The main course for the day: a super cool Bulls top ten list. ( link) * Also: Stompy has been posting here a bunch recently, so why no mention of the latest Favre biz? Just when you think you know somebody, right? Of course, I laid my Favre-hate on the line as soon as I started up this site (back when the current address was just a twinkle in Brian's eye) too, so I think it's time we do a half-assed recap of all the latest nonsense with a little help from our friends at Jayhouse. Sure, this probably deserves more attention, but it's 2:35 AM, I still have to write a post on the fantasy blog or Matt's going to kill me, and I just got back from a long day at work which culminated in some random dude running up behind me as I got off the L attempting to steal my ipod (luckily all he got was the headphones, which still sucks but whatev). Yeah, long day (Sympathy, please. Thanks.). So.... Days before the Jets' final game of the season against the Fins, Favre sez... ( link) "This very well could be my last game," Favre said. "I'm aware of that. I'd like to make it a memorable one."
And he goes out and.....throws three interceptions in a loss! Haha Favre, you suck! Jerk. So Favre single-handidly blows it and the Jets finish a disappointing 9-7 after dropping four of their last five. As you can tell, this is clearly all his fault. But people can't get mad at him, why, he's Brett Favre! Never insult an aging, washed up gunslinger. That is, I believe, the first rule of public relations in the NFL. Besides, at this point in his career, Brett Favre thinks he should be able to make as many stupid mistakes as possible without being held accountable. Uh, that's not how it worked though, apparently.With the Jets, however, the sources say that Favre has been called to
what they dub "the principal's office" and grilled about making bad
throws that turned into interceptions. Those same sources say this is
not just done in private. Mangini will also grill Favre about his
throws in front of the team, just like everybody else.
How dare Brett Favre - captain, quarterback, leader - be held to the same standards as everyone else. Who do you think you are, Eric Mangani? (Did we mention Favre cost Mangini his job? He did.) But I guess Mangini wasn't the only one who got fed up with good ole' #4. Our old friend Thomas Jones, whom you may remember used to be a fine runner for the Bears before his job was stripped from him and handed on a silver platter to one Cedric Benson, isn't down with all the backfooted recklessness either. "We're a team and we win together ... but at the same time, you can't
turn the ball over and expect to win ... The other day, the three
interceptions really hurt us. I mean, that's just reality. If I were to
sit here and say, 'Oh, man, it's okay,' that's not reality." ...
"If somebody is not playing well, they need to come out of the game ...
You're jeopardizing the whole team because you're having a bad day. To
me, that's not fair to everybody else. You're not the only one on the
team." ...
"You're playing to win, you're playing for the
Super Bowl. That's what you do all this work for ... So when you get to
the wire and somebody is just giving the game up, I mean, it's just not
(fair)."
And other teammates say.... The 39-year-old quarterback is not as welcome with his teammates,
according to this veteran. After the Jets traded for Favre Aug. 6, the
sure Hall of Famer made no effort to ingratiate himself with the
already assembled team, the veteran said. He said Favre spent most of
his down time at the practice facility in an office specially
designated for him near the equipment room, not with teammates in the
locker room, even after the media departed.
"He never
socialized with us, never went to dinner with anyone," the player said.
Asked to describe Favre in a word, he said: "Distant."
So Favre sucked hardcore with the season on the line, got his coach fired and, apparently, all of his teammates hate him. Good stuff. But can he continue to wreck havoc even with the season over? Of course.While the Jets hoped to woo Cowher with a boatload of money, the
marriage appeared to be unlikely from the outset. Sources close to
Cowher said he did not want to have Favre as his quarterback...
Bill Cowher is all that is man. In conclusion: Favre sucks. Just quit now, man. Now go read that top ten list, everyone.
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Sorry Shanoff, apparently Alabama isn't the second best team in the country...
