Still Gotta Come Through Chicago
Carson Wentz is another problem, not a solution
Good Morning Chicago! New newsletter is here. In 10 minutes, you’ll know more about Chicago sports, be a little pissed off, and ready to take on the day!
We’re going to hit every team and every subject. So grab your coffee, strap in, and let’s go.
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Here we go: Wentz, a comprehensive Bulls update, baseball signings, and a lot more.
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The sun has set on another football season, but if you are reading this you’ve endured the worst day of the year for a football fan, especially for one living in Chicago.
February is objectively the worst month in the calendar in Chicago, and its shittiness is exacerbated by COVID-19.
There is no football. The weather is at its worst, without the holiday charm. Summer is not close. There’s no major days off, unless you get President’s Day off — which isn’t even great because its not a universal day off for everyone else. There’s just middle-of-the-year basketball and hockey and a lot of below-zero temperatures.
To top it off, in 2021, there’s no bar scene. The only thing you can do to ease the roughness of a Chicago February is sit in a bar for six to eight hours on a Saturday and drink. Outside of that, there’s just nothing to do. And not much to look forward to.
It’s the shortest month, and yet it feels the longest.
March is a good Chicago month, because it has St. Patrick’s Day (a few of them, seemingly) and March Madness.
The pain of February can only be eased by in Chicago by spending time huddled up at bars and looking forward to the March fruit that getting through February bears for you. Yet this year, March won’t even be the same.
There won’t be St. Patrick’s Day festivities this year in Chicago, and March Madness won’t hit the same. And no, it’s not just because there won’t be fans in the stands.
This is such bad news that I’ve almost abstained from telling my fellow March Madness die-hards about it. Really, I’ve been afraid to bring it up — letting my friends get by without knowing the disruption that’s coming.
Ignorance is bliss, until now. I have to break it to you. For some ungodly reason, the NCAA has taken the only potential joy we had to look forward to partially away from us.
March Madness will not go ahead like usual, where there is a bundle of first round games on Thursday and Friday, and then more second round games on Saturday and Sunday.
Instead, these idiots have moved the “First Four” — where four teams on the outside looking in compete for a right to compete in the actual tournament — to the first Thursday. Then, the first round starts Friday, and continues Saturday. It’s all pushed back a day because of the moronic placing of the First Four on that Thursday.
Then the second round will take place on Sunday and … Monday! for Christ’s sake. The NCAA has ruined the National Championships already by placing them on Mondays, and now they have ruined the latter half of the second round by scheduling it then.
What a miserable error, and another blow to everything that is holy over the last year.
Here is the bullshit schedule we’re going to have to deal with:
Selection Sunday — March 14
First Four — Thursday, March 18
First round — Friday, March 19, and Saturday, March 20
Second round — Sunday, March 21, and Monday, March 22
Sweet 16 — Saturday, March 27, and Sunday, March 28
Elite Eight — Monday, March 29, and Tuesday, March 30 (What the absolute fuck?)
Final Four — Saturday, April 3
NCAA championship game — Monday, April 5
Sorry to start your Tuesday off this way. Let’s get off the subject, onto something else.
Ah, nothing better to report here.
The Bears — who are regularly, and justifiably maligned for their inability to find a good quarterback — are frontrunners to land one of the worst quarterbacks in all of football in 2020.
But, wait, there’s more! Not only are they considering landing one of the worst quarterbacks in 2020, they are also going to pay significantly to do so. They’ll pay in draft and talent capital, and they’ll also pay him! Carson Wentz has an average annual salary of $33 million, and the Bears are already up tight against the cap, which is expected to be around $180 million next year — which is less of a hike than usual due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Wentz signed a four-year, $128 million contract extension in 2019.
The Bears landing him would be an unmitigated disaster, but would also be so incredibly Bears. That sentence feels redundant.
The Eagles do not want Carson Wentz to be their quarterback anymore, because he is no longer good, and they pay him an absurd amount of money. That means their hands are tied, unless someone is dumb enough to go chasing after him, holding onto what he did in 2017 before he tore his ACL and LCL.
