Don't Overlook The Vikings

With Week 6 of the NFL season quickly approaching, now is about that time when we think we have each team figured out. This couldn't be further from the truth in the NFC North. Ask four different people about who will win this division, and you'll likely get three different answers. Sorry, Detroit.
I think the Bears will make the playoffs. I really do. I've been fighting myself lately, trying not to set myself up for disappointment, but I finally feel comfortable with believing they're playoff bound.
The next three games will be crucial in determining Chicago's playoff chances. Seattle and Washington at home, bye week, and Buffalo on the road. All three winnable games. Three wins and viola! The Bears are 7-1 heading in to the toughest stretch of their schedule.
That means they'll only have to win three, possibly two of the following eight games to make the playoffs. I think they can, I think they can...
The Vikings are the biggest question in the NFC North, and all of football at the moment. For a team with such lofty expectations, they've been nothing short of disappointing. Even more so than Dallas because, let's face it, unless if you live in Dallas, you know the Cowboys have been overrated for the past 15 years.
Let's bring it back to the Vikings, a team in total disarray. Sidney Rice is still injured, Jared Allen isn't sacking the quarterback, and Brett Favre is bringing new meaning to the naked bootleg.
I'm still afraid of this team. I think they've already hit rock bottom. Their next two games, at home against Dallas, and in Green Bay will reveal a lot about Minnesota's make up. The Bears beat both of those teams, if Minnesota wants to contend, they have to beat them as well. Two wins and just like that, the Vikings are back to .500.

It's imperative that Minnesota stops the bleeding. Rice could be back in as soon as three weeks. By that time Moss should be acclimated into the offense. That's going to be the week I crap my pants.
Moss and Rice lining up on opposite sides, Harvin in the slot, and Peterson running the ball. Not even a turnover-prone quarterback like Favre could screw an offense like that up. I think people are underestimating how scary this offense will be in a few weeks.
Until then, the Vikings can't dig their own graves. They're already 1-3 and can't afford to lose a couple more games.
They need their defense to step up. They've been pretty good in pass defense, an area that was expected to be a weakness. The run defense needs to be better. With the D-Line they have, there's no excuse to not be in the Top 5 in rush defense every year. They play the pass happy Cowboys, Packers, and Patriots in their next three games, so they should have an opportunity rectify that.
The Packers are having one of those years where the injury bug hits early and often. Ryan Grant, Nick Barnett, and Jermichael Finley are all out for the year. Aaron Rodgers may have to miss his next start. No one is talking about how they let Kampman walk or Jolly's suspension.
This is a pretty weak Green Bay team right now in a variety of areas. When healthy, they're definitely a playoff team, but the way it's looking, maybe 8-8.
The Bears will be playoff bound. I swear I believe that and am not just repeating it to try and convince myself.
I'm predicting that within the next month, the Vikings will shake up the NFC dramatically.

Favre Always Did Have A Flair For The Dramatic

What is it about Brett Favre and Monday Night Football? For a player that has always seemed to have a flair for the dramatic, Favre certainly seems to crank it up a notch on Monday night.
We can all remember back to December of 2003. Favre was scheduled to play the Raiders on Monday night, only a day after the death of his father. Favre suited up and threw for 399 yards and four touchdowns en route to a 41-7 beatdown of Oakland.
That game became a defining moment of Favre's career. The mistakes that plagued him early in his career seemed to be swept under the rug. Instead, the media propped Favre up to the iconic status he already enjoyed amongst the people of Wisconsin.
A year later his wife Deanna was diagnosed with breast cancer. The Packers had started off the 2004 season slow, with a 1-4 record at the time of Deanna's diagnosis. In typical Brett fashion, he played through the grief. Throwing for over 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns on the year, he led the Packers to a Wild Card berth.
Favre could do no wrong. He'd dealt with some of the worst news imaginable and still managed to play. And not just take the field, but play at a Pro Bowl level.
While Favre's yearly "Should I stay or should I go," retirement contemplations have rubbed most of us the wrong way for the last three years, he's successfully been able to repair his public image.
By no means do people think of him as a Saint, or even like him for that matter, but he's still been a far cry from the womanizing, pill-popping alcoholic of the early 90s. 
Or so we thought. At least for one third of that Axis of Evil, anyway.

