BIGGEST GAME EVER!!!

On Sunday, Da Bears will play the BIGGEST game EVER to be played in the City of Chicago. Yes, I know the Superbowls that they've played in have been pretty BIG, but they weren't played IN Chicago. Unless Chicago starts hosting Superbowls in the future (which is certainly highly improbable) or there's a Chicago Subway Series that comes down to a Game 7 (again, both insanely improbable), there will never be a BIGGER game to be played. The setting couldn't be more perfect for a Bears fan. NFC Championship. Soldier Field. Wind chill below zero. Versus the Green Bay Packers. If you can't get excited about this game, then you flat out don't like football and you should probably just buy a deck of Old Maid cards.

In the last 20 years, the home team is 27-13 in Conference Championships (for both leagues of course). Folks, that's a winning percentage at a 67.5% clip. It's called home field advantage for a reason. Which brings me to my next point...

When Da Bears are on offense, and I CAN'T stress this ENOUGH, fans, please, SHUT the FRIGGING MOUTHS!!!

Da Bears are lucky to have such a loyal fanbase, but the fact of the matter is a good 90% of them are mouth-breathing meat-head drunkards, especially the ones who attend the games. They think that yelling at the top of their esophaguses during all points throughout the game is showing support. They couldn't be more wrong. I went to the game last week when they put a shellaking on the Seahawks, but a few times the fans grew louder when the offense was trying to convert a significant down, even as a few of the players on the field motioned for the crowd to quiet down. This isn't baseball dammit. The QB needs to hear the play being called in, the players need to hear the cadence calls on the field so that they can get into position at the correct time for the pre-snap shifts to create mismatches (a staple of the Mike Martz offensive designs), and so the O-line can determine their blocking assignments once they're at the line of scrimmage.

For all these reasons and much more, please be quiet when Da Bears have the ball. Even the jumbotrons say so dumb-dumbs. It's a home field advantage, not DISadvantage.

On a cooler note, in his own words following the game, Coach Smith said that he and his team hate the Packers. And rightfully so. You NEED to hate the opposition every week, especially now when they're trying to take away every thing that you've been working so hard to achieve....a chance at winning the Superbowl. You can hate them, but you still have to respect them. You can't go out there trying to hurt guys. This is still just a game and this is people's livelihood we're talking about.

There's a lot of talk and respect being given to the Packers for having 15 players on the Injured Reserved list, including six opening day starters. While that's all commendable and nice, they really haven't lost any KEY players. They still have Rodgers, Jennings, Mattews, Woodson, etc. They have all the players necessary to still play at a high level within the NFL, especially now in this league's Year of Parity. If it was Flynn under-center, then it would be a different story.

I know it's cliche, but Da Bears need to do what they do and play their game in order to beat the Pack. Play defense and create those turnovers, excell in the Special teams, and be efficient on offense. Martz needs to limit the five and seven step drops like he did on the run they went on after the bye-week.

Tape & Pine Tar:

The Blackhawks are turning the proverbial corner. They played the first thirty games on the schedule while lacking an identity. Consistency was non-existent, let alone obtainable. Patrick Sharp has been the closest thing to Blackhawks' consistency this year. While fourth in the league in goals with 25 and thirteenth in points with 44 (slightly adulterated by a -7 line for +/-) Sharp is the clear-cut MVP of this team. However, Corey Crawford could soon be nipping at his heels if he keeps slamming the door shut like he has the past few games. The hard-cap of the NHL and the savvy of Sharks GM Doug Wilson had a lot to do with Stanley Cup Ring-possessing Antti Niemi moving to San Jose; Crawford, who started the season as a mere back-up who has won over the starting job as well as the faith of the Blackhawks' fandom, has logged more ice-time and has a better save-percentage by .013% (.920 to .907). (The Blackhawk organization is lucky to have the front office that they do and we as a city are as well).


This week only, the Chicago Sports Fix radio show will be moved to Saurday January the 22nd at 2PM!! Tune in as we'll be discussing the win over the Seahawks, previewing Da Bears vs. the Pack as well as Pitt vs. NYJ, Blackhawks, Bulls, White Sox, and Cubs.