Award Utah a fourth of the national title. This is not 2004 Utah, a
team that turned a fluffy schedule and a victory over a palsied Pitt
team into an undefeated season. Utah beat 5 ranked teams and
embarrassed the SEC West champion. They did not lose a game this
season. They had a defense that dealt out harm to all they faced and
boasted one of the more accurate quarterbacks in the nation. They beat
people with spread-option tactics executed with wishbone brutality. If you want more from a team, you're either unreasonable, a total
flaming asshole, or both. In lieu of a playoff, we have to resort to
fractions, and to be fair: one fraction is just as good as another. Therefore, the gold coin of the national title this year will be
delved out in pieces of eight. Utes, you get at least a quarter for
perfection achieved against quality. This may seem unfair, and it is,
but in this most imperfect of college football worlds, unfair desserts
are the only dish on the menu.
* Sometimes I'm glad I go to a weird art school instead of one with with Division I sports teams - or, even worse, a Big 10 school - because then I would almost certainly be forced to follow college sports for the rest of my life. Don't get me wrong, I think March Madness is the highlight of the sports year, but when you're so used to living and dying with every game/trade/draft pick of the Bears, Bulls, and Sox, sometimes it's nice to have a little distance. I think that's part of the reason I love the tournament so much: when you don't have a favorite team, you can't get hurt, so you just enjoy the games for what they are. I've always pulled for Illinois, but if they win or, eh, I don't really care. And college football....jesus. Could you imagine being a Utah fan this year? Or even a USC fan? It has to be fully maddening.
Tonight in college futbol: Ohio State gets embarrassed once again. Thursday: a national title game that I'm actually sort of jazzed up for. If there isn't over 90 combined points, consider me disappointed.
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Where do you guys get your sports info from? I would assume most would say ESPN, but that's not really the case for me. I'd say I get about 80 percent of my sports news from AOL Fanhouse, 10 percent from ESPN News, and the other 10 percent from everywhere else. I love Fanhouse (it's the first place I go every morning), which is why I was so dismayed when I logged on Sunday and saw this across the banner:  a) AOL Sports and Fanhouse are two different sites. If Mariotti writes on AOL, fine, whatever, no one reads that site anyways. But if he's at Fanhouse....yuck. That would be the worst. I guess by the time most people read this post, we'll have our answer since his first column will appear today. b) Jay's first column will supposedly address his Sun-Times departure, so that should be fun. I can say with absolute certainty that everyone at the paper hates his guts - not only are his sports opinions wack but he was also an insufferable douche to everyone there that had to deal with him. (Olsen, do you still have those old emails saved? I would love to post those here). c) Kevin raised a good question on SportsProse: I wonder if he'll accept comments on his Fanhouse article. He would
never let the Sun-Times attach reader comments to his articles.
I would think that if he's writing on Fanhouse, comments are inevitable. I guess that would be the one saving grace. While I was at work yesterday, one of the copy editors was talking about how he couldn't wait to rip him apart in the comments section. So yeah: we neeeeeed comments on these columns. That would just be too much fun. * Simmons is done but Stompy is still aliveCongrats on the 4-0 start there, brah. I was a crumby 1-3, but I made those picks in the midst of a four day bender, so I think they come with an asterisk on them or something. There are some sweet games next week (Giants-Eagles is the one I'd stay away from if I were actually gambling. That game is a fucking coin flip, in my opinion), and I guarantee I'll bounce back strong. I'm actually usually pretty good picking games against the spread - I don't gamble on sports anymore at all, but I've won a shitload of money in my life doing it - so I'm pinning that 1-3 record solely on substance abuse. (By the way, we need to come up with a name for what happened to me Sunday. I woke up at my buddy's apartment around noon, still absolutely hammered from the night before. There was no way I could have been able to drive a car at that point, I was completely, 100 percent still fucked up. I got dropped off at my apartment and proceeded to sleep until 3 when a phone call from my mother woke me up. And yeah: still drunk, somehow. So then I spent the rest of my Sunday going from drunk to hung over, which may actually be the worst thing in the entire world. What do you call it when you feel that transformation? It needs a name. You would have thought John Daly would have thought of one years ago. Also: should I be ashamed or proud of that story? I'm either an animal or a huge puss, but I can't decide which.) * White Sox things1. At this point, I can usually decide right away if a baseball rumor is b.s. or not immediately. And, thankfully, it appears this Gavin Floyd-for-Brian Roberts deal is just that, as I originally suspected. Sox Machine has a good breakdown of why it didn't make any sense anyways. 2. TradeRumors reported that the Giants are interested in reuniting Joe Crede with Aaron Rowand, which would certainly make SanFran my new favorite N.L. team. But if the Giants are only offering one-year, well, why wouldn't the Sox make a push to resign Crede? It has long been assumed that Crede's White Sox days are over, but if he's willing to take a one-year deal, hell, bring him back! * It's over already: this post by my boy (and former TTCS hero of the underground) Freddy is the best of 2009. Case closed. Fucking hysterical, Fred. One more thing: I haven't spent too much time with it yet, but I think I'm feeling the new ESPN dot com.
