Still Gotta Come Through Chicago

It's Football Time In Chicago

Happy Friday Chicago!

I’ve missed the last two weeks, but I always return just in time: right before the Bears Week One game against the Packers, and right after the Ian Happ rage thoughts have expired.

My biggest regret is leaving you all to start a college football season by yourselves. There was no unhinged, semi-sensical introduction leading you into Week 0, nor in Week 1.

Unfortunately, sometimes the newsletter has to take a backseat to other things in my life: Work — I do have a job, and I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted when someone asks if this is what I do for a living; Obligations — weddings, events, yada yada; and, perhaps most importantly, drinking some beers with the fellas.

But goodbye to all of that for now, or at least to some of it.

As I awkwardly maneuver my legs out from underneath the bar table I’m sitting at, I sense tears coming out of just one of my eyes. I look down, and look back up at the fellas. They know it’s time. Thursday’s are once again reserved for the quill.

They cry, too. But they know I’ll see them again, this side or the other. Or tomorrow night.

My quill has grown dusty, but like a Bear in hibernation, it, too, knows it’s time — time to softly press it against my tongue and then begin penning those semi-sensical thoughts back out to the only real thing I’ve ever known: the Still Gotta Come Through Chicago audience.

The long nights of writing have returned, officially.

The West Coast, late-night Saturday college football games are back. That means I no longer have to return from emptying 4.2%ers to watch documentaries I’ve seen 70-75 times before (Man In The Arena; Michigan vs. Ohio State: The Rivalry; Belichick & Saban: The Art Of Coaching). Documentaries that I, somehow, in the wee hours of the morning, convince myself are applicable to my own life, only to end up on the same couch 7 hours later eating a Sausage McGriddle with a thrashing headache.

The Bears are back, meaning the city will be reunited, at least for one day per week, over the next four-plus months. And takes need to be generated, but also kept at bay.

That weather is back.

The first chill of Midwestern air is always fleeting. When it does hit you, though, it makes you feel like you’re on your way to play touch football in the leaves with a Brian Urlacher jersey hanging over your Old Navy hoodie, and not on the way to pick up your dry cleaning.

That weather makes me want to stare stoically into the wind on a street corner, with my hair blowing over my face — but in an aesthetically pleasing way, of course — only to snap out of the trance, smile at kids playing in the distance, and walk away, leaving bystanders to believe I’ve been there before, but I may never be there again.

All the while, an instrumental theme is playing in my head, and those bystanders are completely unaware that they’re not witnessing the ending of a movie in real life, right in front of their eyes, but instead, a deep-rooted internal narcissism within me that could actually be a serious problem.

There are no bystanders at all, actually.

Anywho, that’s how I’d like to feel when I wake up Sunday morning, with a cup of coffee in my hand. Like the weather is a character in the movie I’m starring in, and the Bears have a football game they can win later that day.

That’s the goal, along with at least 20 newsletters landing in your inboxes over the next 18 weeks.

There will be ups, there will be downs, but for the straight-ahead future, there will always be more football ahead.

The Cubs are also in the middle of a playoff hunt, as I type this not too far from Wrigley Field. If I could show this to my younger self — me writing something that people actually read, in an apartment near Wrigley Field during a playoff run — that little guy would be so proud. He wouldn’t know that, honestly, the nearby construction is kind of a nightmare and people are too loud at night when I’m trying to get some sleepy time.

Cubs baseball — and Bears football — in September! I can’t wait to walk to a game with a pack of Cubs fans, the leaves are falling and the chill — just kidding, we’re not doing that again.

It’s time to batten down the hatches. Three days from this moment, Bears fans will be filled with unadulterated ecstasy or misery, calling into radio shows and firing off more texts per hour to group chats than they have in months. But both of those feelings — ecstasy and misery — are a privilege, because both mean we’re here, we’re alive, and it’s football season.

Come October, we’ll bear witness to meaningful Bears, Cubs and Bulls games (don’t forget about the in-season tournament, folks!), and will no longer have to pay attention to whether or not Andrew Vaughn may actually be finding himself in yet another seemingly endless White Sox season.

That’s something to be grateful for. And, for my money, so is being here, in Chicago, at the beginning of another season of the planet’s most glorious game. Here, it’s BIG TEN Football — still — and, more than anything, it’s BEARS football. And it’s back.

And thus, it’s STILL GOTTA COME THROUGH CHICAGO!

Let’s go.

---

(I’m so glad to have the Walter Payton header back at the top of the newsletter.)