PREACH

Da Bears: 11-5 and the NFC's 2nd Seed

11-5 (It’s actually harder to blog about a team that has been playing well as opposed to a dumper of a team, but it’s certainly easier to enjoy watching them play)! Da Bears locked up the North Division Championship weeks ago, yet Lovie decided to treat the last game of the regular season versus long time rival Green Bay Packers like it was a playoff game. The reason for doing so was valid seeing as though they had a chance to deny the Packers a spot in the playoffs. So the game began and Lovie played all of his regular starters, which was fine. It could be strategic to put your best starters out there in order to beat a team now that you could possibly meet again in the playoffs; however, you must also keep in mind that whole injury factor. As the game wore on, you could easily tell that the decision to play all of the starters went from questionable to unconceivable.

Cutler was brought down a total of six gut-wrenching times and left six Cutler shaped dents in Lambeau Field. I understand that Da Bears were in the game the entire way, right up until their last drive when Cutler was picked-off for the second time, but that was just asking for trouble. Lovie played a quarterback who was sacked the most times, by far, in the NFL this season. Even if he did ride the bench for week 17, he STILL would have been the most sacked QB by six sacks. And let us not forget that Cutler had already missed one regular season game due to a concussion. Maybe Lovie has some sick personal future-wager that Cutler will be diagnosed with post-traumatic cephalopathy? Highly improbable, yet surprisingly appropriate. I’m kidding of course…but seriously. Lovie knows that if Cutler goes down the season is effectively over, right? I mean, he saw Todd Collins and Caleb Hanie run this offense before, right?

I admit that I was wrong and I’m extremely shocked and amazed that Da Bears even made it to the playoffs, let alone the second seed in the NFC. A lot of credit does go to the coaching staff. Whatever the Lovie-Marinelli tandem is doing is working for the defense. Julius Peppers is working for the defense. There’s been much talk in this blog about how Lovie’s one-gap scheme only works when there’s pressure up front allowing the other seven pairs of eyes to be on the ball. This allows the squad to swarm the ball and gives them more opportunities for turnovers, ya know, strip-tackles and such. (Da Bears had 33 takeaways this season, which gave them a +4 differential). The pressure should really be coming from the three-technique tackle (Harris or Toeina), but as this season proved, it can come from anywhere up-front and it’ll still be effective. Thank Peppers. The opponents game-plan for Peppers. Every blocking scheme revolves around Peppers. Stat-sheets aren’t everything folks, especially defensive football statistics. These aren’t sabermetrics. Football is a true team-sport.

I want to give the offensive side of the ball credit, but I’m not sure if I can. Yes, they certainly turned things around after the bye-week. Martz’s rush to pass play-calling ratio was essentially reciprocated and pounding the ball with Forte was working. But did Martz do this on his own or did Lovie realize that his neck was on the line and put a leash on Martz? There’s no way I believe Martz did this son his own merit, just look at what he did this past week, filling the air with footballs at almost a 2:1 ratio compared to the run. Da Bears were down a mere seven points in the third quarter, yet he opted to pass NINE consecutive plays! I hope that was just a result of Lovie loosening the slack on what was a short leash on what was basically a game which had no direct impact on Da Bears regardless of the outcome. I’d like to give some credit to O-line coach Mike Tice as the O-line started to get some of it together once they had a little continuity with the personnel, but then the O-line goes and has a game like this past week giving up six sacks on the franchise QB. A good amount of the sacks were a result of confusion at the line along with bad reads and blown assignments.

Congratulations to Da Bears on the whole, but the road to Dallas will be a rough one. Da Bears will face the either New Orleans, Seattle, or Philadelphia. (I think any way you slice it, it will be GB in the NFC Cahmpionship and hopefully it's Da Bears they're playing). It was a fun regular season and a huge turnaround since the circus press conference they held 366 days ago. GO BEARS!

