I miss Derrick Rose...

The Bears are mediocre, plain and simple.  J-Cutty and Forte are stuck playing behind a line that could maybe play for a Division 1-AA contender.  House of Spears and his buddies were applying pressure and forcing J-Cutty to run for his life on what seemed like every passing down.  Their defense completely outclassed the Bears' front five.  Running between the tackles was out of the question.  J-Cutty played a hell of a game, imagine what he could have done if he didn't have large men chasing him out of the pocket everytime.  Injuries-shminjuries.  Even if the Bear Jew played, Gabe wouldn't have made much of the a difference.  Frank Omiyale should not be on an NFL roster.  Devin Hester is not a real WR.  He made one difficult catch, but missed an easy catch that would have put the Bears at the Lions' 5-yd line.  Stick to kick returns you hack.  The Bears' pass rush is non-existent.  The secondary is pitiful.  Jahvid Best had not rushed for more than 75 yards in a single game of his career.  He had a TD run of 80 yards alone.  Chris Harris came back from injury and spent most of his comeback getting burned.  Sometimes I wish the didn't lift the NFL lockout.  Can't sell the Lions short though.  Megatron is an impossible cover and Suh is a beast.  The Lions are good and the Bears deserve to be where they are.  That is, drowning in mediocrity thanks to Jerry Angelo and his incompetence as a GM.  Bears fans should protest the Bears management like those hippies on Wall Street.  They are the 1% that believe Jerry should still have a job.  #OccupyHallasHall

In other news, David Stern officially cancelled the first 2 weeks of the NBA season.  BOOOO.  Unlike the NFL lockout, NBA owners lost money last year and are prepared to cancel the whole season unless there are changes in revenue sharing and player contracts.  The owners believe that once the players start missing paychecks their tune will change and they will cave.  The players believe they deserve more money and are unyielding in their stance that they do.  The fans go to the arenas to watch the players play, not to watch the owners own.  They aren't settling for anything less than 53% of the revenue even though the owners just offered them an even 50-50 split.  Who's right in this situation?  No one really.  Is it Rashard Lewis' fault that the Magic were dumb enough to offer him a bloated $120M contract even though he wasn't worth it?  What was he supposed to say? "Listen Otis. Thanks for the offer, but I think you're over-valuing me a bit.  I'm fine with half of that"
 No of course not, but there should be something in the new CBA that will hinder a GM's stupidity of offering horrible contracts. 

The NBA's popularity will take a huge hit.  After years of being on the back burner among casual sports fans, the 2010-2011 NBA season was one of the best in terms of popularity.  Between the surge of new likeable talent (DRose, Durantula, TheBlakeShow, etc.), the drama of Miami Heat's successes and failures, the emergence of small market teams (OKC & Memphis), and the renascence of large market teams (Chicago and NY), the popularity of the NBA was at an all time high since the Jordan years.

As much as I'm excited to watch college bball and IU's incoming talented white boy class (read: overrated), the NBA is far more entertaining.  Hearing about billionaires and millionaires fighting over money is ridiculous.  However, I don't think they're gonna come to an agreement anytime soon.

COMMIT TO THE CHIEF!!!!

Does It Really Matter that Theo is the GM?

While this is not totally official, I have to question how great a move this is. I mean seriously, Theo what are you thinking. This team is a disaster zone. There is almost no hope for this team to be a contender in the near future. You are going to need to replace everyone but Starlin Castro.  Newsflash Cubs Fans : Darwin Barney is Ryan Theriot, but worse.   Is Theo coming to the Cubs exciting. Hell yes is it is, but the dude is just not going to be able to turn this thing around overnight because this team is just not even close to good.   Okay now that I just ranted about that, here is a list of things Theo needs to do immediately.
1.) Fire Mike Quade: I got no qualms with Mike but he is just in over his head.  Guy has sacrificed developing youth for two straight years to try and get a job and then save his job.  Get him out. Bring in Tito or some other person.  Might as well trade for Paul Konerko and make him player manager like Kenny Williams almost did.  It really could not be any worse than this year was.
2.) Start Fresh : Starlin Castro is your team.  Every other position needs to addressed, especially since we may need to trade our entire farm system for your magical fairy dust.  God Dawg
3.) Ummmmmm. Fire everyone....Im talking everyone. Except for Robert the Beer vendor in section 202. 
4.) Try and get the Cubs to relocate for a year, tear down Wrigley and rebuild a new stadium.  It is Loserville, USA.   Convince Jiminy Ricketts to do this and you will have a ship in the next 5 years.
5.) Pray....Only God can help you now Theo.

I'M BAAAAAAAAAACK.....

After coming to the realization that the NBA will be probably missing games this season, I entered a slight state of depression. The dog days of summer were true to the name. The White Sox were uninteresting (until they chose Robin Ventura be be the new manager), Tiger did absolutely nothing since The Masters, and the Bears offensive line woes have continued into this season. To make it even worse, the Lions are good and the pack are better than last year. To top it all off, Adidas continues to tease me with an awesome commercial of Derrick Rose slaloming through matadors like they were the Pacers starting five. NBA blue balls.

Then it dawned on me. The Hawks are back. Johnny cakes, Duncs, Seebs, Sharpie, and Patty Kane have come back to save me from my Chicago sports doldrums. Watching a few of their preseason games, they looked okay. I think they finished 2-5, but doesn't mean squat. Our big boys didn't play until the last 3 games and Sharpie has been sitting out recovering from getting his appendix removed. Kaner had wrist surgery in the off season but it looks like he's fully recovered from that. In an attempt to bolster the team down the middle, Coach Q decided to play Kaner at center with Hossa and newly acquired Andrew Brunette. Captain Serious spent his summer drinking and going to Cubs games with various blond bombshells. Probably gonna come back this year and win the Hart trophy anyway. Duncs wants his Norris trophy back. The hawks will definitly need him to come back in 2010 shape to make another deep run in the playoffs. Nick Leddy hopefully took strides to get better this off season. And we already know what we're getting in Hjalmarsson and Seebs. Steve Montador and Andrew O'Donnell were two older skatesmen picked up to help bolster the blue line. The season starts off tonight with a home-and-home with the Stars. Davy Bolland and Ben Smith are unavailable due to injury. Kinda hurts because Ben Smith brought the hurt last year in the playoffs against the CanSucks as a rook. But two rookies made an impact this preseason and should be key for the team this year. The two Brandons, Saad and Pirri, look like they can hang with the big boys.

Some predictions, Hawks will win their division Duh. The Wings lost Brian Rafalski and Lidstrom is even older than he is. The blues are better than advertised and the preds finally won their first playoff series last year. But the Hawks will still most definitely take it down. I think Bobby Luongo still take the number one seed in the west, followed by the hawks with the number two overall. Hawks take down the West against the Sharks. Look out for the Kings. They were good before, but after trading for Mike Richards, they definitely got scarier. Hawks v. Pens in the Stanley cup finals, it's time to bring the cup back to Chicago. Thank god because their are no other sports going on worth watching.

Sincerely,
Ling Ling the NHL panda