Step right up, Chicago!
If you’re looking for someone dumb to take your bad quarterback, everyone knows, you Still Gotta Come Through Chicago.
The Philadelphia Enquirer reported that Eagles GM Howie Roseman has placed a high asking price on Wentz, “which probably would translate into multiple draft picks.”
On Monday, Peter King tweeted that the Bears are the most likely landing spot for Wentz, with Indianapolis coming in second. The difference there is that Indy has a good front office, and will undoubtedly hang up if the Eagles are asking for anything of worth to take on a troubled QB who makes boatloads of cash.
The Colts and Bears have one thing in common, which is that they each have a coach who worked with Wentz when he was at his peak. Frank Reich, Indy’s head coach, was the offensive coordinator for the Eagles. John DeFilippo is the Bears QB coach, and he formerly held the same role in Philly.
Each probably believes they can rekindle Wentz’s blip of success in 2021, as many fans believe as well. That’s, of course, disregarding the evidence, which is that Wentz is no longer a top-end quarterback and it’s not just because of coaching or situation but also because he had major knee surgery and has dealt with other injuries since.
The Bears could opt out of Wentz after two more years and about $47.4 million, in which I presume we’d be in the exact same spot we are at now: looking back on two years of disappointment and again looking for a new quarterback.
I would call Howie Roseman a moron for asking for the same price as the Lions asked for Stafford, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and if the beholder is a moron (the Bears), then Roseman comes out looking like a genius.
Wentz had a completion rate of 57.4% in 2020, and he threw the most interceptions in the league with 15. He threw one more touchdown than he did interceptions.
His QBR was 49.6, a bottom-five number in the league. This was on a team that was trying to compete, whether they had injuries at the skill positions and within the line or not.
It’s not as if the Bears have refined skill players all over the field and a great offensive line to ease those woes.
Wentz also had a PAA (points added above average) of -8.9. Nick Foles was right above him at 30th overall. The only quarterbacks worse were Sam Darnold and Nick Mullens.
Wentz’s situation is more akin to Cam Newton’s — a totally inept QB handicapped by a broken body and a mind that can’t catch up to its body’s withering abilities.
Newton is also similar to Wentz in that he benefitted from the cry of “he’s only a few years removed from a MVP-caliber year!” If you can find me one quarterback that had as bad of a year as Wentz — after a devastating injury, five years or more into his career — and rebounded to become a top-10 quarterback, I’m all ears. (Carson Palmer only played 10 games in 2011, nice try, though.)
And hey, at least Newton only cost $1 million.
A week ago, the thought of the Bears selling out to get Derek Carr sickened me. Compared to Wentz, hell, give me a Guinness and tell me Carr is Joe Montana. I’ll go along with it.
It’s too bad that Derek Carr seems like he’s unlikely to be moved. At this point, though, anyone besides Wentz seems like a great option. I may get my friend back on the phone who suggested the Bears get Tyrod Taylor and tell him sorry for calling him a dumbfuck. I’d rather have T-Mobile than Wentz and his baggage.
The Bears are already low on cap space and draft capital. They also went 8-8 last year, with far more issues than just the quarterback position. Trading away significant assets for a quarterback that will be expensive and likely not be a savior would be the final blow to this already fleeting era of Bears football.
For what it’s worth, Sports Injury Predictor also has Wentz at a staggering 83% chance of getting injured in 2021. Within the last three years, he’s fractured his back, torn his ACL, torn his PCL, and suffered a concussion.
To make matters worse, it bears repeating, the team he’s on does not want him. They drafted Jalen Hurts in the second round a year after signing him to a massive deal and are actively trying to ship him.
This brings me back to the core issue, which is that the Bears franchise is a mess in general. They brought back a GM and coach who should have been fired and now they are fighting for their jobs and thus fighting to compete in a year they probably shouldn’t be.
That breeds desperation, which is exactly what trading for Carson Wentz at this stage of his career would be.
The Bulls suffered a pretty bad loss on Monday, losing to the Wizards 105-101. The loss, however, was not the troubling part.