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After having some fun last year (and with Rickhouse clearly dead or something), there's no reason not to try and go 11-0 with some NFL playoff spread picks. But 4-0 has to happen first, and wild card weekend kicks it off. These picks were made in less than 10 seconds for each game. I pretty much used a template of instinct first with justification after. Can you mock the method? Sure. But after last year's 0-4, there is no room to regress.
CARDINALS (+1.5) over FalconsThe Cards don't deserve it, but one of the rookie QBs isn't coming out of the first round. I also think the Cards playing on their own field (not the fans/atmosphere, just the field), helps get the offense back into rhythm. CHARGERS (-1) over ColtsTeam Momentum vs. Team Momentum. Chargers have a weak home field advantage, but the Colts haven't really played a feisty contender since the last time they played, well, the Chargers. And while both squads have improved since then, San Diego probably took bigger strides. Your move, Manning. Sorry, MVPeyton. Eagles (-3) over VIKINGSEverybody's feelin' Philly. That's fine with me. That's not to say Adrian Peterson won't kill everything -- it's just that McNabb shouldn't have problems slinging the ball around against the Vikings D.
Ravens (-3) over DOLPHINSBeat 'em before, beat 'em again. The Ravens defense never fails to show up in playoff games. If you put the max capabilty of the Dolphins offense against an above average Ravens defensive performance, I say the Ravens still come out on top. * * * Bears stuff:- Please, please let Rod Marinelli come to the Bears. We need the good karma. Plus everyone's reaction would be priceless.
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So after a crazy Cubs game a few years ago where Cubs fans threw quarters at one of my cousins (a little girl), I vowed never to step into Wrigley Field unless the White Sox were playing. That is, until I came into free Winter Classic tickets on New Year's Eve. Our seats were on the third base line, eleven rows back, and damn, it was a spectacle. I've always loved the idea of outdoor hockey ever since last year's snow game in Buffalo gave America yet another justification to purchase HD televisions. The thing looked great in New York. And as much as it killed me that our Winter Classic was going to be hosted at Wrigley Field, the thought that kept hitting me over and over as I sat in my seats in awe of the environment was "It had to be here." No question about it. Sure, the Cell is a better baseball stadium. And yeah, Soldier Field has a bigger capacity. But at Wrigley, the whole thing felt so... Chicago. I think I just liked the idea of everybody -- Sox, Bears, Cubs, whatever -- trekking up to the north side to cheer on a mutual team. In a city with such divided baseball lines, you'll likely never see such city-wide unity in Wrigley ever again. The top moment from today was the singing of the national anthem. After an always fun rendition of "O Canada," the stadium launched into one of the loudest, most frenzied "Star Spangled Banner" performances I've ever heard. While Hawks fans are known for their rowdiness during the normally reserved song, the whole crowd really took it up another notch today. I could barley hear the singer. And though I'm sure many would consider it disrespectful, the whole thing felt undeniably patriotic. By now, I hope you know how the game went. If not, the Redwings took it 6-4 after the Blackhawks were leading 3-1 in the 2nd period. So that sucked. But as much as I would have loved to see the Blackhawks win, I think a loss today was almost for the better. Seriously, if the Hawks took the game today, you'd get all these fluff story lines and angles about how the Hawks had their coming out party/put the Redwings on notice/were the new team to beat/fill in your own blank here. In all reality, the Redwings are the defending champs, and until the Blackhawks outlast them in the playoffs, no regular season game is going to change anything. Sure, a win would have been amazing, but let's let the rest of the season play out and then find out if it means anything. So, let's just take away one lesson from today's game, and it's not something we needed a box score to figure out: hockey is excellent outdoors. Random thoughts: - Whole lotta "De-troit sucks" chants, but that's to be expected. - The weather wasn't all that bad. Little bit windy and in the 20s. Though I was wearing pretty much the same attire I had on from the Bears-Pack MNF game two weeks ago, so almost anything was going to feel warmer than that freezing bunch of awful. - Absolutely nothing was off topic for the Blackhawks fans when it came