ATTENTION: Tune in to the commencement of the Chicago Sports Fix radio show tomorrow January 7th from 6 to 8PM only on chicagolandsportsradio.com and listen every week same time same website!

PREACH

Monsters of the Mediocre

The Patriots came into Chicago on a short week, walked up behind the Bears, pantsed them, stepped on their britches while around their ankles, pushed them down into a full-fledged face plant, and straddled them while pointing and laughing and calling them the Monsters of the Mediocre. Things started out well after Da Bears won the toss, deferred the football, the Pats went three-and-out, and Hester returned the punt for 16 yards after reversing the field and getting a few blocks. But then Da bears ran the ball three times in a roll for their own three-and-out and the game pretty much ended for Da Bears at that point.

Brady and his offense decided that it was time to stop playing around. They vehemently attacked the Tampa 2 where it's vulnerable, in the middle of the field. Brady consistently and successfully dumped the ball to receivers just behind the linebackers in front of the safeties. Once this got Da Bears on their heals, BenJarvis Green-Ellis would run it down their throat at 4.1 yards-per-carry. At least three times throughout the game, Brady dumped it to a receiver for a first down, then BGE ran for a first down. It was tough to watch your team get dominated, yet fun to see how an offense should operate. On this particular drive, their second possession, after passing over the middle for a first and BGE running for a first in consecutive plays, Brady hit Welker on a 3rd and 10 for a 17 yard gain and then Branch for yet another 17 yarder. After Chris Harris missed a tackle on one play and then couldn't "negotiate the pigskin" (thanks Joniak) on a tipped pass by Urlacher in the endzone, Brady connected with TE Gronkowski for a 7-yard touchdown when he boxed-out Urlacher at the goal-line. Let's review. So that makes it an 85 yard drive, a drive that the Tampa 2 is designed to not let happen, in which Brady went 7-10 for 72 yards and a TD pass.

The weather was of no factor, for New England anyway...

On the ensuing kickoff Davis fumbled the rock, but (whew) Bennett, with the help of a small miracle, recovered it. But that's neither here nor there as Cutler was sacked in the series and again went three-and-out.

This led to another Brady dump over the middle to Welker, another BGE run for a first, a FB run on 3rd-and-1 for a first, a perfectly executed screen for a first, two runs for a first, another BGE run for a first, and finally capped off by a 3-yard Danny Woodhead run for a touchdown. Let's review once more. That's an 85-yard drive followed up by this 87-yard methodical march down the field unfazed by weather or any one the defenses Da Bears use (Tampa 2, cover 3, nickel, nickel-man, man). Embarrassing. The front four were nowhere to be found, especially the tackles. This was by far the best O-line they will face this year and it was evident on the field. And again, this defense doesn’t work if you can’t get pressure up the middle. The scary part was the first down the Pats were converting on third down. The 3rd and 10's, 8's, 12's. ALL DAY.

The "Bear Weather" myth has officially been busted and it only got worse. As a side note Da Bears are actually waaaaay below .500 in games that are played in freezing conditions.

Ensuing Bears drive... Knox gets strip-tackled and fumbles, this time it goes for a 35-yard Gary Guyton scoop-and-score. TWO NE TD'S IN 20 SECONDS! At this point the Pats have more touchdowns than Da Bears have first downs! WHAT?!? 21-0. Hawk Harrelson chimes in and says "This ballgame is OVA!"

At least Manning returned two kicks for 40+ yards, I guess.

Another NE strip-sack to make it first-and-goal on the 8. At least they held them to a field goal, I guess.

At this point the Pats were on a 100-3 point differential since the third quarter of their game on Thanksgiving thanks in part to their 24-0 rout of the Mediocre Monsters. It would be upped to 112-3 by time Da Bears finally scored a TD. And just when you thought the half was over, Brady hits a wide-open Branch for a 59-yard TD pass. Coverage breakdown, but at this point it doesn’t matter. NE first half possession breakdown: punt, TD, TD, FG, FG, TD. Butt whoopin’.

