Why Do I Like the Chicago Bears This Week?

I.

Always.

Like.

THE.

Chicago.

Bears.

An 18-Week Sidney Lumet Syllabus

This season, I’m trying something different. Instead of using this space to randomly comment on culture, there will be a recurring theme: the work of Sidney Lumet. Lumet is one of America’s most prolific cinematic artists, and yet is dramatically underrepresented by the critical and academic communities. My long-term mission is to remedy that injustice, and I’ll be using this space to work through concepts, notes, etc.

There’s a poetry to this decision, as well. Lumet was born in 1924, making this his centennial. As my book on Lumet is still years from reaching the desk of a publisher, I’m thrilled to celebrate his 100th birthday right here on this little old blog Noah and I started two decades ago.

Below you’ll find the syllabus. Why am I publishing this? Because if you’re interested in taking a “class” on Lumet, this is your opportunity. There are fourteen films listed and each of them is rentable on one platform or another for a few bucks. If you want a thorough appreciation of a great filmmaker, and also to understand what we do in the Cinema Studies world, I welcome you to watch the films each week and follow along. And any questions you might have along the way, simply email me: jeff@dabearsblog.com.

Week 2: Lumet and The Group Theater

Week 3: Early Television Aesthetics and 12 Angry Men

Week 4: Stage Adaptations

Week 5: The Pawnbroker and Post-War Memory

Week 6: Fail Safe and the Cold War

Week 7: The Sean Connery Collaborations, or Lumet Abroad

Week 8: Serpico, Prince of the City, and the Police

Week 9: Dog Day Afternoon

Week 10: Network and Auteur Theory

Week 11: New York City in The Wiz

Week 12: The Verdict

Week 13: Garbo Talks in the Middle of Ronald Reagan

Week 14: Sins of the Father: Daniel, Running on Empty, and Family Business

Week 15: Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead and Post-9/11 New York

Week 16: The Legacy of Lumet’s Seminal Book, Making Movies

Week 17: Final Thoughts and Bibliography

Three Thoughts on the Titans

• Tennessee had arguably the strangest offseason is the NFL. They fired their well-respected coach and looked poised to enter a rebuilding period. They did not. Instead, they were one of the most active teams in free agency, bringing in a collection of expensive veterans and role players. After all of those moves, the Titans still find themselves, according to DraftKings Sportsbook, with the longest odds to win the NFC South at 10-1. (For comparison, the Colts are the third favorite at about 3.5-1.)

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Labor Day weekend.

Accepted end of summer.

But dawn of football.

Ready be hurt,

and squander my emotions,

I choose to believe.

Division eludes,

but the victories do not.

Eleven of them.

Join Robert and I for our Twitter Spaces Season Preview.

Saturday August 31st.

1 PM ET.

We’re taking your questions!

There is a selflessness to being a sports fan.

For a few hours each week, I allow my emotional existence to be impacted by a collection of individuals with whom I have zero personal connection. They don’t know me. They don’t care about me. To paraphrase a great Jerry Seinfeld bit, the only thing linking us is the laundry the fellas wear.

But emotions are only involved when there are expectations, and it’s been five years since I’ve had any expectations when it comes to the Chicago Bears. After sitting in the building and watching Cody Parkey shank away the 2018 season, Noah and I drowned our grief at the Lou Malnati’s bar. There was immense sadness, but that sadness was accompanied by hope. 2018 was a site to build upon, and 2019 would be the erection of a championship tower. I predicted the 2019 Bears to go to the Super Bowl, but Mitch Trubisky had other plans. (Those plans, it would turn out, were that he would play the quarterback position badly.)

Ryan Poles made two moves over this last week, trading for a pair of defensive linemen in Darrell Taylor and Chris Williams. To the outside observer, these would be considered minor moves, depth moves, backend of the roster stuff. But they struck me, symbolically, as the moves of a GM who thinks his roster is close to competing for a title. And I happen to think he’s right. The 2024 Bears have a terrific defense and the best collection of “skill” players in organization history. This is a team that should win double-digit games and be in the tournament come January. And one has to look no further than last year’s NFC playoffs to understand that every team in the tournament has a prime opportunity to play on the final Sunday.

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I took a twenty-year sabbatical from the world of fantasy football, returning in 2022 and stunning the fantasy world with a third place finish that season in the Thomas H. Bowden league. (The league is named after one of our original members who passed on 9/11.)