to shit talking. Stirred whenever a Detroit fan would respond with
"Stan-ley Cup," to the "De-troit sucks" chants, Chicagoans stooped to
things like "You have no jobs!", "Bad economy!", and -- and I feel
awful having to repeat this -- "0-16!!!!" ... yes, even the Lions were
brought to the table. Just heartless. Never before had I seen a pairing
of numbers depress a fanbase so much before (besides, well, oh god, you
know... sigh: 18-1). - Two major middle finger moments from the Cubs/Wrigley Field... 1) Introducing Chicago sports legends before the game -- Blawkhawks like Bobby Hull, Savard, Mikita, and Esposito along with former Cubs Ferguson Jenkins, Ryne Sandberg, and Billy Williams. But no Bulls? No Bears? No Sox?! I like to think we protested it a little. I, along with a small portion of the stadium, booed the hell out of Ryne Sandberg until some old guy in my section got his panties in a bunch and argued you could only boo athletes if you truly believe you're better than them at their sport. Gotta love the Cubs logic. But seriously, the game needed Ozzie. Though knowing him, he'd spout of some quote
about how it'd be way too cold for him to be outside and that'd be that 2) Ryne Sandberg and some other no-championship winning buffoons singing a 7th inning stretch in the middle of (I believe) the third period. I just felt sick to be there. - The game featured two makeshift jumbotrons in right and left field. Would Wrigley be ten times better if they simply added jumbotrons and accepted modern advancements like electricity? To quote BDD, "hell and yes." - Pretty much every Redwings fan I saw/dealt with was pretty nice. They had the New York Yankee smugness about them -- you know, where they're so secure with their team's success and achievements that they don't even need to stoop to the level of the NHL's have-nots. Fair enough, you are the Stanley Cup champs. - They had these signs attached to our seats that we were supposed to hold up during the pre-game festivities. There were two colors on each side. The first was for "Stunt 1." While I'm not sure what it said -- I think something like "Winter Classic"... go figure -- "Stunt 2" spelled Redwings / Blackhawks throughout the lower deck. When the Hawks fans sitting in the left side of the lower deck saw the jumbotron and realized they were unwillingly taking part in creating the Redwings portion of the logo, they immediately tore up their signs and threw them. This caused the whole stadium to follow suit. - My buddy Tim (also a Sox fan) mistakenly went to the bathroom. Our exchange after he came back to the seats... Tim: It was awful, I forgot about the troughs. Me: Yeah, they're pretty sick. Tim: I was thinking about peeing in the sink, actually. Me: Why?! Tim: ...because what's the difference?  - A rowdy female Blackhawks fan in my section was just badgering this respectful female Redwings fan a few rows in front of her. Just dropping "bitch" after "bitch" after "bitch." Once the Redwings gal came to terms with the insults and started to ease up and tune her out, the Blackhawks chick dropped a loud c-bomb which sent the whole section into a hushed "damnnnnn." I even saw several shocked people shape their hands in the letter 'C' in front of their own faces like they were trying to reenact it or something. - After the game, multiple jokes were made about how Wrigley "cursed" the Blackhawks. Uh, yeah. - Though meaningless, the late Hawks goal with about 9 seconds left to make the game 6-4 was pretty nice. Always good to end in high spirits.
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First off, congrats to Condor for outlasting Mike from GP to claim the title in TUP NFL Pick Em champion. The prizes are in the mail, I assure you. I hear he's throwing a rather ragin' party tonight in honor of his big accomplishment.