The dumps, draws, screens, play-action dumps continued into the night. Hester had a nice 64-yard punt return in the second half and just as I was going to praise Cutler who’s been running for his life for making completions with his feet and arm….he’s throws a pick in the red-zone. The O-line was exposed yet again on Sunday. They’ve been keeping it together for a few weeks, but they couldn’t so much as run-block when they actually had the advantage on a slick surface of knowing where the play was going and they still got blown up.

O, and you also can’t turn the ball over four times, duh.

The odd thing is, it was actually a GREAT day for Da Bears. The Packers lost to the….Lions? No way! OMFG! Yes, it’s true. I’d like to personally thank Aaron Rodgers for not utilizing the QB slide to protect himself and getting knocked out of the game after being concussed. I’m not saying I’m happy that he was concussed but….you know what I’m saying….So it was another divisional loss for the Pack, which obviously bodes well for Da Bears. It’s more complicated to say that Da Bears’ magic number is 2, it very may well be, but divisional and conference games need to be considered and it’s a bit of a mess that I’ll be happy to clear up for you after this week. The Pack lost their noon game and some folks thought that maybe Da Bears came out flat because they knew that this wasn’t a “must-win” game. Uh, NO. They didn’t come out flat, in fact they stopped NE on their first series, remember? They just got stomped on. It happens.

PREACH

Da Bears: Validity of Legitimacy

Da Bears have validation, sort of. Their defense certainly proved that it can contain one of, if not the most explosive player in football in Michael Vick. And I couldn’t be happier about it. Vick was all anybody talked about on television and radio starting on the Monday Night game when he posted video game stats against the Redskins. The MNF crew refused to get off his genitals and it turned out to be just another Monday Night game that I had to turn off because of the excrement spewing from their suck-holes. Da Bears holding off Vick and his posse of speed made it that much sweeter, but I digress.

The Cover 2 base that Da Bears use works best when the line gets penetration into the backfield and that’s what took place pretty much the whole afternoon. The rotating tackles did a great job caving the pocket and making Vick feel uncomfortable, yet not flushing him out of the pocket where he can also be dangerous. Each of the starting four linemen had at least half a sack. Tommie Harris created the turning point in the game when he put a paw on Vick’s pass in the red zone, which was picked-off by yet another Harris, Chris Harris. On Da Bears’ ensuing drive after Harris tipped it to Harris and Harris returned it to the 37, they drove down the field methodically. Cutler hit Knox for a nice gain and then Bennett for a 30 yard gain to make it the third 30+ yard play in the first half. The drive ended when Cutler did a great job freezing the safety by looking to the left of the field and then firing the ball to Bennett on an out-route to the right for a six yard touchdown pass. Folks, that’s a 14-point swing! That’s a huge difference from looking at going down six with under two minutes left in the half to being up by eight going into the third quarter.

The defense continued to get pressure from the front four, which of course helped the secondary. They did a tremendous job tackling. There wasn’t much miss-tackling going on and not much yards after the catch either. The defense wasn’t exactly perfect, 26 points against is a clear indication of imperfection. In fact, on two separate occasions, Vick overthrew a wide-open Brent Celek. Of course he finally connected with Celek in the end zone when he threw it 30 yards downfield through a space the size of a sheet of paper on 4th and 9 between three Bears defenders. But it was too little too late by then.

I’m surprised I haven’t heard Lovie say “We get off the bus running,” in his Southern drawl since that’s basically what they did in the month of November. Their run-to-pass ratio greatly increased. And guess what else? They went from being the second-to-worst in converting third downs to being the third best in the month of November as well. OMFG! I never thought I’d see the day, but somebody must have put OC Mike Martz in a sleeper-hold and made him run the ball more and make less 7-step drop play calls. AND IT’S WORKING. Da Bears shred a very good Eagles defense. They even dominated the time of possession in the third quarter with a 10:05 drive that resulted in a Gould field goal. Granted, the Eagles’ best player on that side of the ball, Asante Samuel, was on the injured list as well as their other starting cornerback, but Da Bears got the job done nonetheless. That’s all you can really ask of them. Well I suppose you could ask them to not get Cutler sacked four times in the first half, but he was only sacked once in the second half, which is nice.