You've all heard the story by now regarding the pictures and voicemails that Favre allegedly sent two years ago while playing for the Jets. While the timing is certainly suspect, and the Favre allegations are just that, allegations, this story still needs to see the light of day.
Cheating to me is a lot like holding on the offensive line. It happens often, it's just a matter of getting caught or not. That doesn't make it right, but that's the harsh reality.
So should Favre be punished for pursuing a sexual relationship? If the allegations are true, I'd have to say yes. The woman was employed by the Jets. Therefore, her and Favre were technically coworkers, and sexual harassment amongst coworkers, by law, shouldn't be tolerated at any workplace.
Whether or not anything happens to Favre, tonight's game will be another defining moment of his career. Imagine if Favre plays well and the allegations turn out to be false. There's Brett again, playing through adversity.
Now imagine if Favre plays poorly and the allegations turn out to be true. The little reputation he has left will be shot.
This story is a big deal. Think of all the other things we could be talking about. The return of Randy Moss, who will eventually team up with the injured Sidney Rice to form the most freakishly athletic pair of receivers this league has ever seen on the same team.
Santonio Holmes comes back from his four game suspension and finally gives the Jets the number one receiver they've been missing all year.
Moss and Revis square off again. Hopefully this time for the entire game.
Adrian Peterson tries his luck against Jets vaunted front seven.
Maybe this speaks to the sensationalism we favor in our news. Sex sells and all that. But we can also chalk up this sex scandal trumping every other storyline to the aura of Favre.
Tonight is another significant chapter for Brett Favre the player. Brett Favre the person? I don't think we'll ever know.    

Todd Collins Or Tom Collins?

If you're like me you cringed a little bit when you saw Jay Cutler was going to be held out of Sunday's game for precautionary reasons after suffering a concussion. I spent all of last year bashing Cutler, and while I haven't got my fill just yet, I wish he was starting against the Panthers.
It's one of those situations where I didn't realize what I had until it was gone. Sure, Cutler made some stupid decisions, but he was also competent in some areas. Like throwing the ball beyond 20 yards, and avoiding almost constant pressure.
Back up Todd Collins, this Sunday's starter, appears less than competent in both areas. It's funny reading about Collins. His crowning NFL achievement was leading the 2007 Redskins to three straight victories at the end up the season after stepping in for the injured Jason Campbell.
Jay Cutler equalled the 15 year veteran's greatest professional accomplishment in the first three weeks of this season.
So who is Todd Collins, and how can he help us win this game? Truthfully, I don't know. The only thing I can think of when I hear his name is a Tom Collins. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. Come to think of it, the 2010 Bears are a lot like a Tom Collins.

The Tom Collins alcoholic beverage is made with:
2 oz. gin
1 oz. lemon juice
1 tsp superfine sugar
3 oz. club soda
1 maraschino cherry
1 slice orange
GIN - Todd Collins is clearly the gin of this team. He's a necessary component of the team. Every team needs a quarterback, right? But if you could avoid him you would. Kind of like how you would never drink gin straight. At least I hope you wouldn't.
LEMON JUICE - Julius Peppers. The lemon juice is what makes this drink. It's why fans of the drink range from college students to old women. Peppers is the sole reason why the Bears are 3-1. He's put the entire defense on his back, and carried them well beyond what his stats indicate. If only he could be in two places at once, and take Tommie Harris' spot.
SUGAR - Devin Hester and the entire special team's unit. You could probably drink a Tom Collins without sugar. I haven't tried it, it probably tastes OK. But as long as you have the sugar, why wouldn't you add it? Hester's special teams play gives the Bears the extra kick. He's the difference between a decent team and a good team. Expecting consistent touchdowns from him is unreasonable, but it's not too much to ask to pick a hole, and run straight, full speed ahead.
CLUB SODA - Brian Urlacher. Club soda is the wild card of this drink. It can be replaced with carbonated variations and still garner the same results. It looked like Urlacher was replaceable a few years ago. We could have brought a younger linebacker in to take his place, but it just wouldn't have been the same. Urlacher used to be, and probably still is one of the most popular players in the league. At this point, it's good to see him start the year off right. And for now, he's irreplaceable.
CHERRY AND ORANGE SLICE - Matt Forte and the running game. The cherry and orange slice add more to the presentation of the drink rather than the actual taste. You could order a Tom Collins at a bar and even though it would taste the same, you would feel jipped if they didn't give you the cherry and orange to go with. That's how I feel about the Bears running game. At best, we're only going to average 75 to 80 yards a game on the ground. Our defense, and to a lesser extent, our passing attack are going to win us games. The run game is more about the presentation, to make us look like we're a complete team. So analysts can feel confident picking us, without feeling guilty about picking a team with no running game.
Cheers to Tom, I mean, Todd Collins! If you survive Sunday's game, I'm sure someone, somewhere will buy you a drink.