The NFL offseason is too long. And I don’t mean for the players. I mean for the fans.

I have multiple friends whose fandom is too bipolar for a February to September offseason.

Justin Fields is our guy — Poles nailed the draft, the Bears are going to be good next year — the Bears could win the division this year — the Bears may be great — the Bears are going to kick the shit out of the Packers Week 1 — all the way back to here, now: Justin Fields sucks, can’t throw, the Bears are going to suck and hopefully we can get Caleb Williams next year.

Just like the lack of smart phones and constant communication may have made for better marriages back in the day, I think quiet off-seasons with a newspaper clip here or there were probably better for fans.

That’s why it’s almost a relief that the season is here. No matter what the result of Week 1 — or the season — we’ll actually have that to examine: a result.

A Green Bay matchup is certainly a hell of a way to jump into it all, but so be it. It can’t be worse than the abomination we witnessed at the start of the 2019 season, when our expectations were Super Bowl or Bust.

It’s good to have tempered expectations. The Bears, lest we forget, were literally the worst team in the NFL last year. I don’t think the optimism is unwarranted, but we should slap the cautious label atop those warm feelings.

It’s also not just us. The Bears, according to DraftKings, are +155 to make the playoffs. That’s an implied probability of about 40%.

Given the last two seasons, that feels pretty good right now — so long as the offseason hasn’t melted your brain.

Some other odds, just for context: The Bears over/under win total is 7.5. They are +380 to win the division, +3000 to win the NFC, and +5000 to win the Super Bowl.

It’s a good year for this administration to begin trying to compete. The quarterback is on a rookie deal, the team is playing a last-place schedule, and the division is — from a forecasting perspective — expected to be weaker than it has been in a long time.

There is no division with tighter odds than the NFC North. The Lions are the best bet, but each team is a bit of a wild card.

The 2001 Chicago Bears went 13-3 after going 5-11 in 2000. The 2018 Bears went 12-4 after a 5-11 2017 campaign. While I don’t expect that kind of turnaround from this year’s team, I do expect 17 weeks of meaningful games. Fighting for 9 wins should do that.

The Bears have an entirely different roster than they did a year ago. Now, new doesn’t necessarily mean better, but it’s hard to compare depth charts from this year and last year and not expect significant improvements that should lead to a significant jump in wins.

On the offensive line: Nate Davis, despite a strange training camp, had 54 starts prior to arriving in Chicago. Darnell Wright, who was the 10th overall pick in the draft.

Skill positions: D.J. Moore, namely, as well as Chase Claypool — who had over 1,700 yards receiving before his shaky last year. Claypool will have a good year, bank on it. Either way, he’s so much better than what our third wide receiver options have been. In the back field, the Bears added D'Onta Foreman, whose yards/attempt have gone up every year in the league, as well as Roschon Johnson out of Texas, who very well may be the Bears starting running back in two years.

Instead of talking yourself into Dante Pettis or having to watch Trestan Ebner run into the backs of the offensive line, at the very least, you’ll have proven NFL players supporting Justin Fields.

Justin Fields remains at quarterback. Honestly, I think next year will be the year Fields takes a monumental leap, but this is certainly the first year where truly judging him on his play will be fair game. He’s been handed a mess each of the last two seasons.

Defensive Front: Added Demarcus Walker, who would have led the Bears by far with his seven sacks in Tennessee last year. Yannick Ngakoue, who has been one of the most successful and consistent pass rushers in the league since he entered it in 2016.

Even having a tad more pressure on the opposing quarterback is going to make Jaylon Johnson look that much better at his job.

Stand-up Linebackers: The Bears spent over $90 million on Tremaine Edmunds and T.J. Edwards, two defensive leaders that played for top teams last year in the Bills and Eagles, respectively.

There’s other additions, too. It will be fun to watch the rookies and the second-year players find their footing on a more competitive team.

Don’t overlook the fact that, for once, the Bears will have a capable back-up quarterback that may actually be worth something, and not just Matt Nagy’s friend. I thought it was going to P.J. Walker (and so did the Bears), but Tyson Bagent — a Division 2 rookie — beat him out. If Justin Fields hurts his ankle, we won’t be relying upon a 40-year-old, slightly overweight quarterback who hasn’t seen a snap since college.

The Packers ended the regular season well, and their defense was a big part of that. They are also wearing green and yellow jerseys, which automatically makes us all queasy.

But, who is Jordan Love going to rely on besides Aaron Jones? The Packers top two receivers may not even play on Sunday, and if they do, could be hindered. Donald Driver ain’t walking through that door.

