How do I love thee?

Oh you, you Chicago Bears!

Without condition.

The final Sunday,

and Mahomes played his worst game.

Don’t write off these Chiefs.

Strong in the trenches,

with stars along the outside.

Philly, built to win.

Virginia signs off,

the last link to George Halas.

and another time.

9-3 this postseason against the spread, my finest performance in years. But can I close strong?

Kansas City Chiefs (-1.5) over Philadelphia Eagles

• There is an inevitability to these Chiefs and no, I don’t think it’s the result of some NFL/referee gerrymandering of the competition. When I look at the head coaches and quarterbacks on Sunday, this is not much of a contest.
• I don’t love these scenarios where one of the Super Bowl assistants is clearly preparing to take a new job come Monday and Kellen Moore is going to be named the New Orleans coach like fifteen minutes after the Super Bowl ends. Is he currently working on his staff? (He has to be!) Kansas City’s coaching staff rarely gets poached; that group will have a singular focus over these two weeks.
• As mentioned yesterday, I think Spags will limit Saquon Barkley, and I don’t see a path to victory for Philadelphia that does not involve a big output from their best player.
• Philly needs to hit Mahomes. Not hurry him, hit him. If Mahomes isn’t on the ground often, the Eagles don’t win.
• Vic Fangio will sit his safeties deep and prevent the big play, but Mahomes has become an expert at dissecting defenses underneath and the Chiefs have built a collection of skill guys expert at doing just that.

Chiefs 24, Eagles 20

This piece first ran in 2022.

Virginia McCaskey is 99 years old. Let’s put that number in perspective.

– When Virginia was born, sound was still four years away from being introduced to motion pictures.

– Virginia was born two months before the first ever publication of Time Magazine, in March 1923.

– Across the country, other icons were born that year. The Hollywood Sign (reading “Hollywoodland”) was erected in LA. Yankee Stadium and the boardwalk at Coney Island opened in NYC. The Walt Disney Company was founded.

Virginia is not in good health. In the last few days, word has trickled to DBB that her condition has become more serious. At her age, the word “good” is relative. (I just turned 40 and now my neck always hurts. If I live another 59 years, which is highly unlikely, will I even have a neck?) She’s on the precipice of living a century so one could argue that being alive, in any state, is playing with house money. But this seemed the appropriate moment to thank her for what she’s meant to the Chicago Bears franchise.

And where does one start?

Virginia is football’s link between then and now, heir to a founding fortune and keeper of one of this country’s most sacred sporting entities. Even while the family she married into has often caused consternation amongst the fan base, she has maintained her position, often symbolic, with dignity and passion. Virginia understands what the Chicago Bears mean to Chicago, what the Bears mean to their fans around the world, and always encouraged those leading the franchise to do whatever necessary to bring home another Super Bowl trophy. While they have failed, she has not.

It has become commonplace to see female owners in the NFL, in Detroit and Tennessee and Seattle. Virginia has been an NFL owner for 40 years. Not the wife of an owner. The owner. How many other women were running major American businesses in the early 1980s? And how many have not only maintained that role but earned the respect of the alpha male tycoon yahoos that surround her? “She’s remarkable woman,” Jim Irsay told The Score. Remarkable barely does her justice.

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