Today is the New York City Marathon, my favorite day all year in the city. Wishing good luck and congratulations to my friends who are running: Sione Butters, my brother-in-law (without a wedding) Rick Lerner, Regina McCarthy and Josie Woods owner Martin Sheil.
Looking forward to cheering you on along the route!
I always like the Chicago Bears.
And I’m finding it very easy to ignore all of the elements of this franchise that are not called Justin Fields.
Question #1. Can the Bears stop Najee Harris? A lot has been made about the lack of pass rush the last two weeks but the run defense has been just as bad. Fournette averaged 5.4 per carry. Ronald Jones averaged 6.3. Elijah Mitchell averaged 7.6. The Steelers have not been a particularly good run team but they stay committed to it; Harris is fourth in the league in attempts. If the Bears don’t improve dramatically in this department they’re going to get blown out.
Question #2. Can the Bears block T.J. Watt? We have this answer already, don’t we? Nick Bosa got Fields twice. Myles Garrett got him 11 times or something. The Bears don’t have the talent on the edge or the schematic prowess on the sideline to nullify elite edge rushers. Watt has game wrecker potential Monday night.
Question #3. How much can Justin Fields do? He doesn’t have time in the pocket. He doesn’t have receivers getting separation. Fields will have to be every bit of what he was against San Francisco (and then some) to keep the Bears competitive with Pittsburgh. (Which is sad, honestly, because Pittsburgh isn’t very good.) What does that mean? Probably another 75-yard plus output on the ground to keep the chains moving. Asking that from him weekly is a recipe for disaster.
Wilson’s “Century Cycle” – all set in the Hill District of Pittsburgh – is the greatest achievement in the history of the American theatre. He is a playwright and poet of the highest order; his characters stampede across the stage, driven by love and rage and mysticism and a desperate desire to simply survive.
The cycle is ten plays detailing the African American experience in this community over a century, with each play taking on a different decade. This is my ranking. If any of these plays are being staged near you, see it. (There are good film versions of Fences, Ma Rainey and Piano Lesson streaming but the experience simply isn’t the same. These are, at their very core, plays.)
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10. Radio Golf
Old Joe: That’s a nice pin you got there. That look like the flag. Nice colors. The Red White and Blue. We had a flag during the war. Company B Fourth Battalion. Fellow named Joe Mott carried the flag. He got shot in the head on the second of November 1942. He was betting against it but he lost. Lots of men died under that flag. That American flag was everywhere. Joe Mott carried it into battle but it was everywhere. In the mess hall. In the dance hall. We had a great big mess hall and they would bring the women in from the town and we’d have a great big old dance. You look up and there would be that flag hanging behind the bandstand. That flag was everywhere. You saw it in the morning when you woke up and you saw it at night before you went to bed. Sometimes you saw it in your sleep. When the time come and I saw Joe Mott fall with that flag…shot right through the head… bullet went in one end and come out the other…I don’t know where it went after that.
09. King Hedley II
King: Pernell stepped on me and I pulled his life out by the root. What does that make me? It don’t make me a big man.
08. Gem of the Ocean
Aunt Ester: You think you supposed to know everything. Life is a mystery. Don’t you know life is a mystery? I see you still trying to figure it out. It ain’t all for you to know. It’s all an adventure. That’s all life is. But you got to trust that adventure.
07. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Cutler: Slow Drag ain’t missed a stroke. The gal, she just look at her man with that sweet dizzy look in her eye. She ain’t about to stop! Folks was clearing out, ducking and hiding under tables, figuring there’s gonna be a fight. Slow Drag just looked over the gal’s shoulder at he man and said, “Mister, if you’d quit hollering and wait a minute . . . you’ll see I’m doing you a favor. I’m helping this gal win ten dollars so she can buy you a gold watch.” The man just stood there and looked at him, all the while stroking that knife.
06. The Piano Lesson
Berniece: Money can’t buy what that piano cost.
05. Two Trains Running
Holloway: Aunt Ester give you more than money. She make you right with yourself.
04. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
Bynum: When you grab hold to a woman, you got a whole world there.
03. Seven Guitars
Hedley: He would not call me King. He laughed to think a black man could be King. I did not want to lose my name, so I told him to call me the name my father gave me, and he laugh. He would not call me King, and I beat him hard with a stick.”
02. Jitney
Booster: Car service. (One of the more beautiful last lines in theatre history.)
01. Fences
Cory: How come you ain’t never liked me?