Roy Halladay Deserves To Be A HOFer

I love stats. Followers of MLB, and MLB itself places more emphasis on the importance of statistics than any other sport. They're the reason why we love fantasy baseball so much. Why we can ignore the three and a half hour games, loooooong 162 game schedule, and lack of a salary cap. Pujols hit a homer? That made the last two and a half hours of six inning baseball bearable.
Statistics are so important that a Hall of Famer can't just be a Hall of Famer anymore. The "He's better than everybody else of his generation" argument doesn't work anymore. His stats have to stack up as well. As unfair as this is, we're all a victim of this way of thinking to some degree. We have to compare players somehow.
Interestingly enough, last weekend I was talking to a friend about Roy Halladay. We both agreed a week ago that he was the best pitcher in baseball. Then the conversation turned.
"Do you think he's a Hall of Famer?" I asked.
"How many wins does he have?" he countered.
"169." (Yes, I happened to know that number off the top of my head. I'm a nerd and I know it).
"Ooh," he said. "That's kinda low."
Low of course in the Hall of Fame sense. And he was right. 169 isn't that many wins for a Hall of Fame pitcher. Only eleven of the 59 pitchers currently in the HOF have less than 200 wins. Two of them were predominately relievers.
300 is the magic number of wins we've been taught, just as 500 was the number of home runs until the steroid allegations. But 300 is not the norm, it's more like a guarantee into the Hall.
The average number of wins for a HOF pitcher is 264. Halladay would have to win 19 games a year for the next five years to reach that number. He's reached 19 wins four times in his career, but is already 33 years old. However, I won't be the one to say he can't pitch effectively into his thirties. Halladay should easily eclipse 200 wins, but after that, who knows?
His career ERA is 3.32. This also seems kind of high by HOF standards. It's obviously a great ERA, but we've been taught that a truly elite ERA is below 3.00.
The Hall would seem to echo these sentiments. The average ERA of HOF pitchers is 3.01. Of course, Halladay is playing in more homer friendly parks and likely faced plenty of steroid users. Regardless, twelve HOF pitchers finished their career with an ERA above 3.32.
I love stats, but throw them out the window. Halladay is the best pitcher of the last decade. While names like Santana, Greinke, Sabathia, Lee, and Lincecum have fallen in and out of favor over the last few years, there's been no one more consistent than Halladay.
I don't care about the number of wins, he's played for mediocre teams in Toronto his entire career. I don't care about the ERA, 3.32 is great.
Here's the stat that I like. Halladay has 58 complete games in 320 career starts. He's went the distance in 18 percent of his starts! That's a guy I want as my number one. A guy who can save the bullpen and still win despite playing with an offensively challenged team.
Halladay's legacy as a player will always come back to Wednesday's Game 1 no hitter. It's hard to believe that was Halladay's first postseason game of his career, and what does he do? Only throws the second no hitter in postseason history in a must win game against a Reds team that finished the season in the Top 5 of every major offensive statistical category.
It's hard to believe what Halladay could have accomplished through out his career if he'd played in the postseason semi-regularly.
It doesn't matter if Halladay wins a World Series, if he reaches 200 wins, or finishes his career with above a 3.50 ERA. He's a Hall of Famer and the best pitcher of this generation.
Sometimes stats don't tell the entire story.