The Bulls played poorly, but they were without Otto Porter, Lauri Markkanen, and Wendell Carter Jr.
The end of the Wizards game featured a Zach LaVine drive to the basket that ultimately ended in him missing. But I had no gripe with the shot whatsoever. It was a great look and LaVine missed it.
I am far more happy with that then LaVine’s last-two-minutes circus play where he takes the entire offense hostage and chucks up contested 35-footers. If he misses the right shot, you won’t see me complaining.
Plus, right before then, Billy Donovan called a great time out and got the Bulls a basket to get within one on a great designed play for Coby White, which was a breath of fresh air.
It was a bad loss, but those happen in the NBA.
What I’m more angered and concerned about is the injuries and the games that came before that.
Lauri Markkanen has only played in 116 of those games. The back-to-back first rounders have only played in 69 of those together.
Carter Jr. is out with a contusion, which only results in a 4- to 6-week absence with the Bulls organization, somehow. My father slipped on ice and fell on his ass so bad two weeks ago that I actually thought he may have to have his entire lower body amputated. It has resulted in me seeing way too many pictures of his ass over the last two weeks and the bruise is absolutely disgusting. That’s a contusion.
Now, I don’t mean to compare my 57-year-old father to Wendell Carter Jr., but the man was beating 97% of competitors in Peloton races a week later and power cleaning the week after that.
But I digress.
Lauri, on the other hand, is out for three weeks thanks to a shoulder injury.
Both of these two have had major problems with injuries since they came into the league. At first, it was hard to tell if those problems were a trend or simply the Bulls shutting them down so they could have a better chance at a higher draft pick.
But under a new regime, the same problems have persisted, which is worrisome. For Lauri specifically, it makes his trade value (if the Bulls are thinking of trading him) sink.
It’s especially annoying because Lauri was finally playing up to a level where he was contributing to winning. His shooting percentages around the rim and from three were at their highest marks — by far — for his career.
Without Wendell, the Bulls are inept defensively. They already struggle at that end, and when you have to bring Cristiano Felicio in an NBA game for any reason, you’re likely to struggle even more.
Without these two — and Otto Porter Jr. — the Bulls are more likely to be a bad team. That sucks, because we’ve seen how competitive they can be.
By no means am I waving the white flag on the season wins total OVER — we’ll still get there. For now, though, everyone else is going to have to work a lot harder.
As for the games that the Bulls have lost of late, they’ve been incredibly frustrating. First, the Bulls came all the way back to take the lead on the Trail Blazers. Then Damian Lillard hit a three to cut the lead.
Then — and I’m not a blame the refs guy — the refs absolutely jobbed the Bulls. They called a jump ball on this!:
That forced LaVine to take a jump ball on the Blazers side of the court, which allowed Lillard to hit a game-winning three to beat the Bulls.
That’s two games that have been taken from the Bulls now, between the Warriors in Game 3 and this one. That sucks.
To make matters worse, as the Bulls were mounting their own comeback a week later agains the Magic, this was called a foul — and not a jump ball:
Everyone wants us to lose but us, ladies and gentlemen. But the quest to 30 wins remains.
The two most annoying Bulls talking points over the last two years have been START COBY WHITE and ZACH LAVINE IS AN ALL-STAR!
Now, Zach LaVine did not deserve to be an All-Star last year. This year, he does. He’s kept up his impressive scoring while also becoming a better facilitator. He’s creating for his teammates like he never has. It’s not just that he has his highest assist total of his career, but he is assisting on threes for his teammates at a far higher rate than he did last year.
For longtime readers, you’ll notice that I’m softening my tone on LaVine. His end-of-game antics are still agonizing, which apparently you can’t criticize for some dumb reason according to other Bulls fans, but he’s improved elsewhere. Cheers to him and cheers to Billy Donovan for that.
That said, I don’t care if he makes the All-Star team or not.
On the START COBY note, you’ll remember my skepticism over that rallying call and my commitment to my boy Tomas Satoransky. Coby White is a nice young player who struggles mightily seemingly every other game — which is fine.
But until he can figure some things out, Satoransky should be starting and playing more than he has been.