Da Bears have been using the greatest show on bad turf to their advantage. There were two obvious plays where the field benefited the home team: the Urlacher sack when he also punched the ball out of Vick’s hands, but was recovered by the Eagles’ Anthony Adams and the Knox touchdown when the cornerback lost his footing near the goal line that left Johnny wide open at the near corner of the endzone. I’m glad the turf has become an advantage for Da Bears, but I hope it doesn’t lend reason for a player injury. The turf has been bad for years yet the park district continues to allow it to be a venue for concerts and soccer games amongst other events. The high school Prep Bowl game was even played on that very field the day before. THE DAY BEFORE! Yet other parks in Chicago have artificial surfaces for flag football! WHAT?!? Look, I like the grass too, but there are other options besides the slop that they play on now.

The bottom line is, this is a bottom line business and Da Bears are atop the North Division in the NFC at 8-3. I never thought that they would be at this point, but they are. They have proven their legitimacy in this glob of parity known as the NFL. Do I still have my doubts about Da Bears? Certainly. Do they have a shot at making the playoffs and making a run to the Super Bowl? Of course, but winning that Super Bowl….I still think it’s improbable. Go Bears.

PREACH

Special Teams is 1/3 of Football

We knew the Vikings were bad before they came into Soldier Field, but I was still pretty impressed with the play and execution by DA BEARS. People tend to forget that special teams is one-third of a football game. Da Bears dominated the men in purple in special teams. Even with one poor 32 yard line-drive punt by longtime team MVP Brad Maynard, the defense picked up the slack and held the Vikes to, well, nothing due to a missed field goal. It was certainly a total team effort, but Mr. Hester set the table a few times with 147 of the 179 return yards in a game of field position that Da Bears could have easily lost had he and the return teams not showed up to play. Hester even cleaned his own plate when he got into space on a crossing-route and scored an important touchdown (aren’t they all?).


The defense was good as usual, especially against the run where they absolutely shut down Adrian Peterson. They held the arguably best back in the NFL to 51 measly rushing yards. It all starts in the trenches and the D-line was getting good penetration throughout the game. This in turn helped the secondary. Sure they had that embarrassing breakdown on the Harvin TD pass, but Favre was picked off three times. Okay, the receivers slipped twice, but the defensive backs were still in the right spots to make those INT’s. Favre was trying to avoid pressure much of the day and once fumbled on a great hustle play by DE Melton who caught him from behind and swatted the ball away as he was taking old man Favre down. Emphasis on old. Lovie preaches and bleeds turnovers. The result of the game is why.

And look who else showed up to play, why it was the third-down offense that made its first appearance of the season. Da Bears converted 11 of 19 third downs, HOLY CRAP! It was nothing miraculous like 16 of 19, but for Da Bears it was quite impressive. Cutler made one inexcusable red-zone mistake, but it shouldn’t overshadow the dozen good decisions he made. I know some fans had bad ’09 Cutler flashbacks, but it was only one bad play. Martz wasn’t as predictable as he was in Buffalo and actually kept the Minnesota defense honest with good play-calling. He mixed it up with an end-around, draws, bubble-screens, and delivered the final blow with a brilliant play-action pass to Kellen Davis on third and inches from the Minnesota 19 that went for a touchdown. It seemingly slammed the door shut on the Vikings’ season, Childress’ job, and hopefully Favre’s career.

PREACH

They Are Who I Thought They Were!

The Bears are who I thought they were! As did everybody else who has even a little football sense. They lost to a team with inferior talent, with a coach in his first year with the team, who has lost 16 of their last 18 games on the road. The Seahawks came in to Soldier Field and had their way with the Bears. Oh, and Jay Cutler was back under center this week so the Collins/Hanie tandem can’t be used an excuse. It was pathetic and I had a hard time turning the game back on when I switched to a red-zone channel during commercials.