Thoughts On The Bulls First Preseason Game

Kyle Korver is going to be a much more important edition than most of us anticipated. While it was largely believed Korver would stand out by the three point line and become the recipient of Rose's drive and kick outs, Korver will probably play a bigger role than that. Thibodeau had him coming off screens, and with his quick release, he was extremely effective, shooting 7-12 from the floor.
Corey Brewer was out, so he obviously couldn't compete with Korver tonight, but from what I saw Tuesday, Korver's making a strong case for the starting 2 guard spot. The only question is if he can hold up defensively. Hopefully, the preseason will present some opportunities for us to find out.
It looks like within this offense, Taj Gibson will be asked to shoot the midrange jumper. He had a few wide open looks and only made one of them. With Boozer out, the Bulls find themselves in a familiar position, lacking an inside scoring presence. Until then, Gibson will have to hit that shot consistently, because neither him or Noah are feared down low.
Speaking of Noah, he was not only aggressive on the boards (as expected), but on the offensive end as well. Much has been made about Noah's offensive development over the offseason. Reports have said he's been working on a hook shot, although he didn't showcase it in Tuesday's game. Noah's touch around the rim didn't look too good, but that could possibly be attributed to early season rust.
Luol Deng looked as comfortable than ever in Thibodeau's offense. Thibodeau made it a point after he was hired to speak on how he believed Deng wasn't being used properly in Vinny Del Negro's offense. In the past, Deng was more effective when he was able to slash to the basket, rather than settling for jumpers like he was expected to do in Del Negro's system.

Soon-to-be fan favorite Brian Scalabrine will make this team. Brought in because he played within Thibodeau's system in Boston, Scalabrine looked great on the offensive and defensive end. Familiarity within a system is a bigger factor to success than most people realize, and Scalabrine has plenty of that. The biggest thing about Scalabrine is he knows his role. He plays solid defense, and won't try to do too much on the offensive end. He'll take an open shot if it's there. At this point, I'd much rather have him at the end of the bench than James Johnson's out of control play.
He only played 18 minutes, but Brandon Jennings didn't look for his shot as much as he did last season. I'm not sure if it was Scott Skiles' intention, but it looked like Skiles was trying to mold Jennings into a more prototypical point guard, rather than the shoot first guard he was last year.
Milwaukee will have plenty of scoring options this year, and while Jennings was one of the most exciting players in the league last year, it's probably in the Bucks' best interest to make Jennings more of a distributor.
Both teams are extremely deep. No Bogut, Salmons, or Maggette for Milwaukee. No Brewer or Boozer for Chicago. That's five combined starters, and there was still plenty of quality on the floor. This will be a great battle all season, between what looks like the cream of the crop in the Central Division.

Next Stretch Of Games Crucial For Bears

Sunday night's 17-3 sack-fest left most of us Bears fans scrambling for answers. Scrambling like our quarterbacks were all game. My favorite part of this mess was reading all of the possible explanations and opinions about how this record setting night occurred. You don't see nine sacks in a half every day. In fact, we'd never seen nine sacks in a half before Sunday.
A poll asked the simple question, Who is to blame for the Bears lack of protection?
A) Jay Cutler
B) The Offensive Line
C) The Coaching Staff
Personally, I'd like to add:
D) The Athleticism of the Giant's D-Line
E) All of the Above
I'm going with option E. If studying history has taught me anything, it's that an event usually cannot be attributed to a single factor, but rather, a multitude of factors.