In 2023, my expectation rose, and my draft haul of Tyreek Hill, Davonte Adams, Deebo Samuel and Michael Pittman suggested those expectations would be met. But this is a keeper league. And I kept Justin Fields. I also took an earlyish-round shot on a tight end I thought was going to have a monster year: Darren Waller. I finished in third place once again, but most of that was luck.

Other than listening to The Fantasy Footballers podcast – a delightful show I make part of my daily NFL season routine – I do zero research before the draft. But I’m still asked to discuss the Bears on fantasy podcasts around the country. This year, the Bears are fantasy relevant, and those requests have tripled. (My acceptance rate has not.) Here are some thoughts I have shared.

D’Andre Swift is being under drafted.

Most platforms have Swift being taken as the RB22-25, behind the likes of Rhamondre Stevenson, Najee Harris and Aaron Jones. But there are three reasons I’m targeting Swift.

(1) The Bears did. This was a player the franchise identified and acquired extremely early in free agency and for good reason. He is going to be a focal point of this offense.

(2) Preseason usage. One screen. 50 yards. No snaps since. If the Bears are planning to platoon Swift and Herbert evenly, they sure aren’t suggesting that with their summer snaps.

(3) Receiving game. Shane Waldron’s two backs in Seattle last year – Walker and Charbonnet – caught 62 balls for 468 yards. And neither of those backs presents the threat in the passing game that Swift does.

Another Back I Love: Isiah Pacheco. It has been a long time since Andy Reid has fielded a proper three-down back and I think Pacheco is destined for that kind of season.

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Nobody is playing.

My analysis of the lifeless, tedious, horrifyingly boring first episode of Hard Knocks was met with Twitter outrage! Why? Because a lot of sports fans are children. “HOW DARE YOU NOT LIKE THE TV SHOW ABOUT THE TEAM I LIKE!!” So let’s see how many followers we can lose this week (and then gain back in the following days).

• Just saw the trailer for “The Penguin.” Is Tim Burton’s version of Penguin the only version where the character is actually a penguin?
• Owens talking about Simone Biles is already more compelling than anything in the first episode.
• Man, Liev is starting to sound old. It makes me sad.
• “Going clubbing? Got the fishnet on!” Caleb is a special personality.
• With Caleb and Rome, the Bears could have a marketable duo for a decade.
• No chance Liev didn’t crack up when he saw the transition from Velus discussing his pet ferret to using ferret as a verb.
• Why is there a neon Miller sign in the meeting room?
• The episode has slowed dramatically. Nothing going on. These episodes should really be 30 minutes.
• I can’t imagine being less interested in anything than this Museum of Ice Cream sequence.
• ”Soft serve” reference by Liev. Not good.
• Favorite moment. DJ Moore getting tackled in Bills game and screaming, “I love football!”
• Problem with the program is they’re forced to focus on Velus and Austin Reed because there just isn’t much drama to be found elsewhere.

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8:56 PM ET. Full disclosure: I am deeply regretting the commitment I made to review these episodes. I don’t even want to watch them. But I do love a Liev Schreiber voiceover. For me, he stands with Peter Coyote as our finest documentary voiceover artists. (Coyote does many of the epic Ken Burns films.)

8:59 PM ET. How many of these Game of Thrones series need to exist? I watched a few episodes of this latest one and it’s just people arguing in old timey conference rooms about tactics. Boring as boring can be.

9:03 PM ET. Blues Brothers music…already. This is going to be a tough watch.

9:05 PM ET. Liev sounds a bit weathered. The depth of his vocal is missing. Not happy about this.

9:06 PM ET. I guess Cole Kmet is not a draw for White Sox fans. What was the attendance that day? 11?

9:06 PM ET. Eberflus: “Winning doesn’t make you a winner.” I disagree, Matt. I believe that’s the only requirement.

9:08 PM ET. They are MILKING the first ten minutes of this episode. They can’t have much.

9:12 PM ET. Caleb couldn’t sing. “You don’t have to be able to carry a tune, to carry a team,” Liev says. This show is written by children.

9:16 PM ET. Very excited about the Harris/Walz ticket. Walz seems a genuinely good dude who’ll connect with the union/rural voter that Dems have lost to the Trump types over the last eight years.

9:17 PM ET. If they knew Saban was going to be there this week (episode) they should have made the entire thing about him. Let him host the episode. He’s a compelling figure.

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