The undercard: a Bears top ten list. I know you can't get enough. Main Event: after the jump....
Continue reading "Saying goodbye to 2008" »
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Week 17 of the NFL season was enough to resurrect the ghost of TUP's least run regular feature In 2006, the Pats and Bears were eliminated from the playoffs within a span of about 24 hours. I remember thinking it was probably the worst I'd ever feel as an NFL fan. Then in the next two seasons, the Bears and Pats both lost back-to-back Super Bowls. Seriously, though, yesterday was almost as bad as the last three years of suck. Both squads came into Week 17 with a chance to not only make the playoffs, but to win their respective divisions. Needless to say, neither did. The situations were polar opposites, really. The Pats took care of business in 75 mph wind. The Bears coughed up a winnable game in Houston. After losing, the Bears got several necessary breaks to make the playoffs. After winning, the Pats received no breaks of any kind. For those reasons and more, Week 17 is the target of this week's I Hate Everybody (dedicated to David Tyree). NFL Week 176) "Division" Champions/Undeserving Wild Cards: Four teams are in the playoffs who finished with a worse record than the Patriots. Still, it's not the BCS. So, while the NFL playoff selections were a bit off this year, I trust it to fall back in line in the coming seasons. Not like the BCS, which gets it right once every nine years or so. 5) The Bears' situation: I don't hate the team. I don't (really) hate the coaches. And while I fundamentally disagree on just about every decision he makes, I really don't hate Jerry Angelo. I love the flashes Brandon Lloyd has shown, Danieal Manning's athletic potential, the development of Devin Hester, and even Kyle Orton's surprising progression. But it's the situation, man. Last year's team ranged from bad to mediocre. This year's team ranged from mediocre to slightly above average. Nowhere in the last two years will you see the words "good" or "great," because, simply, those descriptions were nowhere to be found. With 2009 already on a lot of people's minds, there's not a whole not the team can do to remedy the situation. While I've heard some ideas I can get behind, nothing major can be done to give fans realistic hope of an elite team next year. The only truly optimistic thing you can say is "Well, the Bears were supposed to be a bottom feeder this year, and they were decent. So, maybe in 2009, if we expect them to be decent, maybe they'll develop into something great and surprise us." Yeah, maybe. 4) Jacksonville Jaguars: Way to suck. People picked you to win the Super Bowl. You beat the Steelers in the playoffs last year. Tell me, what the hell happened?! Thanks for beating the Ravens, guys. You're like the Bears -- probably/maybe good coaches, unarguable talent scattered throughout the roster, and mass confusion with whatever results you end up producing. 3) Houston Texans: When the Texans lost to the Colts in the Week 5 Sage Rosenfels "Helicopter Spin" game, I felt awful for them. But watching Schaub and Andre Johnson torch the Bears' secondary, I longed to see them lose again -- no matter how embarrassing it was for the fans and franchise. I wanted flames, explosions, and above all else, failure. Didn't happen. (But how unbelievably awesome was Steve Slaton? He looks like he's going to be incredible for a very, very long time. Though, part of me will never forgive him for leaving Pat White behind at West Virgina this year.) 2) Jets fans: I had a buddy attend the Jets-Dolphins game yesterday. Between the boos, people leaving early (during a competitive last game of the season!), and the general idiocy, I ended up asking: what was the deal with the "Let's go Dolphins!" chants I heard in the Meadowlands? "Yeah, it was Dolphins fans cheering at first, but when the crowd saw the score of the Ravens game, the Jets fans joined in with the Dolphins fans to cheer against the Patriots." Jets fans, this is we're you're at: cheering against your team, at your home stadium, to rally against the Pats. Oh, to be inferior. The worst part is realizing Bears fans would probably do the same thing if they were playing the Vikings and it meant the Packers wouldn't go to the playoffs. The general negativity I experienced during the MNF Bears-Pack game last week was unbelievable.