The Bears used its 4th different O-line in 6 weeks. Garza had his knee scoped, so Tice had no choice but to do some player shuffling. The Bears used the best players they have on the roster, which is fine. Unfortunately, the best linemen they had included the most idiotic. The Seahawks would run an inside stunt with the DE and I think Webb had a crush on him, either that or he was playing shadow because he just kept following him inside and they would blitz from the outside and Cutler was a sitting duck. Quack. Forte missed at least two blitz pick-ups as well. Quack Quack. Cutler gets sacked six more times after missing a week with a concussed head. I know it would be telling the defense that it’s a passing play, but Chester Taylor needs to be in there every passing play. At this point I just want my franchise QB upright and not on his back looking thru his ear-hole. The opposition knows that every play has about a 70% chance of being a passing play anyway, so might as well have your best protection scheme on the field. But hey, that would be logical so for the Bears it’s out of the question.

By the way, was Julius Peppers’ name called at all yesterday? Must have been one of those notorious weeks that he takes off even though he’s physically on the field. He should have had a field day with the nearly immobile Hasselback taking the snaps. Or if he was being double teamed and being chipped off the edge, where was Izzy on the other end who must have been 1-on-1? The defense can’t be this inconsistent. It was good at bending for a few weeks, but yesterday it broke.

PREACH

The Chicago White Sox: Who's to Blame?

12 games back on September 22nd and mathematically eliminated from the postseason (thumb pointing downwards while making a loud farting noise). I’ve heard some White Sox fans say “Well, they made a good run…”. Really? “Made a good run”? Yes, they had a few pretty good streaks like when they won seven straight a few weeks ago and they went on the 25-5 tear and that’s admirable. But like all businesses, baseball is a bottom-line business and the Chicago White Sox did not get it done this year. Statistically, all around, they were better than last year, just not by much. The pitching stats are almost identical to last year.


STAT  2010 / 2009

ERA 4.06 / 4.14

SO 1,024 (season not yet over) / 1,119

WHIP 1.356 / 1.351

BB/9    3.1 / 3.2

K/9      7.1 / 7.0



Offensively, they were slightly better than last year, but certainly not substantially.


STAT 2010 / 2009

AVG. .269 / .258

OBP   .332 / .329

SLUG. .411 / .426

OPS    .759 / .740

OPS+   102 / 91

wOBA  .333 / .325

RUNS  702 / 724

SB    144 / 113


I’m showing avg. only because people are still just use to it being a foundation for batting statistics, but that is rapidly changing. On-base percentage (OBP) is far and away a much more valuable statistic. As you can see, the avg. for this year was .011 better than last year, but the OBP was only .003 higher. The object of baseball is to score more runs than the other team, whether it takes nine innings or not. How do you score runs you might ask? Why, by getting on base, of course! You’re killing me Smalls! (If you haven’t seen the movie Sandlot yet, you’re not American and you hate apple pie). Another side note, if you love baseball (and America) as much as I do, then you MUST read Moneyball by Michael Lewis. I’m going to try not to butcher the explanation, but in his research for his book Lewis found that the Oakland A’s organization devised a logarithm to show that OBP is three times more valuable than slugging, three times! That’s redonkeylous, but Lewis breaks it down further in verbal terms. Let’s say in any given inning, the leadoff man launches a homerun and starts out the team’s slugging percentage for that inning at 4.000, but then the next three batters make consecutive outs, dropping the SLUG% from 4.000, to 3.000 to 2.000 to 1.000 for the inning. 1.000 isn’t bad, right? Well, what would be the result if the OBP for an inning was 1.000? How many runs would be scored? The answer is…an infinite amount! The half inning would never end! Players would just keep getting on base, never making any outs. Don’t like my explanation? Me neither, read the book. And while you’re at it, check out all the saber metric statistics provided for free on fangraphs.com and baseball-reference.com since Baseball Prospectus charges for their work. I’ll get to the point soon I swear. Then your eyes fall upon the SB number and you say to yourself, wow, the White Sox have close to 30 more stolen bases this year than last year and are second in the AL. Well, they also have 22 more caught stealing that last year too and lead the AL. You may say that that’s natural considering the spike in attempts, which is true; however, throughout the body of work of an entire season, in order to have a positive run value for stolen bases a team has to have a success rate of at least 70%. The Sox are hovering around 67%, so in their entirety, the stolen bases have in fact run the Sox out of more scoring situations and innings and have been more detrimental to the team than helpful. As the table shows, the White Sox are just about on pace to score the same amount of points as last year, even with all of the extra stolen bases. Of course the OBP is nearly indistinguishable from last year, yet there’s many more stolen bases and they’re still on pace to score the same amount of runs…