Betting wise, the line opened up with the Bears as 2.5-point favorites. That’s gone down to 1. The Bears haven’t been fully healthy for the entire preseason, but they’re close to it now.

I think there will be plenty of hiccups. But I don’t think that will be just on one side.

The Bears win Sunday. Should that be a cause for overreaction? No. Should we overreact? Why the hell not?

---

The Cubs have officially reached the point where I refuse to be frustrated with them after a loss like last night’s. It’s baseball. The dud had to come at some point, and even then, it still felt like some magic may be coming.

It’s only been two weeks of no newsletters. But, within that time frame, Ian Happ went from being a Rookie Ball player, to hitting over .400 for a batch of games, to back where no one is talking about him an inordinate amount. And that, too, is baseball.

It’s much easier to react on a game-by-game basis to the Bears than the Cubs, but we do both anyway. I’d argue the latter is even more unhealthy than the former.

But you can’t have a pessimistic view when it comes to this Cubs team. They were 10 games below .500 and surefire deadline sellers at one point. They’re now over 10 games above .500 and we’re scrambling to find who could be Game 2 or Game 3 starters in a playoff series. That’s also a privilege.

The Cubs not only swept the Giants in an all-important series this week — for the division and the Wild Card race — but they also won last Sunday, just about the only thing this team hadn’t been able to change compared to past years’ teams.

To think that Marcus Stroman was once the only bright spot on this team, and now they’ve won the most post-All Star break games in the league largely without him, is nothing short of incredible.

He actually threw a bullpen today, and the Cubs are hoping he feels well tomorrow. That will be huge, because although Javier Assad has filled in honorably, the Cubs need someone other than Kyle Hendricks to be behind Justin Steele in the rotation.

Jordan Wicks — who the Cubs called up a couple of weeks ago — has been lights out. What’s maybe most impressive is that the first batter he faced in the big leagues homered off him. He shoved anyway the rest of that game, and has a 2.16 ERA and is 3-0 over his first three big league starts.

I wouldn’t rely on him to be that second guy just yet, though. Despite their August, the Cubs still need Stroman.

Kyle Hendricks has put in a fine season given expectations, but I’m concerned virtually every start that he may just give up 6 runs in five innings.

Steele may very well be rewarded with a Cy Young for his year. It bears out, too. I don’t see an NL pitcher more deserving than him, even if it doesn’t feel like he’s been the Cy Young winner this year. I think that might just be because he plays for the Cubs, and the season has taken such unexpected turns that we forgot to check back in on his body of work until recently. Or at least that’s the case with me.

I’ve been worried that Steele may burn out. He hasn’t yet, but it feels like David Ross has kept him in one inning too long on multiple occasions over the last couple of months. No doubt, he’s wanted to stay in, but for the first time in years, we need to think longer-term about these decisions. He’s already thrown 23 more innings than he did last year.

16-3. 2.55 ERA. 4.64 Strike Out to Walk ratio.

And he loves being a Cub.

Of the top 30 position players in WAR this year, only two were free agents this past summer, and the Cubs added both of them: Cody Bellinger and Dansby Swanson. Shoutout to @EVR551 for pointing this out on Twitter.

Seiya Suzuki had a .713 OPS on the last day of July. He was a star in August, and the star of the Giants series. He now boasts an .811 OPS and has eclipsed his numbers from last year.

The Cubs have the third best run differential in the national league — +97 — but are still two games behind the Brewers for the division. The only part of the Cubs recent stretch that hasn’t been great is that the Brewers win every single fucking game, too. But they are firmly in a Wild Card spot, 3 games ahead there and just 2 games behind the Phillies for the top spot. Right now, the Cubs and Phillies would be facing off in a playoff series.

There’s still work to be done.

The division could come down to the last series of the year, which is against the Brewers at the end of September. (Between now and then, the Cubs get the Rockies six times and the Pirates three times, at least).

I’m nervous about the next month, and both terrified and excited for what lies waiting for us after that.

---

I had a whole plan of attack for the White Sox section — about the faux move to Nashville, about Pedro Grifol, about Rick Hahn, Kenny Williams, and, of course, Chris Getz.

In the end, it feels out of place in this newsletter. I don’t have the energy to attack that sort of section with enthusiasm right now, and so I won’t. But I’m not leaving you behind, Sox fans. In due time.

P.S. You probably all agree with me.

---

Let’s get the comment section popping again for football season. Leave one, tell a friend about the newsletter, and then come back next week. Thanks for doing so — I appreciate you all.