1) Brett Favre's predictable failure: We've covered you here. I think, when the dust finally settled at the conclusion of Week 17, Brett Lorenzo Favre finally ran out of ways to screw me over. It's now time for him to retire, absolutely forever. Most of the points were hit by Shanoff this morning: What a fitting ending to Brett Favre's "comeback" and, hopefully, his career: A ridiculously stupid pick to seal the loss for the Jets, with the Fins' margin of victory equal to a classic Favre pick-6 that he threw earlier in the game. (Yeah, sure: Keep blaming Favre's shoulder.)
Did anybody see Favre's awful forward lateral during the second-to-last play of the Jets game? Wow. You can go home now, Brett. My favorite Favre related comment I heard all day was on Mike Reiss' Pats blog. Something like, "It's time to cremate the corpse of Brett Favre." And sorry, LaMont Jordan. Brett Favre may not be as great as the media makes him out to be. There is a silver lining. Rickhouse was 100% correct: Brett Favre's eventual end in the NFL was absolutely glorious. Saving face in Week 17: While I'm no Cowboy hater, that Eagles-Cowboys game was pretty hilarious. Also, I pretty much enjoy watching anything Darren Sproles does.
Solidifying my position on Week 17: The Arizona Cardinals will host a home playoff game. Random picture I came across while google-ing stuff for this post: When on earth did the Dunge write a childrens book?! How did I miss this?!  Bonus Google pic:  * * *
Later this week... A look at who Bears fans -- or fans of any eliminated team, really -- can consider rooting for in the playoffs.
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Despite our preseason predictions, this season was nothing but frustrating as a Bears fan. Sure, a 9-7 record doesn't look too bad, especially when I doubted they'd win more than five games 17 weeks ago, but that doesn't change the fact that the Bears just weren't very good this year. Really, they weren't any different from a lot of teams: how much is there really separating the Cowboys, Eagles, Vikings, Bucs, Falcons, and Cardinals from our Bears? The NFC as a whole this year was incredibly uninspiring (even the Giants don't look so tough with Plax), but in a wild final week that left a playoff spot up for grabs, the Bears couldn't get it done.  As has been the case for much of this season, the final game against the Texans was pure, absolute torture to watch. We all spend so much time watching and thinking about these games, but truthfully, watching them is anything but an enjoyable viewing experience. That's not to say the Bears owe the fans a great season every year, because of course they don't - and hey, it could be worse - but it doesn't change the fact that sitting through a Bears game takes a ton of self discipline. I normally don't get as high or low as a lot of sports fans get, but the Bears still have that effect on me. I always wonder if I didn't have this site (or the 852 others) if I would even bother watching or, more appropriately, caring. Outside of a handful of seasons during my life, watching the Bears sort of sucks. 2008 was obviously no different. The Texans final, excruciating touchdown drive seemed to sum up the Bears' season perfectly. Houston marched all over the Bears' once proud defense, but the Bears finally buckled down in the red zone. When Steve Slaton scored the season was over, but a holding penalty gave the Bears another chance. Slaton fumbled on the next play, the Bears recovered, and it looked like they had new life in the fourth quarter, down just a touchdown. But the call got reversed, Houston regained possession, and all it did was prolong the torture. If nothing else, at least the Bears were good this year at fending off disappointment as long as possible. Now the question becomes: how do the Bears fix this mess? It actually may not take much tinkering given the state of the conference, but I doubt anyone has faith in the Angelo-Lovie regime at this point. While everyone else probabably thinks the Bears should start over, I'm fine with giving this crew one more chance. But if Lovie and the coordinators get axed this offseason - which is unlikely - I'd be totally cool with it. The first thing the Bears need to realize is something that may already be too late to change: it's time for the Bears to stop rewarding their own defense. They have so much cap space tied in guys like Ogunleye, Vasher, and Urlacher when they have proved they can find suitable replacements on defense through mid-round draft picks. Since they can't draft offense, isn't that where the majority of the cap space should be allocated? The defense is the reason the Bears aren't a playoff team this year - they're paid to be great though they barely qualified as good - but the offense is what needs work this offseason. I still don't know if Orton is the man at quarterback, and it's a real shame his contract is up now, not after next season. I suspect he'll be back, but it better be with improved weapons. Do the Bears really need their first round draft pick this year? If there is a quality veteran receiver that can be pried away with the draft choice, I'd say now is the time to go for it. The Bears offensive problems this year were two fold: the receivers couldn't create any separation and Orton couldn't fit it into tight places (OMG, LOL!). Somehow that's going to have to change next year. Everyone knows the Bears have always had shitty quarterbacks, but maybe it's because they haven't had a legit receiver since Marcus Robinson. We saw today that a great receiver can make an average quarterback look good enough. Of course it's not easy to get someone like Andre Johnson, but it also wont' be hard for the Bears to find someone to improve arguably the worst group of pass catchers in the league. Really, I'm just glad this season is over because I couldn't take this shit anymore. I need a break from the Bears, and since football's offseason is eternal, we'll all have enough time to recharge our batteries. I am a little disappointed, however, that the Bears blew my chance to see every Chicago team make the playoffs and get killed in the first round in 2008. I was looking forward to it.
