end zone and was almost immediately tackled well inside the 10) during Sunday’s first half, my cousin Carmen noted reassuringly “There’s the Lions being the Lions.”
That used to be such a satisfying put-down. But it’s officially out the window, at least around here. On the other hand I would imagine fans of the visiting team were having a grand old time identifying all those “Bears being Bears” sequences during Sunday’s debacle.

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Posted on October 29, 2007

By Eric Emery

Philly exhibited their two-minute “statue defense” and allowed the Bears to rally last week. To their credit, the Bears showed heart in the closing seconds of the game. Now at 3-4, the Bears are at the dreaded crossroads. Two Chicago teams met at that same crossroads earlier this year: the White Sox and the Cubs. One team went on to fail in mythic proportions. The other team went on a huge winning streak and then hung on for dear life until it failed in mythic proportions.
So the question is: Are this year’s Bears the Cubs or the White Sox? Let’s take a look.
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Cubs:
* Team starts out losing with wrong personnel; lineup changes lead the way to victory.
* Mike Brown equals Mark Prior. You know why.
* Bernard Berrian equals Michael Barrett. Neither can catch anymore.
* Kyle Orton equals Glendon Rusch. Just because.
* Cedric Benson equals Steve Trachsel. Both are too slow to the target.

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Posted on October 26, 2007

By Eric Emery

Perhaps the most ridiculous commercial today is the Career Builder spot where they liken the office environment to a jungle. Office work must really that bad all over to give that commercial such wide appeal. Funny, then, how they’re trying to get you a job at one of them.
And if you’re in an office pool – or just talk ball at work – the ignorant beasts really start buzzing about. Let’s take a look at the various types who probably work in your office.
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Monkey
Identifying the Monkey: It’s the co-worker who jumps across the NFL landscape flinging poo about your team. Probably watched 30 minutes of ESPN to learn just enough to make fun of you.
Shutting up the Monkey: Tell him “I know you heard that from Chris Berman. He’s funnier than you, and Berman is not that funny.”
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Tiger
Identifying the Tiger: It’s the co-worker who lays in weeds quietly until lashing out at an inopportune time with a lame joke about Tank Johnson and Ben Roethlisberger meeting at a traffic accident.
Shutting up the Tiger: Fight fire with fire. Return with “Oh, were you the guy that had to chopper out?”

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Posted on October 25, 2007

By Eric Emery

During last week’s Bears game, one Fox broadcaster compared the Bears running game this year against last year’s after five games. The commentator surmised the Bears will be fine since in both instances, the Bears showed little success running the ball! He was right to a point, though – the point where you ignore the strength of schedule through five games, the play at quarterback (remember when Sexy Rexy was Very Sexy?), and the quality of defensive play and what that meant for both field position and the actual score.
At the end of the day, the only one statistic matters: Your team scores more points than the other team. But if you’re a Bears fan, you are frantically reading tea leaves and forever breaking the Bears down to miscroscopic levels. We’ll help out.
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Key Stat: The Bears are fourth-place in the NFC North.
Significance: There are only four teams in the NFC North.
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Key Stat: The Bears are fourth in the NFC in the statistic “worst record”.
Significance: The Bears are in ninth-place in the wild-card race.
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Key Stat: The Bears rank 20th in points-scored at 19.7/game.
Significance: Imagine if Devin Hester was not ridiculous.

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Posted on October 19, 2007

By Tom Latourette

You loved “Please Stop Believing” – though you didn’t heed our warning. Now see what the 2007 Cubs have wrought: “99 Years of Cubs Losses.”

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Also posted at YouTube for your embedding needs.
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And that’s not all!