The White Sox have only made the playoffs once since winning the World Series in 2005, and they had their asses handed to them by the Rays after winning game 163 against none other than this year’s Central Division Champs, the Twins. The White Sox went 5-13 against the Twinkies this year, and were 30-39 versus the division. The Twins were 40-29 within the Central. I said months ago in this blog and on sportstownchicago.com that the White Sox had to win the division, thru the division. The numbers above tell the story.

So who’s to blame for this failure of a season? Well, Ozzie’s little DH-by-committee experience did not work, nay, it failed miserably. Kenny allowed Ozzie to have too much input in who should be on the roster, unless it was Jerry who told Kenny to give Ozzie the lineup flexibility that he wanted. Ozzie and Kenny have been a pretty good tandem throughout the years, one saving the other’s behind and vice versa, but things are coming to a head. There was another blow up between the two in August. It probably had to do with Kenny telling Ozzie that he had about enough of his NL-style of on field managing and that he was going to get a slugger in the lineup to try to salvage the season, not to mention that it was going to be somebody who can protect MVP candidate Paul Konerko. It seemed like a pretty significant slap to Ozzie’s face, but if I was in Kenny’s position, I would have smacked him with the same force. I think Ozzie did a great job this year, especially with the bullpen. He didn’t over-manage as much as he has in the past and like I expected him to do again this year. Unfortunately, his season-plan was a monumental failure.

Some of the blame also lands on the players, especially on the starting pitching. Yes, they pitched similarly to last year, but the point was to pitch BETTER than last year. The first month and a half they were awful. Then they turned it on for about two months. Then the big games arrived in August and September and they were hot for a while, and then they were really hot, but only because they wet themselves. Danks pitched well in a big game, in 2008. Floyd has no-hit stuff, inconsistently. Peavy is still looking for his latissimus dorsi. Sweaty Freddie wasn’t as sweaty as a Freddie could be sweaty because when you pitch well below the league’s fastball average you need the corners otherwise you get pounded. Buehrle was Buehrle with a full belly from eating innings. Jackson was an excellent pickup who has now proven twice that he can pitch in the AL. Don’t even say it was a bad deal since trading away Hudson with his 1.65 ERA and 0.89 WHIP in the weak NL West. If you don’t like the move, you’re Matt Spiegel’s “out of town stupid”.

So, it’s Jerry’s fault, by default. It’s Kenny’s fault for not trusting his gut and playing to his sandlot of a ballpark and jamming his lineup full of base-clogging sluggers who get on base 41% of the time they step into a batter’s box (Jim Thome). It’s Ozzie’s fault for the awful execution of making the lineup and wanting Mark Kotsay to get way more at-bats than he deserved. It’s the players’ fault for not playing up to their ability and not staying healthy. It’s Joe West’s fault, because I said so and this is my blog.


Tape & Pinetar:

The Bears are 2-0 and will be 2-1 before midnight Central Standard time on Monday evening. The question is exactly how well will they play against the Packers in that loss.

The Bulls have a shot at obtaining Carmelo Anthony if they give up Noah. Do it, now.

The Blackhawks are 6-1 to repeat a Stanley Cup Championship, yet they are not the favorite to win as the Washington Capitals are 5-1. (The Penguins are also 6-1).

PREACH