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Check out my apathetic review of last night's Bears game on Full Court Press, where I'll be covering for Roman all week. Also, John Sickles posted his top 20 White Sox prospects, if you're into that sort of thing.
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There could be some serious parallels forming here between the 2008 White Sox and these Bears. Both got f'd up in seemingly do-or-die division road games, where, wouldn't you know it, the Metrodome played a central role. The Twins of course went on to lose two of three to the Royals the next series, and now the Vikings, if nothing else, have at least given the Bears a ray of hope. I'm probably getting way too ahead of myself here, especially since the Giants, Minnesota's next opponent, could be in serious 'nothing to play for' mode next week. But hey, whatever. That's not going to stop me from doing the Dirty Bird all night (I spent a solid five minutes looking for a good YouTube clip of Jamal Anderson doing the dance and found nothing), and being thankful that this Packers game at least means something. Sports suck when nothing is on the line (preseason games are unwatchable to me), so it's good that that won't be the case tonight. Now I can get all pumped up for a Monday night home game against my least favorite team in sports. That's always fun. Here's what I'm looking for out of the Bears tonight: one crazy, game changing play. After all, that's how the Sox did it against Detroit in the makeup game against Fred-X Garcia, when Che slammed the Sox to game 163 and proceeded to pull of a Rocky III awkward man hug with Konerko that would make Bill Simmons blush. So what could happen in tonight's Bears game that would be on par with that? Why, the answer is simple: Hester taking one to the hiz-ouse. If that happens, start making plans for a playoff party. Tarvaris Jackson wouldn't stand a chance next week. It does kind of suck that it has come to scoreboard watching, but if it means making the playoffs, I'm totally down with it. Anyways, the Falcons owed the Bears that one yesterday. If not for that goddamn squid kick earlier this year, the Bears wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place. Will I feel like I cheated the sports fan system if the Sox and Bears both make the playoffs because of epic collapses by another team? Sure, a little, though I still don't think this is half as bad as John Paxson landing Derrick Rose. Like that moron deserved him. * Man oh man, the Blackhawks are good. Seven wins in a row, and now just five points behind the Red Wings in the division, with the mind blowing Winter Classic looming. That game is going to be beyond sweet, but I just have one small problem with it: why the hell does it start at noon? Not everything played at Wrigley needs to be a day game, people. I'd just like a few hours more recovery time, is that too much to ask NBC? * I know I said recently that I'd add some music thoughts on Mondays, and luckily I've been on a hot streak finding sweet new music recently. I've always been a huge Rage fan, but even if you're not, go check out Tom Morello's solo act, The Nightwatchman. There are some super, super good jams on his two albums. * I don't have live scoring, so I'm not 100 percent positive yet, but I think I just claimed my first ever fantasy football championship. More on that tomorrow. * Two more quick things: a) After Sunday, anyone who disagrees with Stompy about the four-season climate is out of their mind. Honestly, I think yesterday was the coldest it has has ever been in my 21 years of existence. When I was walking to work and wind would whip around the big tall buildings? Completely unbearable. b) Just because he's been waiting his entire career to write it, I think Chuck Klosterman's review of Chinese Democracy deserves a link.
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