Troy: Liked you? Who the hell say I got to like you? What law is there say I got to like you? Wanna stand up in my face and ask a damn fool ass question like that. Talking about liking somebody. Come here boy, when I talk to you. Straighten up dammit! I asked you a question… what law is there say I got to like you?
Sean Desai dressed as Mel Tucker for Halloween. And he was the spitting image.
It was just another failure of Matt Nagy’s tenure; the second straight game in which Desai had no answers for his opponent and the third time this season in which his defense has been completely outclassed. Desai’s squad has allowed more than seven yards per play twice already this year, after the Bears did so just once in Chuck Pagano’s 33 games.
There are excuses for Desai, but they don’t really add up. The Bears had injuries, but they still had good players on the field. One could argue that Akiem Hicks, Eddie Goldman, Robert Quinn, Jaylon Johnson and Roquan Smith are all better at their jobs than any of the team’s offensive players.
It isn’t just that they struggled against a 49ers offense that was average at best coming into the afternoon. The Bears were gashed on every single play. The 49ers gained 8.6 yards per play. In the 55-14 blowout loss to Green Bay in 2014, the Packers gained seven yards per play. The only time Tucker’s unit gave up more than eight yards per play was a 54-11 loss to Philadelphia in 2013 — and that was still nearly half a yard less per play. The only reason the 49ers didn’t score 50 points is because the Bears controlled the time of possession with a nearly 15-minute advantage.
The 49ers went into the game as an average offense. They came out as juggernauts..
After some Monday morning conversations with several people – both inside Halas Hall and around the league – I came away, for the first time in 2021, believing there was little chance of either Matt Nagy or Ryan Pace returning to the Chicago Bears in 2022. The program, the entire program, seems to have reached its conclusion. And it begs a simple question: why are we here?
When Nagy and Pace selected Justin Fields, they should have had the built-in cushion of this season. After receiving the vote of confidence from George and Ted at the end of the 2020 campaign, and then being allowed to choose the quarterback of the future, they could have sold the whole of Bears world on Fields’ long-term development being more important than any short-term results. Like it or not, they could have wiped the last several seasons off the ledger and started fresh.
Instead, they mangled the whole thing.
They didn’t have a contending roster on their hands but they naively, confusedly, acted like they did. They refused to give the rookie quarterback even so much as the opportunity to win the starting job this summer for that very reason. Then, when forced into action due to injury, they’ve seen their young quarterback struggle to find rhythm with any of the starting skills guys because of a complete lack of reps with them all summer long.
And because they pretended like they had a contending roster, they needed to contend! And there was simply no way that was going to happen. Nagy and Pace installed pressure on themselves to achieve the unachievable in 2021. Listen, the reason the franchise is not a contender this year is entirely their fault, but that almost doesn’t matter. They were given a second life. First, from ownership. Then, with Fields. They could have totally changed the conversation to a future with Justin Fields and built an entirely new program around him.
But instead, they tried to shoehorn Fields into the old program; a failed program. George McCaskey was looking for every possible reason to keep these men in their jobs, to not go through another exhausting search, but they have almost left him with no choice.
If the Bears make any moves, I’ll be here with commentary.
Update: Not a single important trade was made all day. Again. What a useless day on the NFL calendar. And it doesn’t have to be. Simply give teams an exemption for one in-season trade, with no cap ramifications for that league year. Do that and this becomes one of the more exciting non-game days of the year.
For all the talk of parity in the NFL, the NFC is not complying in 2021. Six of the seven seeds in January’s postseason tournament are all but spoken for, with Arizona, Los Angeles, Green Bay, Dallas, Tampa and New Orleans creating a sizable gap between themselves and the rest of the field. There will now be a scrum, a scramble, a scrape for the seventh seed, and the honor of getting absolutely thrashed on the road come Wildcard Weekend. (Personal note: I’ll be celebrating my 40th birthday in Atlantic City that weekend and gambling heavily against this seventh seed.)
The Bears are not going to be that team. First, they are not very good on either side of the ball.
Defensively, they survived the first stretch of the season with exemplary pass rush from Khalil Mack and Robert Quinn. When that rush evaporated, due to a combination of injury, Covid and Trent Williams, the secondary has been revealed as what it is: Jaylon Johnson, DHC and a collection of practice squad guys.
