I call it The Joe Anderson Boner.

“What is The Joe Anderson Boner?” you ask. Well, I shall tell you now. The Joe Anderson Boner is the yearly occurrence in the pants of Bears fans caused by the over-hyping of meaningless performances in the summer leading up to the NFL season. It might be the result of a few Larry Mayer Tweets that resemble something like, “The player who really jumped off the field in Bourbonnais today was Joe Anderson” or a 7 catch, 110 yard receiving performance in the second half of a preseason contest wherein Joe Anderson is being covered by someone of the skill equivalent to Loni Anderson.

This is not idiosyncratic to Bears fans, mind you. Every team has their summer boners. My brother Jon, a diehard New York Jets fan, once made a tee shirt that said “Kellen is the Answer” due to the boner-inducing camp performances of Kellen Clemens.

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Week One

Sunday September 7th – Noon

BILLS AT BEARS

Week Two

Sunday September 14th – SNF

BEARS AT 49ERS

Week Three

Monday September 22nd – MNF

BEARS AT JETS

Week Four

Sunday September 28th – Noon

PACKERS AT BEARS

Week Five

Sunday October 5th – Noon

BEARS AT PANTHERS

Week Six

Sunday October 12th – Noon

BEARS AT FALCONS

Week Seven

Sunday October 19th – Noon

DOLPHINS AT BEARS

Week Eight

Sunday October 26th – Noon

BEARS AT PATRIOTS

Week Nine

BYE

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I like pictures. My mind processes information visually. So I did a drawing of the Bears starting lineup as of today. Figured I’d share it. Why not? It’s my damn blog.

The Around the League Tweets, DaBearsBlog’s claim to very little fame on Twitter, will be a feature on DBB each Wednesday moving forward as a way to tie the week together. You don’t like that? Too bad.

Around the League Tweets: Pre-Free Agency Edition! 1 of 10. The weekly feature returns from now through the NFL Draft! How excited are you?

2 of 10. Anything more transparently agent-driven than @AdamSchefter proposing GB give up two 1s for Jimmy Graham? Trying to create market.

3 of 10. Jim Harbaugh might end up having a little Larry Brown in him. Brilliant sports mind/coach who can’t handle one place for too long.

4 of 10. Say this every year but if every member of NFLPA hates idea of being franchise tagged, why didn’t they collectively bargain em out?

5 of 10. So now NFL will ask their refs to jump into piles of angry, juiced up players & make sure they don’t say bad things to each other?

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Full disclosure: DaBearsBlog is not my only job.

I started my theatre career in New York City as the Assistant Artistic Director of a now-defunct organization called Musical Theatre Works. I was subsequently part of the team that launched the inaugural New York Musical Theatre Festival (“NYMF”) in the city and parlayed that gig into the role of Associate General Manager of the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway. (I was historically awful at the latter.) All the while I wrote. Plays. Musicals. Poetry. Everything. In 2005 I no longer depended on administrative-type roles to support my writing career. (That lasted a few years. Then it didn’t. Then it did again!)

Why do I tell you this? Because when it comes to homosexual exposure, I am uniquely qualified as a straight man. Most people might have a few folks they know who might be gay. Everyone I work with is gay. So let’s destroy a few myths and clarify a few things when it comes to Michael Sam’s prospective locker room reception in the NFL.

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Each weekday afternoon, at 5:00 PM EST, the NFL Network airs something. I hesitate to call this something a television program because, you know, The Twilight Zone was a television program. All in the Family was a television program. CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite was a television program.

NFL Fantasy Live is not just sixty minutes of daily recorded garbage. It is also a symbol of the shield’s greatest hypocrisy: embracing the eh, we’re fine with it gambling of fantasy football while using their legal infantry to thwart the sorry, can’t have it gambling of point spreads, over/unders and the type of wagering that greatly helped build the NFL into the athletic superpower its become.

HOW DOES THE NFL VIEW FANTASY?

I began to write this column a few months ago but stalled due to my nagging believe that nobody wants to read another column thrashing Roger Goodell and the NFL ownership group holding the strings of Uncle Roger, their transparently prevaricating marionette. Then the thirty million dollar a year phony spoke on that bastion of sports journalism known as CNBC. From ProFootballTalk:

While addressing the league’s aversion to all forms of gambling, Goodell was asked about fantasy football.

“Fantasy’s a different issue for us,” Goodell said.  “We see families getting together.  It’s not about wagering.  They’re competing against one another.  And it’s a fun forum for our fans to engage in the game.”

Fantasy football: bringing families together since Roger Goodell said so.

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Nothing ever happens at the NFL trade deadline but that doesn’t mean things SHOULDN’T happen. If the Giants aren’t planning to re-sign Hakeem Nicks, why wouldn’t they get what they can now? Same for the Vikings and Jared Allen. Tony Gonzalez is a good man and all but why does he want to finish his career on a dog team in Atlanta when Kansas City is desperate for a tight end?

So here is today’s debate topic. You’re Phil Emery and you can make one trade, one REALISTIC trade, what deal do you make? I will take the best answer from the comments and put it in the game preview later in the week.

Yes I am spending a third day at the DBB focused on the piece I wrote Monday regarding Brandon Marshall’s green cleats, the NFL fine and the league’s embarrassing mental health record. If you haven’t had an opportunity to read a rare piece of journalism from this part of the internet world, please CLICK HERE and do so.

Why a third day? Because I believe it wrong to succumb to the 24-hour news cycle and let a piece I am proud of and truly believe in be swept into the “yesterday’s news” category. And the responses I’ve received from a wide range of individuals leads to believe the column had a nice impact. So, really, what’s one more day? Could I really make a larger impact with this week’s installment of Audibles From the Long Snapper? (This week’s game preview will be posted first thing Thursday morning.)

Responses have been wonderful and what follows are some of the responses I’ve personally received. Please feel free to send along yours to jeff@dabearsblog.com.

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Yesterday in my column about about the NFL fining Brandon Marshall, I wrote:

What if the word concussion did not exist? What if the NFL was forced to label the injuries sustained in football games as what they are: traumatic brain injuries. Would there be traumatic brain injury-related symptoms? Would they put traumatic brain injury in parentheses like hip or ankle?

Limited: Matthew Stafford (Traumatic Brain Injury)

Last year I did an interview with Cameron Worrell that I hadn’t intended as a discussion on concussions. But that’s where the conversation went. What he revealed was quite frightening and I think it is a perfect addendum to yesterday’s piece.