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Audibles From the Long Snapper: Enthusiasm, Pass Rush & Much More on the Gambling Front!

| May 21st, 2018

Some General Bears Thoughts

  • The first year of Trestman came with a lot of enthusiasm around the offense but nobody foresaw the defense plummeting to the bottom of the league. (There was also a segment of the fan base that refused to be excited about anything involving Jay Cutler.) This year there is just as much enthusiasm around the offense with an expected top-ten unit on the other side of the ball. There is real excitement around this club right now. They better win games.
  • When DBB started there were like two other Bears bloggers. Now there are about 100. And I honestly don’t follow or read what 99% of them do. But I’d love to see the out-and-out lying stop. Stop pretending you have sources. Stop pretending you’re “told” things. Stop linking the team every seemingly-available player in the league so you can get ten more clicks. It took ten years of me grinding before anybody associated with the Bears (or the league) would even answer an email. Sadly, the lying shit reflects poorly on this site because we got the fucking word “blog” in our title.
  • Nobody should underestimate how little this team has in the pass rush department. It will keep them from being a dominant defense. Leonard Floyd is their only reliable rusher on the roster and he’s (a) inconsistent and (b) averaging 11 games played over his first two seasons. What happens to this defense if Floyd misses five games in 2018?

Finley: Defense Believes in Offense

From his piece this week in the Sun-Times, profiling Prince Amukamara’s decision to return to the Bears:

“I want to win a championship, and having Mitch here, that’s always the start,” he said after the Bears’ second organized-team-activity practice Wednesday. “The quarterback’s always the start, and just having Mitch and seeing his improvement and his effort . . . I’m sure some people saw, but even when Mitch was the backup, Mitch was staying after practice and always working hard. And you love seeing that in a quarterback, especially a backup.

‘‘I’ve always just saw greatness in him ever since then. I think this year he gets to really show it.”

Amukamara isn’t alone. Receivers Allen Robinson and Taylor Gabriel, who signed this offseason, hope Trubisky can get them a “third contract, or help them get their first ring,” Amukamara said.

“I think if guys came here to win, then, yeah, the quarterback should definitely be the first thing that you look at,” he said.

NFL players want to do two things: make a lot of money and win. And the hierarchy of those two things is a player-by-player thing. For wide receivers choosing where to land in free agency, the quarterback can enable both. That’s why Robinson and Gabriel chose Chicago.

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Audibles From the Long Snapper: Ireland, Aaron, Underdogs, Jim McMahon on DP Show & More!

| August 25th, 2015

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DBB Administrative Announcement

I am heading to Ireland for the next two weeks. But through the magic of the internet I will be posting right up until Saturday. Andrew Dannehy will be writing previews for each of the other teams in the NFC North next week and Reverend Dave may even be weighing in from time to time.

I will return on Monday September 7th with my annual Fifty Prognostications, Pontifications & Ponderings on the 2015 NFL Season and then we’ll dive into the 2015 season.

Aaron Rodgers & I Share Common Ground

Presented without comment, from PFT:

“It’s difficult to lose a guy like that in a meaningless game,” Rodgers said, via ESPN.com. “I think a lot of players around the league probably do [dislike preseason games]. At least cut it down, maybe, to a couple.”

Okay, one comment. He’s right. Players don’t want these games. Fans don’t want to pay for these games. But none of this will change until the players go into a labor negotiation with ownership and actually negotiate. You know, ask for stuff and then fight for that stuff.

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Audibles From the Long Snapper: Defensive Line Evaluation, Eben Britton & Paddy Title Odds

| March 27th, 2014

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IS 2014 DL BETTER THAN 2013 ON PAPER?

Moon Mullin opens his CSN column, which dropped late Wednesday night, with a statement:

And now for a cold splash of perspective, one which I strongly suspect Bears general manager Phil Emery understands from painful experience:

Jared Allen or no Jared Allen, the Bears’ projected defensive line going into 2014 is arguably not as good as the one positioned to take the opening opponent’s snap in 2013.

I quite literally can’t disagree with this statement more. Here’s why:

  • Everyone needs to stop with the Corey Wootton/Stephen Paea stuff. Without seeing these two players as overwhelming positives there was no way for Moon to make the statement his column makes and neither Wootton nor Paea is an overwhelming anything. They were and are below average defensive linemen who’ve been overly celebrated due to a dearth of talent along the line.
  • The Bears now have three defensive ends (Houston, Young, Idonije) better than their second best defensive end a year ago.
  • 2014 Jared Allen is an upgrade over 2013 Julius Peppers.

What do the Bears still lack? An interior pass rusher. That is why I stand by my belief that Phil Emery should swallow his mysterious medicine and draft the best defensive player in college football last year, Aaron Donald.

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Attacking Legalization of Sports Gambling While Endorsing Fantasy is NFL’s Greatest Hypocrisy

| February 3rd, 2014

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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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