Offensively, they just don’t have enough talent. Their wide receivers are mediocre. Their offensive line can’t pass protect. Their running backs can’t stay on the field. Sunday was the most inspiring loss in Bears history, with Justin Fields looking every bit the part of star quarterback, but it was also plainly obvious how much help he needs.
Second, this team’s schedule doesn’t get easier. They will be significant underdogs at Pittsburgh, home to Baltimore, home to Arizona and at Green Bay. Their best case record scenario when they arrive at games against Minnesota and Seattle, teams also fighting for the seventh seed, is 5-8, assuming they win in Detroit on Thanksgiving. That record would require this team to RUN THE TABLE to get into the tournament.
So, let it go. It’s over. There will be no playoff football for the 2021 Chicago Bears. And you know what? That doesn’t matter! They’ve got the horse that matters; they’ve got the quarterback. Now they need to try and unload any player not part of the long-term Justin Fields Project. The Bears should have a sign on their lawn in Lake Forest that reads “(Just About) Everything Must Go”.
I don’t pretend to understand the complexities of the NFL salary cap. I do understand that trading big contracts is exceedingly difficult, and thus happens rarely in-season. But the Bears need to unload whatever they can, and they should be willing to take financial hits in 2022 to do so. This team will be better next season because the quarterback will improve and the coach should be different, but they still won’t be contenders yet. They need more draft picks to replenish this secondary and wide receiving corps. And they need them next spring.
Who can they deal?
— Hed Joyer (@JedHoyerEnjoyer) October 31, 2021
Without Matt Nagy,
Bears try to save their season.
On number one’s back.
Deebo cannot catch.
Slye, one for two from distance.
Snoozer tied at three!
Additional points:
Fields rolls to his left,
His eyes see him, “The Outlaw”
Touchdown. Touchdown, Bears.
Additional points:
Bears 13, Niners 9
I always like the Chicago Bears.
But currently there are elements of the franchise I like far more than others.
Offensively, the team is an off-night at the Comedy Cellar: predictable, boring, bad. Every time you think things might improve, maybe THIS comic is the next big thing, you are drowned in a sea of discarded Louis C.K. material.
And it is very hard to like the them defensively without Khalil Mack and possibly without Robert Quinn. The entire defense is built on the availability and dominance of those two players. Without them, and without a pass rush, what are they?
The Bears are 3-4. They’ve been embarrassed in all four of their losses. Another loss sends them to 3-5, and leaves them needing a 6-2 finish to play in the tournament as the likely 7-seed. (And hey, that might earn them a return visit to Tampa!) Their head coach even has me calling for his firing. This is it. This game is the fork in the schedule.
The Niners are 2-4. They’ve lost four straight and their season is drifting away from them. They don’t know what they’re doing at quarterback. They’ve played about 28 running backs. Their head coach – who until this point has received zero criticism from anyone – is now being asked to defend a pretty poor NFL coaching record. A loss Sunday and it’s another wasted season.
There’s always a mathematical argument to keep a team alive but the loser of Sunday’s game at Soldier Field is dead. The Bears will not lose to a bad Niners team at home and then go on the road, in primetime, and beat the Steelers. (Especially without the ability to pressure Roethlisberger.) The Niners won’t be marching Jimmy G. out there much longer as the losses mount. And a move to Trey Lance, while inevitable, will announce the end of their 2021 prospects.
No, both of the teams are desperate to win Sunday. But more honestly, they are desperate not to lose.
It is often hard to explain what one doesn’t like about a particular filmmaker but in the case of Wes Anderson, I have never found that to be the case. His films – at least the films since Rushmore – have always felt like artifice for artifice’s sake; polished, pretty, planned within an inch of their lives, while being devoid of all human life. They are admirable works, sure, in the same way a high-end French restaurant can deliver a plate of beautiful cuisine. But at some point you have to pick up your fork and eat the fucking thing.
The French Dispatch is a distinct, and powerful, departure. Because of the picture’s narrative framing – stories told by the brilliant writers of an expat periodical in the fictional village of Ennui, France – the visual devices that might have previously felt indulgent instead feel essential to the storytelling. Dispatch is, in my ways, the first perfect marriage of story and style for Anderson. And in that regard, it is arguably his best picture: a beautiful story, beautifully told.
And while Tilda Swinton’s toothy lecturer had me cackling in my seat as she announced the crowd she’d be taking her drink, the entire cast, even in truncated form, are delightful. Anderson lets his performers breathe in this film. He frames them beautifully, of course, but he lets them live in that frame. And we should all be thankful for that.