Per 36 minutes, this year:
Sato: 10 pts, 9 asts, on 49% shooting
White: 16 pts and 6 asts on 40% shooting
White is taking more than double the amount of shots that Sato is, and is a much worse defender. For the role they’re each playing — ostensibly, a facilitator role — Sato is the right answer the majority of the time.
The Bulls will be short-handed again on Wednesday when they play a bigger team in the Pelicans. That is a massive game if the Bulls wish to stay on track for 30 wins and a chance at the playoffs.
Speaking of the Pelicans, the Bulls have been rumored to be in on Lonzo Ball as a potential trade target. For now, it seems unlikely that deal will happen because of the logistics.
The Bulls don’t have many players that would be both 1. available and 2. make sense for the Pelicans. So even though Lonzo would be a great fit with the Bulls (good perimeter defender and passer), the deal would have to make sense for the Pelicans too.
In other trade news, the Knicks — who are coached by SGCTC-certified Tom Thibodeau — traded for Derrick Rose this past week. Rose said that Thibodeau is the only coach that has ever unconditionally loved him, and now they are reunited, for the third time.
The Cubs signed Joc Pederson to a 1 year, $7 million deal last week, and David Kaplan reported after that the Ricketts had allowed a little “flexibility” for Jed Hoyer with the Cubs salary situation.
One: The move for Pederson, who is probably a better option than Schwarber at this point, is a good one.
Two: The idea that the Cubs would allow more flexibility to their GM as free agency comes to a close is the like me saying I’m up for a diet after shoving wings and pizza down my throat on a Sunday night. The damage is done.
Additionally, the Cubs signed Trevor Williams, a starting pitcher who has been a below-average to average pitcher his entire career.
The sad thing about the Cubs is that they are a competent pitching staff away from being the front runners in the division this year. But thanks to a firesale this offseason — for no real reason — they likely will not be in contention.
The Dodgers, who the Cubs claim to be on the same level as, just signed Trevor Bauer to a $100 million deal after winning a World Series. The Cardinals traded for Nolan Arenado.
But the Cubs cried poor, and are now in a strange and undesirable position.
The White Sox brought back Carlos Rodon to shore up the back-end of their rotation. Rodon, who was once a top prospect within the organization, has struggled since his Tommy John surgery. The talent is seemingly still there, but his command and control have been nonexistent.
This was a low-risk, somewhat-high reward move.
For all the defenders of the White Sox moves this offseason (me being one of them, at times), they still have just the 15th highest payroll heading into next season. They have a lower payroll than the Cubs, and also the Rockies — who just traded away their best player and are actively trying to be bad.
You can defend each Sox move in a vacuum, but it’s certainly not wild to suggest the Sox should have done more before a year in which they could win the World Series.
The Hawks have sneakily been playing some good hockey after an awful start. They still have a -3 differential on the year, but are 5-4-4 and have won two in a row.
I’ll wait a little longer before I break out the SGCTC hockey analysis.
Thank you for reading, as always! Thank you for spreading the word, as always! Enjoy your week, hit the comments, and make the best out of the worst month this city has to offer.
I am so glad to hear some rational thoughts. I drove home last night and in again today listening to this banter on the Bears QB. Silvy pointed out that Jamies Winston's stats from 2019 are almost exactly the same as Wentz's except they are double. 33 TD's/30 INT's for 5200 yrds vs. 16/15 for 2600 yrds. Considering that, Jamies became a free agent and signed for the $1M League Minimum. Yet, we are looking at giving them a 1st round draft pick?!?! Trubisky is a better option than Wentz.
Besides, it doesn't matter who the QB is if Nagy is going to call plays again. Which they are saying he will. Our frustration will continue.
I am still all in on the Bulls. They are competitive every game and always in it.
The entire league can sense Pace's desperation and every GM will that's looking to move a couple players will get the Bears involved in talks just to see if they'll pay an absurd price. I have no confidence in the front office to evaluate what a good price to pay for any player is. Also Tarik Cohen tweeting that we shouldn't worry and he's staying put like he's not a 3rd down running back coming off an ACL tear was something else.