So Kurt Warner took a break from dancing lessons to tell Jay Cutler he can't hang on to the ball as long as he did. Mike Ditka also chimed in, telling Cutler to get rid of the ball. Ditka is and has been the end all-be all of Bears analysis ever since he won the Super Bowl. I wish I was old enough to vividly remember when he was coaching the Saints. I bet the press was asking him about Bears related issues then too.
Fans have resorted to the familiar "Fire Lovie," and "Our O-Line Sucks" sentiments.
The sad fact is that all of these factors did contribute to the Bears' dismal night. Cutler held on to the ball way too long. The offensive line couldn't match the quickness and athleticism of the Giants D-Line, just like they couldn't in Dallas. It scares me to think of how they'll do against the Vikings and Jets. And while the coaching staff made adjustments in the second half, they didn't work.
This is a bad position to be in. Usually when something goes wrong with a good team (I'm of course grasping on to the notion that the Bears are still a good team), there's one or two obvious flaws that can be easily corrected in practice. Right now, our main problems are physical, which we can't really correct. And in Cutler's case, mental. I don't even want to speculate about what's going on in his head, especially after a concussion.
Fortunately for the Bears, their upcoming string of opponents have just as many problems, if not more than we do, starting with the Panthers.
Carolina is in complete disarray. They got rid of Jake Delhomme in the offseason, and handed four year veteran Matt Moore the starting quarterback job. After going 0-2 and completing only 40.8 percent of his passes, second round pick Jimmy Clausen was made the starter.
An already weak receiving core will be even weaker come Sunday. Steve Smith is expected to miss the game with an ankle injury, and Dwayne Jarrett was cut today after his second DWI arrest in less than three years.
The Panthers have also had trouble getting their running game going, which was expected to be their greatest strength coming into the season. Both DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart are capable of being the feature back, but have generally been ineffective while splitting time. The two have combined for 355 rushing yards and two touchdowns this season.
The Bears should have another stellar defensive performance, the question, as always, is if they will be able to move the ball and score. While the Panthers defense hasn't been spectacular, they've been better than their 0-4 record might indicate.
The Panthers game marks a stretch of four winnable games on the Bears schedule. Following Carolina, they have the Seahawks and Redskins at home, and after their Week 8 bye, the Bills in Toronto. If the Bears are able to take 3 of these 4, which they probably should, they'll put themselves in solid playoff contention. Their remaining eight games are much more difficult, but they would probably only need to win half of them.
Let's take baby steps. While the Bears protection still won't look good next week, hopefully they can eliminate one of the factors that plagued them in the Giants game. Whether it be a quicker release from Cutler, or dealing with the quicker ends.
Here's to hoping the factor is E) All of the Above.   

It's Taj Gibson's Time To Shine

It seemed like every trade rumor this offseason, from Rudy Fernandez to Carmelo Anthony, included Bulls backup power forward Taj Gibson's name. His inclusion in trade rumors was more of a compliment than anything else.
Perhaps the most surprising impact rookie of the 2009 NBA season, Gibson averaged nine points and 7.5 rebounds a game for the 41 win Bulls.
Gibson replaced Tyrus Thomas in last year's starting lineup periodically for the first two months of the season and became the permanent starter by January. He was praised for his high basketball IQ and ability to rebound and play solid defense.
With Carlos Boozer out for eight weeks after tripping over a bag and breaking the fifth metacarpal bone in his hand (code for punching a hard object), Gibson will regain his starting power forward spot by default.
A freak injury was bound to happen this year, they almost always do, and it couldn't have happened at a better time or position. Boozer will miss the entire preseason and roughly the first ten games of the regular season. The Bulls play six of their first eight games at home, before heading out to the West Coast on a seven game road trip. Assuming his recovery goes smoothly, Boozer will rejoin the team sometime during the West Coast trip.
Thankfully for the Bulls, Gibson started 70 games last year and already has plenty of experience working with Joakim Noah down low. Noah will be expected to carry more of the scoring burden in the paint during Boozer's absence, while Gibson will have to pick up some of the slack on the boards.
Gibson has said he's worked extensively this offseason on his midrange jumper, and even some from behind the three point line. He will probably get a chance to showcase that jumper if teams direct most of their attention towards Noah down low.
The Bulls were unwilling to part with Gibson this offseason for a reason. As a rookie, Gibson played like a veteran last year. His success was largely attributed to his college basketball experience (three years at USC), and maturity (he turned 25 in June).
Boozer has missed 145 games in his eight year career, and his latest injury was not basketball related, so it's a legitimate concern that he could be injured again sometime this year.
If that's the case, the Bulls couldn't ask for a better back up option than Taj Gibson.