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Posted on October 18, 2007

By Eric Emery

Like any sporting endeavor, the NFL has winners and losers. These days, the Bears are losers – enough so that the sports guys on Channel 5 the other night reverted to asking if the Bears were who we thought they were. When you start to live up to one of the most infamous loser rants of all time, you know you’re on your way to Loserville. Who else resides there?
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1242 Loser Lane: Mike Ditka
Why: Continued high profile only magnifies how he fumbled away a dynasty after one Super Bowl and then set back both Ricky Williams and the New Orleans Saints for a number of painful years. And his dick doesn’t work.
How He Can Become a Winner: Choke Chris Berman to death.

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Posted on October 18, 2007

By Julia Gray

1. Plaxico Burress.
I’d like to think that Mrs. Burress was a big fan of that dental mouthwash, Plax. Then she realized maybe just the name Plax would basically guarantee her son a lifetime of wedgies and dunce caps. So, she played around with prefixes and suffixes. Kerplax? Nope, sounds too much like a laxative. Herplax? Good God no. Sounds like a mutant form of herpes. Plaxman? Nah. Sounds like an alien porn star and not a future wide receiver for the New York Giants. After playing around with Scrabble letters and consulting several Ouija boards, they came up with Plaxico and the rest is history.
2. Coco Crisp.
The origins of this one are obvious. Or are they? Maybe it’s not about breakfast cereal at all. I heard his grandmother named him, so the story probably starts here. Either way, the Boston Red Sox now have one of the bestest named center fielders ever. And headline writers can’t get enough.

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Posted on October 16, 2007

By Eric Emery

If you want to feel stupid, watch an NFL pre-game show. Just before ESPN’s show zapped my will to live, I watched a segment that gave certain teams “First quarter grades,” now that most teams have completed a quarter of their regular season. My brain imploded under the weight of stupidity after Keyshawn Johnson handed out an “F+”. A little better than absolutely brutal? A bit greater than pathetic? A step above worthless? Is it that hard to choose between a D- and an F?
Speaking of which, here are my first-quarter grades for the Bears.
Offense: After a rough start, the Bears finally admitted their problem: They were spending too much time each week defending Rex Grossman and not enough time getting another third-rate quarterback ready for their next game. Now they have to get over their apparent enjoyment of watching Cedric Benson run up to the line and stop. Sometime this year, we’ll see Benson remove his mask to reveal that he is in fact Curtis Enis.
Grade: H (for Hopeless)

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Posted on October 12, 2007

By Eric Emery

While it’s true that last week I declared that the Bears still sucked, and I was (technically) wrong, at least I didn’t make the same error that Packers fans did. It’s one thing to deride a team before a game starts. It’s another to start in with the ugly chants when you’re up by 10 with six minutes left in the third quarter. That’s still plenty of game left – as the Bears showed, outscoring the Packers 20-3 from there on out. Oops.
The Cheeseheads at Lambeau oughta know better. You don’t talk about a no-hitter and you don’t go into your victory chant prematurely. If you do, you become what hip sports fans would call a goocher. I’m going to help you avoid that fate. Watch and learn.

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Posted on October 11, 2007

By Jerry Pritikin

Previously: From my dad’s promise in 1945 to Punky Brewster.
And after being interviewed at the Daley Plaza Cubs rally before the playoffs began, I was invited to appear on Channel 2’s morning news show once the team returned from Arizona. I asked if it was okay to make the following sign: HELP ME MAKE IT TO THE PROMISE LAND!
I went to bed the night before with the Cubs leading Game 2 2-0 and woke up with them down two games to none. I left my apartment before 4 a.m to make my appearance and decided to take the Red Line after calling to see how often they ran at that time. Every 15 minutes, the CTA said. But after waiting more than a half hour on the platform and seeing three trains go south, I rang up to the attendant and she calmly told me the trains weren’t running north. I would probably still be waiting if I didn’t ask. So I took a cab. That alone could ruin my reputation!
I brought a few of my signs, including one that I made in 1981: WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT.” I had a few minutes and they had video of me taken in 1984 with my life size voodoo doll and Tim Weigel interviewing Carmella and me at an Opener. So here we were again . . .

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Posted on October 10, 2007